Welcome to Eat Sleep Instagram , our weekly series of conversations with Instagrammers behind the most drool-worthy accounts about how they’re navigating the digital age, deliciously.

This week, Taste Talks Contributor Amanda Odmark spoke with Australian salad-maker extraordinaire Hetty McKinnon (@arthurstreetkitchen) about bicycle meal delivery (!), the new breed of salad lovers, and the generosity of local food communities.

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Taste Talks: How much time do you spend on social media?

Hetty McKinnon: I would spend perhaps around 60 minutes a day on social media— plit between Insta, Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter—but still predominantly on Instagram. It is my preferred forum because, of course, I’m attracted to beautiful photos and the opportunity to connect with like-minded food people from all over the world!

I’m most active on Instagram, but I’ve just started on Snapchat which is bit of a game changer. Snapchat is great because it is very free (the content is only available for 24 hours so you are not tied to your posts for any length of time) and you don’t feel like every post needs to be perfect. It has also allowed me to play with recipe/food videos for the first time which is very new to me.

Taste Talks: What draws you to the food/Instagram space?

Hetty McKinnon: Apart from the beautiful photos, I love the virtual community that is Instagram. I think this community is very strong in the food sphere. It is incredible to have the opportunity to connect with food creatives, from all walks of like, from all over the world, in such an immediate way. In many respects, I find the virtual connections made on Instagram very intimate. It is almost like ‘speed dating’ because via their photos, comments etc, you get to know people very quickly, which doesn’t always happen in “real life”.

Taste Talks: Your salads are so beautiful! How did your salad life come to be?

Hetty McKinnon: My life as a salad-maker was a bit of a fluke! I never started out to make (and write about) salads for a living. When I started Arthur Street Kitchen, I was living in a gorgeous, warm, creative community in inner city Sydney called Surry Hills. Here, neighbors really did stand on idyllic street corners and talk life, work, ideas and creative pursuits. The area was also incredibly food-oriented, with many of the best restaurants in Sydney.

With three young children at home and a deep affection for the area and the people of my local community, I started to make salads —all vegetarian, and all handmade by myself—and delivered them to locals on my bicycle. I didn’t really start out to make it a business; for me, I was just doing something that I felt passionate about, to share the type of food I enjoyed, and to meet people. Why salads? Because I thought they were the perfect sharing food—they can be eaten at room temperature and they were the perfect way for me to show people that you can eat a fully plant-based meal, without the need for meat, and feel 100% satisfied and replete.
The idea of a woman making salads at home and delivering them herself on her bicycle really struck a cord with locals. The business grew from word of mouth. It was a local (not-so) secret for many years.


Taste Talks: Will you tell us about your bicycle delivery salad subscription service? I love the idea so much! Where did it come from?

Hetty McKinnon: The salad subscription based in Carroll Gardens is my Brooklyn-spinoff of Arthur Street Kitchen . In fact, it is still called Arthur Street Kitchen (Arthur Street was the name of my street in Sydney) and I have brought to New York my recipes, my distinct approach to salad-making and my penchant for delivering these salads on a bike!

The subscription service is a seasonal-only business, predominantly because of the idiosyncrasies of New York weather. It launched in February this year, and the first season went for three months, so has recently finished. I envision that the second season will start in the fall this year. The subscriptions are only open (at the moment) to residents of Carroll Gardens, where I live. Diners subscribe, and in a leap of faith, they receive two mystery salads from me a week, delivered during lunchtimes on Tuesday and Thursday. It has been wonderful to share my type of food with a whole new breed of salad lovers. I think the style of vegetable-based dishes which I make are still fairly new to New York, so it has been exciting to share my food ethos with Brooklynites.

Taste Talks: Your work is so community-driven—what influences that? Has sharing food always been such a part of your life?

