We were lucky to catch up with Alexandria Drzazgowski recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Alexandria thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Crazy stuff happening is almost as certain as death and taxes – it’s technically “unexpected” but something unexpected happening is to be expected and so can you share a crazy story with our readers

I started my food blog in August of 2018, knowing absolutely NOTHING. I knew that I loved food and the history behind it, and I knew that I wanted to share my love of food and food history with others. But when it came to blogging, I was clueless. I had no idea how to take a good food photo, how to write a recipe that others could follow, and don’t even get me started on SEO! But despite all of that, I was passionate about my idea, I knew I wanted to pursue it, and I knew that if I spent the time to learn, my blog would take off.

So I did! I purchase a DSLR camera and attended weekly photography classes to learn how to use it. I posted on Instagram daily, spending hours trying to get the word out about this project for which I had so much passion. I spent 40 hours a week building my blog AFTER I came home from working 40-50 hours a week in sales. I worked my little booty off that first year, chasing this big dream of mine.

An entire year went by, and soon enough, it was September of 2019. And after all of that work, all of that heart and hustle…. *Crickets*.

Nobody was reading, nobody was paying attention, nobody cared about what I was posting.

One night in September of 2019, I was packing up to go to my very first food blogging conference and found myself feeling really down. I was traveling across the country for this conference to be with professional food bloggers making 6 or 7 figures from their blogs, and I was just a NOBODY blogger (at least this was what I was telling myself).

I sat in my kitchen crying to my dad about how I was working so hard and it just felt like no one cared…. I was on my last hope, wondering if I should quit food blogging altogether. He gave me a hug and a pep talk and, eventually drove me to the airport with the advice to keep my head held high. I went to the conference; I met friends in the industry; I learned a lot; and I loved every second of it.

A few days later, I returned from the conference and opened up my phone to a message from a new friend I had made there… She had seen the news before I had: I was nominated for the Saveur Magazine Blog Award for Most Groundbreaking Voice of 2019!!! If you don’t know, winning a Saveur Blog Award is like winning the Oscars of blogging… it’s a really big deal, and I had been nominated!

A few weeks later, I ended up winning Reader’s Choice in my category at the Saveur Awards. My small but mighty community had rallied around me and voted for me incessantly, and I ended up winning the award! Four months after that, my blog really started to gain traction. And about a year after THAT, I quit my corporate job to take my food blog business full time.

Sometimes, right when you are feeling the MOST down and at your absolute lowest as an entrepreneur, just wait a little bit longer. It’s almost always around that time that the craziest, where-did-that-come-from nugget of motivation and reward will come from all of your hard work and give you the strength to keep on going.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

In 2018, I graduated college and quickly hopped on an airplane to Europe. I spent the next 6 months backpacking across the continent alone, visiting 15 different countries along the way. In every country that I went to, I took a cooking class as I found that you can learn so much about a country (geography, religion, history, customs, and more) from its food! It was such a beautiful and fun way to learn about the place I was visiting!

When I returned home from my amazing adventure it was time to be a real grown up and get a full time job. And while my day job as a payroll sales rep was absolutely thrilling (lol), it wasn’t quite as exciting as eating food around the world. I decided to start my blog as a way to keep up with the passion I had loved so much.

Soon The Foreign Fork was born, a food blog where I am cooking a meal from every country in the world. I do recipe development and food photography for well-loved cultural dishes from every corner of the globe. Then I post my recipes online so that readers can make them at home.

To date, I have cooked over 400 recipes from over 100 countries, and over 5 million people have made my recipes! I have been featured in Buzzfeed, Elite Daily, Saveur Magazine and more. I recently came out with my very first cookbook, Culture for your Kitchen, which features over 30 national dishes and popular recipes from around the world.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

My business relies heavily on a strong social media presence, and it’s something that I absolutely love doing. This wasn’t always the case though, and for a long time, I hated showing up on social media. I was worried what people I knew in real life would think if they came across my page.

As the years have gone on, though, I have gotten far more confident in my social media skills, and now I am so comfortable showing up in front of the camera. I now have over 60,000 followers on TikTok and a dedicated community on Instagram. While it has been a lot of trial and error, I have realized that the thing that keeps them coming back is connection.

My community, especially on Instagram, feels like a group of friends. I can be share my triumphs and they will celebrate, and I can share my vulnerabilities and they actually care. And what’s even better is that they know I will do the same for them. Through years of dedication on social media, sharing my entrepreneurial journey and allowing my followers an insight into my life, they feel like they know me, and I feel like I know them.

These relationships have made all of the difference in how I feel about showing up on my page! Knowing that I am talking to friends that want to listen makes social media feel so fun.

Do you have multiple revenue streams – if so, can you talk to us about those streams and how your developed them?

The key to a healthy business is to diversify, diversify, diversity. I have worked very hard to diversify my income as much as possible so that if one area of my income were to take a hit, I could continue on without too much damage done. So far, this is all of the ways I make money as a food blogger:

1. Advertising income on my website
2. Youtube Ads
3. TikTok Creator Fund
4. Pinterest Creator Fund
5. Brand Sponsorships on the blog/Instagram/TikTok
6. White label recipe development and food photography for brands to use as advertisement
7. White label recipe development and food photography for other bloggers to use on their websites
8. Cooking classes
9. Affiliate marketing on Amazon
10. Product sales (Cookbook!)
11. Speaking engagements

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.foreignfork.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theforeignfork/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theforeignfork
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMmCgcQSRJay8ftINQeh33g
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theforeignfork