Actually I created ‘Delicacies from my kitchen’ as a mere distraction. I was dealing with the loss of my baby and the pain was excruciating. I knew I had to channelize my anger and transform it into positive energy.
My mother-in-law asked me to interact with my friends regularly. She said it will take my mind off the void and pain. But we had a lockdown soon after that. So we were all cooped up at home 24*7. I had a lot of time to spare and was getting very frustrated.
That is when my mother-in-law and mom encouraged me to start my You Tube channel. They have superb culinary skills. I too am very interested in cooking. So a little prodding was enough to create ‘Delicacies from my kitchen.’ At that time, I was willing to do anything to ease my pain.
For the next few weeks, I buried myself in making videos. And the more I worked on it, the more interested and passionate I became about the whole concept. Initially when I started creating the videos either my husband or father-in-law would hold my phone and do the video recording while I worked through the recipe. Now I use a tripod.
No. I use the camera on my phone only to record my videos. My phone has extremely good features and the camera is really good. No again. I don’t use a computer or a laptop to edit it. I use video editing apps that I download on my phone itself. Of course, it is easier and less time consuming to do all this on a laptop or a PC. But we can do all this very well on our phones too.
You just have to open an account on YouTube. It’s as simple as creating a Gmail account. No. I didn’t pay anything to create my channel on YouTube. It is all free. Yes, we have so many apps these days. We don’t really need a PC to create a channel on YouTube. Even a phone is enough.
Yes, we can definitely monetize our channel on YouTube. We need at least a 1000 subscribers for that first. The amount of money we make on YouTube depends entirely on the kind of viewership we have and the nature of ads YouTube inserts in our channel. The advertisers pay us according to our viewer engagement and number of clicks that we get for each video. Yes, YouTube is a popular platform and easily accessible to all. If we are not camera shy or if we are good with a video camera, YouTube may prove to be the right platform for us and we can make quite a bit of money doing the things we love the most.
It takes several years of consistent work to reach that stage though. But there are so many other ways of earning money there too. People who sell utensils, masalas, flours and other household items can directly contact us and ask us to create recipes using their products. I also know two people who conduct cooking classes regularly.
It’s all very interesting. During the lockdown, I joined an online bread making course. It was a zoom session and I counted 97 participants. Yes, 97 people. This lady hosts cooking classes in Chennai too. Her classes are very popular. But it took her years to get there. At such times, I wish I had started on this earlier.
Today, I spend all my free time on my phone. It took me some time to learn the small nuances of creating a perfect video. Like for instance, I realized that the videos turned out to be clear when I created them in the evenings when there was not much direct sunlight in our kitchen. Also, the maids were out of our home by that time so there was no distraction or noise.
But I was quite clear about how I wanted my videos to be. I wanted crisp notes at the bottom. And I wanted to show all my ingredients. And did not want to create very long videos with complicated recipes because I know no one has the time to cook elaborate meals nowadays. So I try to create videos with recipes which are easy, delicious and quick and can be enjoyed by the entire family.
My friends and my brother’s friends got in touch with me during the lockdown. No one had maids at that time. So they asked me to post simple recipes. That is why I created my Aloo Paratha video.
I must mention this here though. I would never have been able to manage any of this without the total support of my family and friends. My mother and mother-in-law add a lot of variety to ‘Delicacies from my kitchen’ with their special dishes. My mom too was going through a rough patch in her life at that time. She was very close to my grandmother who passed away last year. And then I lost my baby. Somehow everything seemed to be falling apart in all our lives at that time.
But I must say that my brother has been our biggest support. He encouraged my mom and asked her to contribute to my channel. My mom loves cooking a lot anyway. Like me, ‘Delicacies from my kitchen’ has helped her overcome her challenges and move on in life.
Actually, she is more involved in the channel than I am. During the lockdown, she made as many videos as possible because my brother was at home all day to help her around with the video making. Now that everyone is back to work, she makes 2 videos every Sunday but she does a lot of research before making each video. Often she modifies the recipes and makes them for the family first. If it is a hit she makes a video too. Ah. Yes. All her recipes are always a hit anyway. But you know what I love the most about her – the fact that she is more than happy to try even the trending recipes. I must thank her for her constant support and love.
But you know what? We realized that my brother was very good at photography and was excellent at plating the dishes too. There have been times when I have asked him to re-record a few things too. But he has never refused. I must say I am one of the luckiest sisters in the world. I’m proud to have a brother like him by my side always.
My friend Deepika Reddy edits all the write-ups for our videos. She is very good at writing and editing. She corrects my mistakes, shortens sentences and makes the write-ups very crisp and precise. You know, she has two kids who are just about a year old. She’s a busy mom yet she finds the time to do all this for me. I am extremely grateful for the combined efforts of all these people because the quality goes up by several notches when we have diversity in our channel.
No. I had absolutely no idea about it at all. I learnt to edit videos and upload them from scratch. It was pretty challenging but I did learn a lot too. I now post my links in cookery groups on FaceBook. I make reels – very short clippings of my videos and post them on Instagram. So that way I get a few subscribers and quite a few views too.
On an average, I get about 200 views for my videos. For some recipes, I have as many as 2000 views. I do get quite a few comments too. That motivates me to continue doing what I am doing. Right now I am concentrating on editing my videos and promoting my channel. But everyone else works hard to create each video.
Yes, all of us get a lot of satisfaction from ‘Delicacies from my kitchen.’ Our YouTube channel has proved to be the turning point of our lives. When we started working on it we had an abundance of time on our hands. Now we are so busy working on it that none of us has time for anything else.
*Let’s view, like and subscribe to Kinjal’s YouTube channel titled ‘Delicacies from my kitchen’ and encourage her.