Samantha from Samanthawxlow

Beyond the Food with Samanthawxlow

Welcome to another installment in everyone’s favourite Sydney food blogger interview series not conducted by VegeTaraian!

I compiled a wishlist of people I’d like to interview (you can see it on Facebook) but I also reached out to a few people that weren’t on my list because I love surprising folks. So here’s my first surprise: today I’m joined by Samantha from Samanthawxlow.

A jack of all trades, she writes about fashion, literature and most importantly: food.

Let’s see if she offers some food for thought (spoiler alert: she does).

Samantha from Samanthawxlow
Samantha from Samanthawxlow

Samantha: Alright, I’m ready. How are we doing this?

iFat: It’s going to be a completely unnatural natural conversation. What made you decide to enter the food blogging foray?

Samantha: I love writing, always have and I think I always will. I’ve been blogging since I was 14, on a number of different blogging platforms (none of the URLs/titles I will disclose because they were awful) but laziness meant that it never really stuck with me for long. And I mean, everyone likes food. Food is easy to write about in my opinion, or maybe I’m a bad writer lol

iFat: I actually overheard some of my colleagues say this. I think the easiest part is that it’s hard to be ‘wrong’ since taste is so subjective. I mean…you’ll be fine as long as you don’t call red velvet a flavour like some idiot who did that during his Choc Pot review. Sh*t, that was me.

Samantha: Hahaha yeah, and I find that especially in the food blogging circle, you do get respect for not agreeing with the mass opinion. No one is going to judge you for not loving a restaurant that everyone else has. I might be writing a less than good review about Cho Cho San soon.

iFat: Whatever will be I guess….speaking of; your site’s title is “will be”, were you inspired by Tammin Sursok’s hit single from the mid 2000s?

Samantha: HAHAHA I actually just googled that. No. I think I was half trying to be philosophical, half telling myself that I ‘will be’ good this time ie continuous updates. and that this ‘will be’ the last time i blog if it doesn’t stick. Why are you iFat?

iFat: I’m actually just big boned.

Samantha from Samanthawxlow
I’d be even bigger boned if Sam cooked me breakfast. Can we get a kickstarter going or something?

Samantha: I don’t know if you read Harry Potter but that strongly reminded me of the scene where Hagrid is hitting on the other half giant lady.

iFat: …..you just called me gigantic, French and made up.

Samantha: No I said you remind me of someone who is gigantic, French and made up. Not that that’s much better. You directed me to a Tammin Sursok song, I think we’re even. 

iFat: Speaking of magic (because that’s what I believe Tammin to be), could you break down your writing process for me?

Samantha: I think it depends on what I’m writing about. For the food blog posts I think I begin by drafting the important parts first, so giving descriptions to the food I ordered and also my opinion on it. But I always try to top and bottom a food post with some kind of anecdote so it’s a bit more personal. Which I guess is similar to how you write, except you do the joke bits really well and I er, don’t. I’m actually painfully self-conscious right now of how unfunny I am

iFat: I’m barely conscious right now since it’s past my bedtime so don’t sweat it.

Samantha: I’m so sorry to keep you up!

iFat: It’s not the first time I’ve been kept up by a girl…..ok, it is.

Samantha: For something that’s a bit heavier like book blogging, I think I tend to just write and write and delete and write until I’m happy with it. I should probably emphasise some kind of writing structure ala HSC English but I don’t… I wrote this piece for uni about how social media perpetuates bad eating habits and self-esteem. I didn’t sleep for an entire night because I was so irritated that I couldn’t word it properly. Which I thought was really important to get across because it’s a serious issue.

iFat: Sort of along those lines; what do you think is the biggest misconception when it comes to food bloggers?

Samantha: Omg where do I begin. That we’re somehow sick because we enjoy taking photos of food. I mean hello? Food photography has been around forever? Who do you think takes the photos of the food in your menus? I think if people can appreciate the beauty of plating and presentation, they should be able to appreciate the fact that we like to capture that moment. And if they can’t appreciate that beauty then they should probably sit down because their opinion is irrelevant. There’s also how we all do it for freebies or that we enjoy writing scathing reviews and relish in restaurants closing down. I mean, there are good and bad people everywhere, I’m sure some food bloggers are like that, but a lot of us aren’t. The time I spend eating food that I pay for + photography + writing is worth way way more than the freebie that I actually never get.

She's pretty good at caputuring the moment
She’s pretty good at capturinng the moment

iFat: Ok, ready for the lightning round:

SamanthaOh shit, what’s the lightning round?

iFat: Top three Disney movies?

Samantha: Mulan, Mulan, Robin Hood

iFat: Favourite Pokemon?

Samantha: Pikachu

iFat: Favourite iFat post?

Samantha: (there’s a slight pause as Sam googles what iFat is) The one about Sokyo.

iFat: How do you bounce back from a Low moment? Heh.

Samantha:  I remind myself that when Lai-fe gives you lemons, make lemonade.

iFat: That was lime.

You can follow Samantha on her blog as well as on FacebookTwitter and Instagram.

Stay tuned for more installments in Beyond the Food as well as a review of a place I’ve been wanting to write about for months.

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