A Day In the Life: Julia from The Roasted Root

Alright you guys, this is the beginning of a fun series that I’ll be running while I’m away from my kitchen for the next two weeks. As I’ve said before, I always find it interesting to sneak a peek at what a normal day is like for a food blogger so I reached out to a few of my favorites and asked them to show us what goes on behind the lens, including what they eat on a regular basis.

First up is the ridiculously talented and hilarious Julia from The Roasted Root! With two beautiful cookbooks under her belt, she makes success in the world of food blogging look like a walk in the park. She also follows a gluten-free diet with a strong emphasis on vegetables (hence the name roasted root) and is always cooking up something amazing in her kitchen. A few of my recent favorites are her butternut squash pancakes and these almond butter pumpkin bars. Yummay.

Okay, so without further adieu, here’s what a day looks like for the lovely Miss Julia!

*********************************************************************************

Hey MTFH-ers! I’m Julia from The Roasted Root, stepping in to say hello while Sarah is traveling. She asked me to tell you about a normal day in my life. In case you don’t know me, I’m a full-time food blogger (and freelance writer, recipe developer, and photographer), which means my schedule can vary depending on the projects I have going on. I love the fact that my days are always different, yet always include some combination of writing, photographing, and/or cooking, which I’m super passionate about. I feel lucky that I love the work I do and enjoy my flexible schedule.

Here’s what it looks like in a day of me:

Morning

I wake up between 5:00 and 6:00 am. Just like Sarah, the first thing I do every morning is drink a full glass of water. I then immediately stumble to the coffee pot and stand in front of it until my coffee is ready. This is true obsession, people. I pour my liquid gold into a big ass mug and power on the ol’ laptop.

Wanna see a weird selfie? Does it look like I’m peeved or under-caffeinated? I just don’t selfie very well:

While I check my email, make sure my blog isn’t broken, and read other blogger’s posts, I drink my daily two or three cups of Joe. As the caffeine begins kicking in, I plan my day based on which projects I have going and when they’re due.

Once I get hungry, I make a simple breakfast, typically consisting of a bowl of fruit, yogurt, and nuts, or a smoothie. Here’s a typical BK:

Breakfast is consumed in front of the computer. I know, I know…not the best habit, but I actually like working while I eat and eating while I work. I continue answering emails, monitor social posts, and cross promote other blogger’s work.

In the late morning, I leave the house to go on a trail run, go to spin class, or stay home and whip out some sort of body-weight floor exercise hodgepodge of squats, pushups, lunges, burpees, whateves to the musical stylings of Pitbull Pandora radio. I don’t know what you’d call these at-home workouts…all’s I know is they involve lots of heavy breathing, arm flailing, and I’m sure they would be very awkward for any innocent bystander to watch.

Here’s one of my favorite areas to trail run:

When I’m done with my jog or weird living room jam sesh, I go to the grocery store to collect my ingredients for recipes. I probably go to the store 5 times per week. It’s ridick. I should probably evolve into the one-trip grocery shop on a single day of the week, but old habits die hard, and I like my produce uber fresh, damn it.

By this time, it’s approaching…

Afternoon

When I get home from grocery shopping, I hop in the shower (assuming I decide to be hygienic that day), then make lunch, which is almost always a ginormous salad with mixed greens, avocado, red onion, hard-boiled egg or chicken, bell pepper, and/or whatever other veggies I have, slash leftovers from last night’s dinner.

I then check my email and social media before starting on the recipes I’m working on. Recipe prep and photography takes most of my afternoon. Before I take down each food set, I upload photos on my computer to be sure I have all the photos I want. On rare occasions, I’ll snap more photos or change the set-up entirely.

This Maple Roasted Butternut Squash and Beets recipe is one of my favorites right now:

Once I’m happy with the photos, I clean-up my photography set, put the food away, clean dishes, blah blah, boring stuff. This process repeats if I have multiple recipes.  Note: if I have writing assignments that are more pressing than recipes, I’ll spend the afternoon writing as opposed to cooking and photographing.

After the kitchen’s clean and all my food props are stored in their cute little food prop nooks, I sit back down to my computer to check on all the things (blog, email, social media), then begin editing photos. At this point it’s usually snack time!: Between 2 and 3pm, I whip out the banana and peanut butter to tide me over until dinner.

Evening

Evenings vary depending on whether or not I have a life on that particular day. Meaning, if my friends or family and I have plans, I continue working up until I go to meet them for dinner. Evenings with friends consist of wine, easy and delicious meals, and hours of chit chat on the couch. These are my favorite moments in life.

Here’s what an evening with friends looks like:

If I have no plans, I start making dinner around 5:00pm. I know…early, right? Sometimes the dinner food is already prepped (from recipe development from the day or previous days) and just needs to be reheated. If this is not the case, I whip up a very simple meal – roasted or sautéed veggies and oven-baked chicken or fish, which takes no more than 30 – 45 minutes. Tonight’s dinner was a turkey burger with caramelized onions, sweet potato fries, and grilled veggies. I also ate another salad with dinner, which included toasted walnuts, apple, and goat cheese but it didn’t fit on my plate.

After dinner is when I usually write/edit and schedule my blog posts for the coming days, unless I’ve already finished my scheduling for the week. Once I sufficiently poop out on work stuff, I may just enjoy myself a YouTube or Netflix binge. Or run errands. Or read a book. Normal people things.

I conk out between 10:30 and 11:30PM and dream of mythical fairy creatures. That was a joke. I sleep like a rock in a dreamless state. I wake up the next day with one thing on my mind: coffee.

So there ya have it, folks! A day in the life of moi. Thanks for having me, and enjoy the rest of your week!

************************************************************************

And I’m linking up with What I Ate Wednesday so head over there if you want to see what others are eating this week!