Northern beaches blogger creates Australia’s most popular food blog Recipe Tin Eats

Within a year of giving up her corporate job, Nagi Maehashi turned her food blog into Australia’s most popular and a six figure business.

Nina Maehashi is Australia’s most popular food blogger.

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A corporate finance executive who gave up a well-paid job to write a food blog says she is living the dream after turning it into a six- figure business in just 12 months.

Nagi Maehashi, 37, of Mona Vale, established Recipe Tin Eats with a $50 Wordpress website template, a $250 second-hand DSLR camera and props, including old plates and cutlery, she found at Kimbriki tip.

Within eight months of its launching it was Australia’s biggest food blog and now, two years on, has 2.5 million views a month and 1.8 million readers.

Several of her recipes have gone viral, with her cheese and garlic crack bread being shared on Facebook 500,000 times in three days, causing her server to crash.

“I didn’t expect it to be so successful so quickly,” says Ms Maehashi, who was born in Japan and moved to Australia at age three. “But I did tackle the blog seriously, like I would any new job.”

Nina Maehashi — is a successful food blogger.

While she will not reveal how much she earns, she says she now takes home more than she did as a “very well-paid” global finance executive, minus the bonuses.

The money comes from advertising, the odd sponsored post, selling e-books and other sidelines, including writing recipes for other publications and food photography.

Her stratospheric success means bloggers are desperate for tips and next year she is hosting a conference in the US on how to make money from blogging.

While Ms Maehashi only posts three recipes a week and spends 15 to 20 hours on her blog, she works a total of 12 hours a day, on her other sidelines.

“It was never just going to be just about my blog but the blog is the catalyst for all the other work I do,” says Ms Maehashi, who is single. “It’s completely changed my life. I love the flexible lifestyle and I can decide tomorrow will be my ‘Sunday’ if I know the weather is going to be nice.

“I’m living the dream.”

Ms Maehashi says moving to the northern beaches from the inner west a couple of years ago was partially responsible for her career change.

She says she was won over by the view while walking her dog between Bungan Beach and Mona Vale and couldn’t resist renting a little beach shack there. “That view inspired a move, a midlife crisis and my blog,” she says.

Nina Maehashi writes Australia’s most popular food blog Recipe Tin Eats.

“I loved my finance job but I decided if I was going to make a career change I’d better do it now, rather than in 10 years’ time.”

She says food has always been a passion in her life and even when she worked in corporate finance she would cook her evening meal from scratch, to help relax.

“I’d get home at 10pm, kick off my shoes, pour myself a glass of wine and start cooking,” she says.

“It was my way of winding down.”

She says her love of good food is down to her mother, who worked fulltime and cooked on a tight budget but the family still dined “like royalty”.

It was something she did not really appreciate until she was in her 20s. As a kid she hated having sushi in her lunch box. “All I wanted was a Vegemite sandwich like everyone else,” she says.

But while, the blog is a runaway success, Ms Maehashi says there’s still plenty to aim for. She’s Australia’s top food blogger and ranks around 40th in the world.

“I want to be the biggest in the world,” she says. “Why not?”

However, she says like any job, there are downsides to food blogging. “It’s not as glamorous as it looks,” she says. “I don’t have a dishwasher because I don’t have the space, so I have mountains of washing up all the time.

“I always seem to have food in my hair and when I’m trying to take photos I’m also having to push the dog out of the way.”

Visit the blog at recipetineats.com