The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Kenmare’s Karen is a passionate foodie
Ahead of her appearance on RTÉ’S Today Show on October 25, Fergus Dennehy talks to Kenmare food blogger and ‘celebrity’ chef Karen Coakley about the success of her blog, her love of cooking and why its all about family for her.
FOR someone who describes herself as ‘just a mom who loves food’, it’s been quite the whirlwind few years for Karen Coakley, or ‘Kenmare Foodie’ as she’s better known as online.
Despite having received no formal chef training, Karen has managed to make quite the impression in the online food world, amassing thousands of likes and followers on her various social media accounts.
To date, she has over 4,200 likes on her ‘Kenmare Foodie’ Facebook page, over 4,000 followers on her Snapchat and Instagram accounts and she now has a live cooking appearance on RTÉ’s ‘Today Show’ to look forward to.
It hasn’t been the easiest of roads for the mother of four, having had her first child at age 19, but the West Cork native and now naturalised Kerry woman, has taken it all in her stride.
“I had my first child at 19, didn’t go to college and started my family young. I worked full-time until he was five and then we had our second and then I remember getting this very strong feeling that I just wanted to be at home and looking after my family and so feeding them became very important to me,” said Karen, speaking to The Kerryman last week.
“I find cooking very therapeutic, I find it very relaxing, but for me, the most important thing has always been about helping to feed my family,” she continued.
So, how did this love of cooking translate into the success of her online blog? Well, if Karen is to be believed, everything started to change for her when she gave up smoking and took up more running and exercise.
“I found this new lease of life. Hopefully this doesn’t sound anyway selfish but I found that life didn’t just have to be me ‘sitting at home’ with the kids. There were other things that I could get out and do.
“With this revelation came my eventual work with the Kenmare Food Carnival and out of working there, came the setting up of the blog.”
While her Facebook page has been quite successful as a way of promoting herself and what she does, Karen says that it was almost like a ‘lighbulb moment’ for her, when she realised the power of both Snapchat and Instagram.
“I initially set up the blog about five years ago now when I was involved with the Kenmare Food Carnival. At the time though, things were far too hectic to really dedicate the proper time to it though so it fell by the wayside a little bit.”
“It’s [the blog] only really been up and running about three years now. I think it was three years in September of this year since I actively started putting my mind into it and trying to make something of it.”
“The big thing for me, with regards to building and reaching my audience, has been Snapchat and Instagram. I do live cooking tutorials where whatever I’m cooking during the day, I’m taking people through step by step guides of what I’m doing,” she continued.
“I was always on social media, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat all of that. I had done Snapchat so many times before this and I just couldn’t get my head around it.”
All of a sudden then, maybe about a year and a half ago, it was just after Christmas and I said to myself ‘you know what, I’ll download this and give it one more go’. Then, it all just clicked.”
“Sometimes, before I’m even
finished a dish, people online are already halfway through it and people are sending me in snaps of their dishes and they’re delighted withit.”
“I found that it was just this great way to interact with people and get them cooking. It was another way that I could share my love and passion for food and cooking, because honestly, I just love when people listen to me talk about cooking!” she laughed.
I think I started with about 40 people following me on it and I just kept at it and after a few weeks then, I had a few hundred people watching my snaps. I was such a dummy at the start because I didn’t realise that people could send me messages on it,” she laughed.
“When I figured this out, I’d say I spent about 20 minutes in bed reading all these lovely messages from all of these people who were telling me that they loved my cooking and what I was doing. Feedback like that really keeps you going and spurs you on even more.”
It is the connection and shared passion for cooking and creating food that she most values about her audience. This is also the reason why she says that she has so far refused to go down the route of ‘sponsored posts’ on her blog.
“My followers are very loyal, they’re interactive, they talk to me all the time and so there’s a great relationship and rapport so to speak between us. The road of sponsored posts, where sponsors send you their products to talk about on your blog, this is a road that I definitively chose not to go down.”
“‘Kenmare Foodie’ is and always will be about the food, about home cooking, my family, my life. That’s the track that I started on and that’s the track that I stayed on.”
Karen says that it is this success and connection with her audience through Instagram and Snapchat that ultimately has led to her upcoming live cooking demonstration on RTÉ’s Today Show on October 25.
“Obviously the Today Show team saw what I was doing with my Snapchat and Instagram videos and out of the blue, they [a producer for the show] got in touch with me at the end of August and asked would I be interested in doing a screen test. I think that I stood in the kitchen and screamed,” she laughed.
It’s beyond anything that I ever could have dreamed of. For it to come out of the blue like, in a message, just when you’ve finished cooking on Instagram, as you do, was so surreal!”
“I did the screen test back in August and they were fabulous up there. They were all so lovely, the TV crew, the camera man, the floor man and the producer, they put me at ease. It went very well thankfully and so they asked me back on for Wednesday October 25.”
“Now that it’s getting closer to the date, all I’m thinking is ‘How in the name of God did this happen?’”
So, how is she feeling about her upcoming TV appearance?
“Very excited, bursting with excitement. A little bit nervous of course, but I really just want to get on now and do the best that I can do.”
I’d say that I’ll be a little starstruck when I meet Daithí. I mean, it’s one thing to cook on television, but this is going to be live, I’ll have eight minutes so there’ll be no room at all for any mess ups so I got to get myself into the zone!” she finished.
Anyone looking to find out more about Karen can do so by heading over to her website at www.kenmarefoodies.com or at her ‘Kenmare Foodie’ page on Facebook.
“I find cooking very therapeutic, I find it very relaxing, but for me, the most important thing has always been about helping to feed my family.”