We recently connected with Karen Tedesco and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Karen, thanks for joining us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?
It’s taken me decades to reach this place in my life. I use my creative skills every day in my work as a photographer and recipe developer. And I’m actually making a living! I attended college in the 1990s and majored in photography and art history, and at the same time, I was finding that food and cooking was my great passion.
So I went into restaurant work. Not exactly a “regular” job and also incredibly hard. I focused on learning everything I could about the craft of cooking and sought out mentors who were female chefs.
If the internet had existed then, I imagine I would have jumped right into the work I do today. I cannot imagine doing anything else.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My entire career has revolved around food. I started as a server in restaurants before making my way into the kitchen, where I began to cook professionally and later as a personal chef.
Eventually, my creative impulse led me to food photography and recipe development, where I found my happy place: working on my blog, Familystyle Food. It’s my dream job! I’m always thinking about new recipes, jotting down ideas and imagining the best way to capture the qualities of a beautiful plate with my camera.
All the while, I’m in constant pursuit of the “secret” to unlocking flavor in food, truly an intangible element. There isn’t a word in the English language that can describe the feeling you get after a bite of something so tasty you literally hum with pleasure.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
I do have a drive to succeed, so of course financial rewards are a goal. But I have to say that connecting with people feels the best. At the end of the day, I don’t think “I made X amount of money today,” I reflect on the comments from people who take the time to reach out to me. When they share their experience with cooking a meal and how, in turn, they were able to make other people in their life happy.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
There was a point when my husband and I both unexpectedly lost our jobs just a few years ago. It felt scary to take steps to invest in myself and my business, trying to make something out of nothing. It literally felt like riding the waves through a storm, with all the ups and downs. People talk about “manifesting” an outcome. I’ve learned that it helps to keep a vision in front of my mind, ready to calm the negative or anxious thoughts that pop up in my head.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://familystylefood.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/familystylefood/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/familystylefood/
Image Credits
Karen Tedesco