Evercooked Monthly Review: March 2025
This is the first in what I hope becomes a regular practice: monthly reports on Evercooked’s growth, direction, and the lessons I’m learning along the way. I’m doing this to stay transparent, stay accountable, and lead by example especially when it comes to the messy, overwhelming parts of starting something from scratch. A few former colleagues have been sharing their own journeys publicly, and watching them do it inspired me. Maybe I can pay that forward.
March was a turning point. I finished setting up the Evercooked blog (using the Ruby static site generator Middleman), which finally allowed me to start publishing posts. That unblocked the newsletter. My plan is to use Substack for distribution but keep the full stories on my own domain for SEO and content ownership.
With the blog in place, I launched the Evercooked newsletter and began talking publicly about the project. It felt scary and like a big step because it made the project feel real. I shared it with people I respect and whose opinions matter to me, and that vulnerability felt like progress.
I also created social media accounts and began posting. I now regret being resistant to some of these platforms earlier, like Facebook. Without much previous experience, I’ve had to learn from scratch with no followers in some cases.
Although the app is the ultimate goal, development took a back seat to content. Writing blog posts, sending newsletters, and figuring out social media took more time and energy than I expected, but it also helped clarify the direction I’m going. I’m investing this time because I want to build a community before the app is finished so there’s a foundation of early users when it’s ready.
There’s still a long way to go, but I believe sharing the early stage matters.
Here’s a look at what happened in March.
Substack Newsletter Stats
- New subscribers: 25
- Total subscribers (to date): 25
- Unsubscribes: 0
- Stats on March newsletters:
- Newsletters sent: 2
- Total views: 122
- Average open rate: 68.5%
- Clickthrough rate: 13.5%
- Engagement rate: 33.5%
Blog & Recipe Content
- Blog posts published: 8
- Traditional Danish Rugbrod Recipe: A Flavorful Rye Bread
- Three Smorrebrod Variations: A Creative Take on Danish Open-Faced Sandwiches
- Aebleskiver Recipe: Danish Pancake Balls for Cozy Gatherings
- Classic Danish Glogg Recipe: A Cozy, Spiced Wine Tradition
- Yorkshire Pudding Recipe for the Perfect Sunday Roast
- Buttermilk Roast Chicken: Tender, Golden, and Simple to Make
- A Calabrian-Inspired Soup from Leftover Roast Chicken
- Cherry Varenyky Recipe: Ukrainian Dumplings with Cherries
- Top-performing post: Gumbo: Stirring Up Tradition with a Perfect Roux — 10 views, 1m 36s avg engagement
Social Media
- Instagram:
- Posts: 4
- Reels: 1
- Story days active: 1
- Most views (reach): Danish traditions newsletter teaser (reel) (220 views)
- Most likes (interaction): Moldy kimchi (31 likes)
- Bluesky:
- Posts: 5
- Best performing: Stuffed peppers grandparents (14 likes, 3 reposts, 2 comments)
- X:
- Posts: 4
- Most views (reach): Stuffed peppers grandparents (20 views)
- Most likes (interaction): DoorDash financing (1 like)
- Facebook:
- Posts: 4
- Most views (reach): Danish traditions newsletter teaser (40 views)
- Most likes (interaction): N/A
- Follower growth: +90 (Instagram), +10 (Twitter/X), +669 (Bluesky), +0 (Facebook)
- Traffic to site from social: 33 users
I followed the full follower list of a similar Bluesky account (2,000+), which likely led to the spike. I need to invest more time into following relevant users on other platforms. I also need to post more and create posts quicker. I will potentially set a couple of days aside to create a bunch of posts.
SEO Overview
- Organic sessions: 6
- New keywords gained: +97
- Average keyword position: 71.7
- Top keywords by position:
- black pudding ingredients — pos 8.5, 2 impressions
- pancake ball pan — pos 48.3, 3 impressions
- Top keywords by impressions:
- aebleskiver — pos 74.4, 51 impressions
- danish rye bread — pos 89.1, 33 impressions
- Top keywords by clicks: none yet
- External backlinks: 8 total (all new this month)
- Top referrer: Substack (newsletter archive)
App Progress
- ✅ Fixed tailwind
- ✅ Fixed dishes model so dishes with the same name cannot be saved
- ✅ Updated preparations form for better error handling
- ✅ Fixed saving of dishes and holidays on form
- ✅ Model tests and implemented faker
- 🔜 Next: Finish model fixes and form submission for dishes/holidays/occasions/preparations. Implement user authentication
Current dishes/holidays/preparations form:
Issues & Improvements
- Trailing slash inconsistency on URLs (some content has
/, some doesn’t) → This can cause duplicate indexing and impact SEO → To-do: Standardize URLs, fix linking, and set up redirects or canonical tags
Reflections
Wins
- Wrote consistently and built momentum
- Created a full content plan
Challenges
- Social media takes more work than I expected
- Writing meaningful posts slowed down my publishing pace
- SEO results are very early-stage (as expected)
- App development suffered due to other efforts
Lessons
- Plan newsletters and blog posts so cooking for them can be spread out
- Bulk create social media posts to allow more time for app development
Looking Ahead: April Goals
- ✅ Launch the UK Mother’s Day: Three Cultures, One Table newsletter
- App: Finish model fixes and form submission for dishes/holidays/occasions/preparations. Implement user authentication, profile pages, and role-based functionality
- Publish 8 more blog posts to support newsletters
- Send two more newsletters in April (topic TBD)
- 16 social media posts per platform
Thanks for following along.
If you want to keep up with the project or join the community, subscribe to the newsletter or follow along on Instagram.