Traditionally Modern Food

Vidya Srinivasan has always loved cooking. “I used to spend so much time looking online for new recipes and trying out recipes in my family’s handwritten cookbook,” she recalls. “One day, I thought, why not put all those handwritten recipes on the internet to share with friends and family?” So, Vidya got to work setting up a website, Traditionally Modern Food, and posting recipes.

Within a few years, Vidya started to notice her site getting traction. “A few of my blogger friends told me I could start making money by putting ads on the site,” she explains. “Though I had always thought of it as a hobby, when I realized I could make some money I thought again, why not?” Vidya partnered with Mediavine, a Google Certified Publishing Partner, to help her manage her ads business. “I had doubts initially about how much money I could make, but soon enough I was motivated enough to leave my job and pursue the website full time,” Vidya recalls. “I’m so glad I persevered with blogging - no regrets now!”

With more money coming in from ad revenue, Vidya has been able to grow and expand the site. “Blogging can be resource-intensive,” she explains. “We have to pay for storage, domain, themes, plugins, and more. Ad revenue helps offset those costs while motivating bloggers like me to pursue this as a full time job and create the information the world searches for and loves.”

Vidya’s focus on her traditional South Indian cuisine has helped her preserve and modernize her family’s favorite recipes. “Indian cuisine is a beautiful concoction of delightful flavors. It also goes back 100s of years. Some recipes I post were passed on from generation to generation in the family,” she highlights. “I want to preserve those recipes for the future but I also adapt them for new generations. My son, for example, loves one of my mom’s classic recipes but prefers it in a different consistency - it’s all about experimentation.”

Cooking for her children is something Vidya deeply enjoys and integrates easily into her career. “I love how my job is integrated seamlessly into my lifestyle. I don't have to think about my job as being separate from my day-to-day life. I get to express myself through my cooking and show it to the world.” And it’s her family that keeps her motivated to keep creating for the future. “I have a three year old daughter and when she’s a teenager, I want her to be able to tell her friends about her mom’s blog as a place with great recipes. I want to build for her lifestyle and her eating so she can come back to my blog one day, just like I go back to my mom’s recipes.”