There are so many fabulous bloggers out there, and we want to highlight them on Cityline.ca. We’ll be profiling different lifestyle bloggers from month to month — they might write about food, fashion, beauty, décor, parenting, entertaining, gardening, you get the idea! For October 2012, just in time for us to start cooking up some deliciously warm dishes, we’re putting the spotlight on one of our favourite food blogs, Oh She Glows. Run by Angela Liddon and showcasing her passion for healthy living, with a special focus on mouthwatering vegan recipes, we love how accessible she makes living and eating well. Here’s our Q&A with Angela:
When did you start Oh She Glows and what was the inspiration behind starting the blog? How did you come up with your blog’s name?
I started Oh She Glows on October 31, 2008. I was in recovery from an eating disorder and wanted to share my story with other women. It was the first time I had ever opened up about my struggles to anyone (other than a therapist) and I was terrified to hit publish, but the response I had from friends, family, and strangers was so supportive. It ended up being therapeutic and healing to talk about my struggles because for the first time I realized I wasn’t alone.
In the beginning, the blog didn’t really have a focus; I wrote about anything and everything. As my relationship with food improved, I narrowed my focus on creating healthy recipes. I see Oh She Glows as a celebration of my renewed zest for life and the good food I enjoy along the way.
The name represents the happy glow that comes from the inside when I’m treating myself well. After I had been in recovery for a while, my friend Leah told me something I will never forget: “I can tell that you’re being good to yourself because you have a real glow now that you didn’t have before!” Her words always stuck with me and it became my goal throughout recovery. When I was brainstorming blog names, I wanted something that was catchy and had the word “glow” in it. To this day, it still has a lot of personal meaning in my life.
You focus on vegan recipes on your blog – tell us a bit about your experience as a vegan, and generally eating healthy.
I never expected that I would become a vegan, despite always being a huge animal lover and even dabbling with a vegetarian diet in university. In fact, I mistakenly assumed that veganism was code word for weird, gross food! But isn’t it normal to fear the unknown and stick to the foods we know? It was for me anyway. After reading the book Crazy Sexy Cancer, my assumptions started to shift and my mind opened up to a vegan diet. Little by little, I dabbled with the vegan lifestyle, trying new foods and learning more about the meat and dairy industry. Before I knew it, I was hooked on hundreds of new-to-me foods. I could not deny how amazing I felt. Over time, there were many more reasons to stick with a vegan diet than not to. I continue to follow a vegan lifestyle for the animals, environment, my health, sheer enjoyment, and to feel connected to something greater than myself. It’s amazing to feel part of this movement and to show others that vegan food can rock your world while making a big difference in the system.
We love great food photography and yours is gorgeous. Do you have a background in photography?
Thank you! I don’t have a background in photography, unless you count growing up with a Polaroid camera stuck to my hands. I’ve always loved photography, but for some reason, I never entertained the idea of incorporating it into my career. When I started blogging, I used my point-and-shoot camera on the macro setting. That was about as sophisticated as things got and I didn’t really put much thought into my shots.
After a year and a half of blogging, I finally decided to give my husband’s professional Canon DSLR a shot. I was incredibly out of my comfort zone using such a big camera with so many functions, but over time I fell in love with the control it gave me. My knowledge comes from reading photography tutorials online (isn’t the Internet amazing?) and practicing every chance I get. A day doesn’t go by when I don’t take at least 40-50 shots. Next to creating recipes, I live and breathe photography, but I have a very long way to go. That’s what keeps it interesting.
What do you hope readers get from visiting your blog?
My goal is to show others that vegan recipes can be just as mouth-watering (if not better) than any other recipe out there. I’m a perfectionist when it comes to recipes and I test most of them multiple times before I share them online. I want men and women to be inspired to try them out on a regular basis, even if they have no desire to become a vegan. If more people knew how great animal-free recipes taste, I think there would be much less skepticism surrounding the “V” word. I’m confident that the word vegan will continue to become more accepted in our society, much like vegetarian has. This is not the time to shy away from using it.
Tell us about a post (or two!) that you’re particularly proud of and want to share with Cityline.ca readers.
Here are a few recent faves…
Homemade Pumpkin Butter from Scratch
Creamy Pumpkin Pie Smoothies for two
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip (you’ll never guess the vegetable hiding in this dip)
What are some other blogs you love reading?
There are so many amazing blogs out there. I think I have over 125 blogs subscribed in my Google Reader alone, and I’m discovering new blogs every week! I just can’t keep up. Some of my favourites are: Post Punk Kitchen, Oh My Veggies, Choosing Raw, Plant-Powered Kitchen, Happy Healthy Life, Cookie & Kate, Sprouted Kitchen, 101 Cookbooks, and so many more I don’t have space to mention.
What’s your top advice for other bloggers?
Write about what really speaks to you in your heart. There is only one you out there, so do what you do best and show it confidently to the world.
We want to hear from you! Do you know a blogger we should feature on Cityline.ca? Maybe it’s you! Email us at submissions@cityline.ca and include “Cityline Featured Blogger” in the subject line. And don’t forget to include a link to the blog! Look forward to hearing from you!