Olim

May 1st

150+ recipes, 4 pillars to success, 1 MASSIVE dog.

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Hey! Welcome to the 43rd instalment of the Olim Love Letters - a weekly newsletter written by me, Eloise. Here, we talk about connection, copy, Really Weird Childhood Stories™, and the odd linguistic snippet thrown in for good measure.

WOOF, Reader!

I hope you’re wearing your stretchy pants because today’s newsletter is, quite literally, chock-full of tasty ideas.

Have you met Nagi Maehashi? You might know her by her popular blog moniker: “RecipeTin Eats”. She’s an Aussie office-worker-turned-food-blogger and every single recipe she makes is a smash hit. My personal faves?

• ​Vietnamese caramelised pork bowls
• ​Pad Thai​
• ​Satay chicken noodle salad​
• ​Chipotle salmon tacos​
• ​Beef rendang (!)​
• ​Coconut rice​
• ​Beef Wellington​
• ​Pork carnitas…​

Okay, you get the picture - the list could go on and on. Nagi started her blog back in May 2014 - pretty much 11 years ago.

Starting with just herself, her hyperthyroid Golden Retriever, Dozer, and a $250 camera, Nagi says that she wanted to make food that people genuinely wanted to eat.

And, thanks to her recipes, what you’re eating is pretty much perfection 99.9% of the time.

I ordered her recipe book, “Dinner” last week, and have cooked from it each and every day since it arrived. And, in between dog-earing almost every page, I’ve also found myself quietly absorbing her business ethos.

While Nagi hasn't stated it in so many words, you can tell that the following principles have created the backbone of her success:

• She makes well-informed, well-researched decisions

Nagi describes her path to success as “a really boring story of growth”! This makes me grin. How rarely we hear about the boring success stories!

Sure, the rapid rise to 6-figures or an overnight huge award is nice - but how much have you learned about yourself and your service or product along the way? Have you had time to really reflect and take stock?

That sudden spike of success could have been luck. You might suddenly second-guess your own abilities. It might all disappear in the blink of an eye.

• She persists in consistency: avoiding quick hacks, wins, or click-baity practices in an attempt to go viral

RecipeTin Eats’ success is all down to a simple principle: doing one thing brilliantly, over and over again.

By focusing on creating recipes that worked, that tasted great, were easy to do at home, Nagi built huge trust with her audience. She didn’t compromise that by looking to “hack” growth or go viral. (You know what went viral before TikTok dances, Reader? The plague.)

• She practices her craft constantly (cooking!) and she’s obsessed with ensuring that her recipes work

This is a little different to the kind of consistency noted above, in that Nagi clearly prides herself on practicing her cooking skills.

She doesn’t just churn out the same techniques - she listens to reader feedback and she takes things on board, tinkering with recipes and offering different options for the home cook.

You can be consistently and going through the motions, or you can be consistent and constantly improving. We want to be the latter.

• She wants you to love cooking - so she’s engineered her recipes to maximise your chances of making something delicious

In “Dinner”, Nagi and her team have almost literally engineered your culinary success. Every recipe page has footnotes, glossary references, leftovers guidance AND A FREAKING QR CODE LINKED TO A VIDEO!

Wondering why she recommends full-fat coconut milk over the lighter stuff? It’s so your rice will taste of something.

Curious about whether green onion means spring onion/scallion, or if sake and cooking wine are the same? She’s got it covered in the glossary.

Nagi has done what so many businesses fail to do adequately: she’s genuinely anticipated her audience’s needs.

How many jargon-laden organisations need a good glossary?

How much more engaged would our staff be if leaders deigned to share their rationale behind certain decisions?

And what if we leveraged content so that it genuinely educated our community, rather than riffed on yet another derivative trend?

Shouldn’t these pillars be the foundation for any service-driven business?

Can you imagine how many companies would be absolutely transformed from the inside-out if they focused on half the things Nagi does?

Whether it’s a perfect vanilla cake or audience research, the formula for genuine, human, enduring success doesn’t really change, Reader.

Work hard. Serve others. Stay curious. Do your best. Take your time.

If we can whet an appetite for the above, what we do will be so much more satisfying.
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And if you’re still peckish, there are leftover Arayes in my fridge. I'll save you some.
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Big love,

Eloise x