We were lucky to catch up with Noelle Adedoyin recently and have shared our conversation below.

Noelle, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

When we created our first reel we felt old. It was hard to understand how edits, what types of footage worked best, and how to make authentic yet engaging content.

To speed up our learning process we wish experimented more without fear of posting.

Essential skills are creativity, discipline/consistency but also not taking ourselves too seriously

Obstacles that stood in the way off learning were time, since we both work full times jobs.

Noelle, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

We are a young-ish midwestern based couple who love to eat and cook delicious food in our hometown and on our travels, with our little foodie in tow.

We started our account on whim, after being inspired by a recent trip to Washington DC that happened serendipitously during restaurant week, and dreaming of traveling the country and tasting food like Daym Drops from “Fresh, Fried, and Crispy”.

We showcase a variety of cuisines-from New American to Haitian-at variety of price points-from hole in the wall pricing to fine dining tasting menus. We also mess around in the kitchen, sometimes following a recipe from our eclectic collection of cookbooks and sometimes free-styling.

We are most proud of content that the business owners and chefs reshare themselves. Trusting us accurately capture their passions.

We mainly are just having fun! out content and pace has changed a bit since having a baby, but we are excited to see where it takes us. We are looking into starting a podcast in the future and to continue experimenting in the kitchen, and exposing our son to new food when he starts solids.

Have you ever had to pivot?

When Noelle got pregnant last year, she experience a lot of food aversions. She wasn’t really interested in eating at all the first trimester. Between a gluten allergy, dietary restrictions due to pregnancy, gestational diabetes, and general exhaustion, we didn’t do a lot of eating, and our content suffered. It was hard to watch other creatives explode in popularity with fresh new content while she slept on the couch, too exhausted to figure out what to eat.

When she felt better, we did some cooking content and some dining out. We shared a little bit about cravings (which were mostly just Coke, orange juice, and chocolate milk). It wasn’t until our Meal Train did we get back in the grove of making content.

Even now, we eat out a little less and are sometimes too tired (or are balancing a baby on our hip) to capture cooking content at home. We’ve pivoted more to foodie family content while maintaining us and our son’s privacy. We do plan do document his journey to solids and how we are building a little foodie.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Having businesses and chefs reshare our content warms our heart because it means they found it authentic and helpful. Sometimes foodie influencers can be seen as a little obnoxious so it makes us feel legitimized. We also love sharing places with newcomers, and talking about their favorite meals and where we should try next.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @friendlyblackfoodies
• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/@friendlyblackfoodies

Image Credits

Photo of us: kbattlephotography

All other photos were taken by @friendlyblackfoodies