Hetty McKinnon: Community is just as important as the food. For me, the joy in food is in the sharing. The memories, conversations and rituals that happen around a family table are long-lasting and significant. Sharing food has always been a big part of my life. I grew up in a very traditional Cantonese household where mealtimes were boisterous, colorful and lively. My mother lived to cook for her family. She cooked all day and feeding her family was her way of expressing her love for us. So I guess my approach to cooking for my community – family, friends and neighbors—and nurturing others through food is an extension of what my mother did for us.

Taste Talks: How did you get interested in food photography? Do you use iPhone or camera or a mix for your Instagram shots?

Hetty McKinnon: I’ve never seen myself as a food photographer, even though I take almost all of my own food photos!
I have always loved cameras. My dad was a photography enthusiast and I have many of his old film cameras, which I used as a kid. So I guess when I started cooking, taking photos of my culinary creations felt like a very natural thing for me to do. I’m still learning about food photography though; trying to get the best light, working with shadows, bringing out the best in the food. My Instagram account is a mix of photos captured on my Canon 70D and 5D, or also iPhone. My straight food pics will almost always be taken on of my Canons, while my cafe/New York shots are usually iPhone photos.

Taste Talks: How has social media offered connection for you? Do you have real-life friends now that you met on Instagram?

Hetty McKinnon: Moving across the world, in the age of Instagram, certainly changes things! In the 90s, when we moved from Sydney to London, social media didn’t exist yet, and hence, it definitely took longer to make friends. However, moving from Sydney to New York, with a social media presence, immediately connected me to people in my new city! Within days and weeks of arriving in New York, I was approached by other food creatives who wanted to meet, have coffee, show me around Brooklyn/NYC and cook together. I have to say, since relocating to Brooklyn, I have experienced such a surprising level of generosity and friendship from the local food community—whom I have predominantly connected with via Instagram. It has certainly made my transition to a new city, and bringing my business and books to the US, so much smoother.

I have MANY real life friends from Instagram. Most of my food friends in NYC have been made via Insta! People like natural foods chef and blogger Jodi Moreno from What’s Cooking, Good Looking , Ron & Leetal Arazi from NYShuk , food photographer and blogger Maria Midoes , Social Media extraordinaire Sam Hillman —these are all great friends who I connected with via social media.

Taste Talks: What was your journey to the world of food media? Has Instagram helped play a role in your journey?

Hetty McKinnon: Instagram connects you to the world food community, effortlessly. The hard thing about moving away from your home city is losing connections with your former audience. But Instagram, and social media in general, has allowed me to effectively and intimately stay connected with my beloved community of salad eaters in Australia, while developing a new audience in the US and all over the world.

Food writing felt like a natural progression for me. My first book, Community (which has only ever been released in Australia) is my heart and soul, combining my love of cooking with my love of writing and words. When I started writing the book, I had never written a recipe before, but through lots of practice, I developed my own style and food narrative voice. Food writing has allowed me to share my recipes and my food ethos with so many more people, beyond geographic areas, and I find it incredibly humbling to know that so many people are cooking my recipes for their family and friends.

Taste Talks: What inspires your food photography style?

Hetty McKinnon: Nature influences my food photography more than anything else. The sights, sounds and colors of the world around us are full of inspiration. I like to keep my photography really simple, with minimal styling. The type of food I photograph, which is usually vegetables, is already so full of color and life, I really believe in letting the food itself do the talking. So I tend to keep props to a minimum.

Taste Talks: Do you have any rules or advice for folks who are working to develop their social platform?

Hetty McKinnon: My advice is to make every post, particularly on a platform like Instagram, mean something! Think about the subject, why you are sharing it and what others will learn from it. Think about your audience and what they like to see from your feed. Be consistent with your message and your photography.

Also, learn to edit your photos to make the most of them! It is not hard, just takes lots of practice. There are a lot of editing apps you can use on your phone. My favorite is VSCO, of course. If you like to use filters, find one that represents you and apply it to all your posts which instantly gives your feed a consistent look.