Q&A with The Food Pornographer

Cynthia, the woman behind the lenses and the blog

1. Tell us about The Food Pornographer? How did your blog begin?

When I got my first digital camera in the early 2000s, I started taking pictures of food. A friend of mine, looking at the food photos remarked, “It’s like porn, but of food.” When I started the blog in 2005, I decided to call it ”The Food Pornographer”.
Initially, I thought only family and friends would visit the blog, but over time I found all kinds of people visiting and leaving comments.
Some of my readers have been following the blog since the very beginning, which is pretty amazing.

Wood fired pork
Image credit: The Food Pornographer

Pig Jowl
Image credit: The Food Pornographer

2. What does an average day/week involve for you?
Monday to Friday during business hours I have a full-time, non-blog-related job. I work on the blog (writing, editing, social media, correspondence) for a couple of hours before work every day and a couple of hours after work most nights. On weekends I’ll spend at least one full day on the blog, usually drafting up the posts for the upcoming week. In between all of that, I find time to spend with family and friends, eat out, attend events and of course, take time out to travel.

3. Tell us about the food scene in Perth? What’s hot right now?
The food scene is Perth is growing all the time. There’s a surge of interest in street food, farmers markets and local foods. For the past couple of years from spring to autumn we’ve had a Twilight Hawkers Market with street food stalls in Perth on Friday nights. It brings such a vibrant atmosphere to the city.

Twilight market
Image credit: The Food Pornographer

Lots of new restaurants and bars are opening up in the CBD all the time, especially in new developments based in heritage-listed/historic Perth buildings. Check out Print Hall, where Perth’s most famous oyster shucker Jerry Fraser has his own little oyster bar, or go upstairs to The Apply Daily Bar and Eating House (my top picks are the tamarind spare ribs and Mae Goong Pork and pineapple curry).

Grab great coffee and mini cupcakes at Maven Espresso in Raine Square. Venture down an almost forgotten laneway for magnificent cheese toasties at Toastface Grillah. And check out the cafe strips at Subiaco, Leederville, Victoria Park and Fremantle.

4. Aside from Perth, where else would you recommend foodies head in WA?
The Swan Valley is 25 minutes by from the Perth CBD – follow the Food and Wine Trail and stop at food producers, wineries, breweries, restaurants and cafes, roadside fruit and vegetable stalls and more. In particular I love Swan Valley’s first cheese café The Cheese Barrel (opened just last year) and the honey ice cream at The House of Honey.

The Margaret River region in the South West of WA is famous for amazing food and wine, but don’t forget to head to the Southern Forests region and visit the wonderful producers in Albany, Pemberton and Denmark, and to the heart of truffle country in Manjimup, where over 70% of Australia’s black truffles are produced.

Truffle
Image credit: The Food Pornographer

5. Are you a sweet or savoury person? Or both?
I love my bacon with maple syrup but if I had to choose one over the other, it would be bacon every time.

Bacon & egg
Image credit: The Food Pornographer

6. Tell us about your best gourmet holiday/s?
Last winter my partner and I had a weekend in Manjimup, in the Southern Forests region of WA. We went on a truffle hunt, drove to the neighbouring town of Pemberton and met the owner of Holy Smoke, a local business that produces amazing smoked products, including my favourites, whole smoked trout, and bourbon and maple syrup hot smoked salmon. On the drive back home, we stopped by the Bridgetown Sunday Market, a small farmers market set up among the tall trees shrouded in mist, where we bought locally grown apples and honey.

7. What is the best hotel you’ve ever stayed at? Why did you love it?
My favourite hotel has been the Victoria Angkor Resort & Spa in Siem Reap, Cambodia. It’s colonial-style, elegant, and airy, with wide verandahs that overlook open courtyards and gardens. There’s a great breakfast buffet with a pho station. It’s absolutely stunning in daylight, even though the humidity is stifling as soon as you leave the air-conditioned room. Every night a little gift is left on your pillow with the turn-down service. And Angkor Wat is just a short drive away (read all about Cynthia’s stay here).

Victoria Angkor Resort & Spa
Image credit: The Food Pornographer

8. What is your number one piece of travel advice?
I use checklists to ensure I bring all the electronics, chargers and accessories that I need to my destination and back again. It’s daggy, I know, ticking things off a list, but I’ve never left home without an essential piece of equipment nor left a charger behind in a hotel room .

9. Which celebrity would you most like to find yourself sitting next to on a plane?
Nigella Lawson. I wouldn’t bother her with the excited fan routine but would be secretly squee-ing inside.

10. What’s the most popular post you’ve ever had on your site?
The most popular post on my blog is my review of an air fryer, an electrical appliance that allows you to deep fry without using oil. Clearly, guilt-free hot chips are very attractive to many people!

11. What is the strangest thing you‘ve ever seen or done when travelling?
Snake and scorpion wines for sale in a shop in Vietnam, along with Fat of Pythons, used as an anti-dryness ointment for skin, and Cobratoxan, an anti-inflammatory cream made with cobra venom. I chose to leave those on the shelf but instead focused my attention on the coconut candy made and sold out of the same shop.

Snake wine
Image credit: The Food Pornographer

We recently sent Cynthia along to check out The Terrace Hotel in Perth. Read all about her stay here.