It gives me the utmost pleasure to post something other than food today!It is about a platform I have been associated with almost 3 years now which has made me grow as a blogger,given me ideas to cook different,made me open to all kinds of recipes and feedback and most of all shaped me as a blogger,as a human being and made me creative enough to cook,click and photograph anything and everything under the Sun!

It started on a super hot day of June 2015 (16th to be precise) when I had just finished a lunch of fruits and yogurt (thats what you can have in the blazing summers of India) and switched on my laptop to check my mails.I was a blogger then and a comparatively new one as my blog completed 2 years and I was a little miffed about the fact that not many people noticed or liked my recipes!I was dejected that though I tried my best at communicating the recipes,the pics were not upto the mark and which is why the crowd was not interested!Thing is that as Chef Shiyam Nagarajan told me “Jo dikhta hai,vo bikta hai” meaning Only the ones that are presented attractively would be sold (or accepted in this case)!I invested in a DSLR for sale and with some online hints plus the valuable ones which the Chef himself gave me,attempted to prepare for yet another try at getting people to notice my recipes!

I opened my blog email(of course I kept a separate one for the blog and related mails) and was surprised to find an email from Ruchira Hoon!I later came to know Ruchira is a Chef par excellent based in Delhi!These were the starting words :

“Dear Amrita Iyer

Hope we find you well!

My name is Ruchira Hoon, Head of Content at BetterButter.

We have a unique and interesting proposition for you: 

We are launching a social recipe platform for India called BetterButter. Our goal is to become India’s best platform for user contributed recipes, with a product experience comparable to global platforms like Epicurious and Yummly.”

They wanted me to contribute recipes to the site and I was interested!I wanted to say may things and had a lot of doubts in my mind but however so i wanted to contribute and in a big way!I signed up with them and completed all formalities when I got another email from Ruchira stating :

“You are a Founding Chef of BetterButter!”

and they gave me a beautiful badge to put up on my site!

From then there was no looking back!I contributes as much recipes I could,started clicking on the brand new DSLR and clicked while I learnt about plating,presenting and capturing the best pics for food!I am not the best and am always on the learning curve but I am speaking about BetterButter as a group which made me grow!I love the fact of how they trusted me,trusted my recipes,took the pains to trace my email through my blog and actually contacted me!

In course of time I won awards with them (you can view those in My Achievements.Checl the link here) and won the most coveted prizes from beautiful cutlery to a Le Creuset (could not believe my stars)!They sent a beautiful mini wooden board and 2 Devnow glass jars as an initiation into BetterButter.Check out the post where I expressed my heartfelt thanks :

But apart from the prizes what uplifted me was the amount of people who followed me,asked me questions about my recipes,or about other food related issues and who were vocal enough to criticise me to inspire me make improvements to my recipes.I learnt to take criticism in a positive way and also started to guide and learn from people with a beautifully open minded attitude.

BetterButter has come a long way in inviting home cooks and bloggers.It has UGC (User Generated Content) in the form of  blog posts, wikis, videos and comments. The founder is the beautiful Sukhmani Bedi who was lately featured in the Time magazine as one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country!She is assisted by Ananya Mohanty,Bindiya Sharma and Sujata Limbu!

I feel if this podium had not been there I would have been confined in my Ivory tower – being pessimistic and narrow minded and undermining myself to levels unimaginable!When we “win” a contest we perceive ourselves as improving,though there is always space to do better!The best part of this platform is that anyone is welcome to post recipes and if the recipes are appreciated,win any contest and are different,then the person gets heaps of confidence,happiness and a surprise as they get something special to grace their kitchen with!

As a blogger,I would recommend every budding and new blogger to participate in the contests as they would get ideas,open up their mind to diverse ingredients,attempt to better their cooking skills and get confidence and recognition for their blog!

As a layman I would inculcate non bloggers to participate so that they know their cooking prowess and know that they are not anywhere lower than bloggers and in fact they may be far better in their skills.

I would also encourage men and young bachelors to participate and go through the platform as it would help them fend for themselves when they are single,in the absence of their spouses or when you want to give your spouse a treat.

The site has almost all kinds of recipes and if you do not like to red or do to have time to go through the text recipes,they have videos as well from which you can learn practically.

Wishing BetterButter more coveted successes in its endeavour to empower and uplift people and more feathers in Sukhmani’s cap in the future!

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