We had the good fortune of connecting with Parul Nagpal and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Parul, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I was an IT Engineer back in India. When I relocated to the United States after marriage, I had to sit at home unwillingly. Cooking has been my passion always, so I started shooting & posting videos and photos of healthy cuisines with detailed recipes on my Instagram page, which I used to cook during my Weight-loss journey. Positive feedback from several people boosted my confidence and gave me a direction to channelise the efforts. Gradually, I expanded the network & became a food blogger with an intention to preach “healthy is not boring”. I have almost 400+ recipes on my Instagram handle <shecooks.healthy>. Sooner or later, I will publish my book about mindful eating.
Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Food blogging, like other jobs, demand planning and efforts. Initially, I was putting efforts but without planning. Without photography and videography skills, it was difficult to attract more people in the beginning. So, I learnt the basics of essential skills one by one like I learnt the camera angle concepts behind good pictures, iPhone video camera settings to capture videos, editing them in in-shot app and the list is long. All in all, I am very proud to say that I do all the work by myself and it took a lot of practice being here. Now, I plan my work and shoot recipes accordingly which really helped me to target wide audience.
If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I have been staying in Plano since last 3 years and it’s a beautiful city to live. However, I didn’t get many chances to roam around because of the pandemic situation. I have a been to a very few places which are in the adjacent cities like:
1. Grapevine
2. Dallas downtown area
3. Shops at Legacy and Legacy West
4. Reunion tower
5. Dallas aquarium
6. Granburry (40 min drive from west plano)
7. Malls & Public Parks
8. Restaurants like fadiz Mediterranean, on the border, Sawaii (Indian restaurant), Red chilli etc.
Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
First of all, my mother deserves a recognition here because she was the one who taught me the basics of cooking. Secondly, the entire community of food bloggers deserve a credit because I have learnt innumerable things about shooting & editing videos from them.
Instagram: https://instagram.com/shecooks.healthy?utm_medium=copy_link
Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/ParulNagpal_purukitchen