My Story
I started cooking when I adopted a plant-based diet about 20 years ago. Prior to that event, I didn’t have a huge interest in food and, like many people, I was unaware of ingredients and how food works in our bodies. I made the decision to adopt a plant-based diet overnight and, the next morning, I stood in my kitchen and said, “Umm…okay. Now what?” That’s when my love of cooking and nutrition began and when I started down the path to becoming a chef.
The journey was incredibly organic and it wasn’t something that I was really pursuing. I started a non-profit in 2015 to provide custom financial relief packages for people suffering from chronic illness. As a marketing professional, I knew that I needed to create unique content across all social media channels. For the brand’s YouTube channel, I decided to do a series called Cooking for Chronic Illness. The channel featured plant-based recipes to reduce inflammation, aid in digestion, and provide nutrient-dense meals that are useful for the management of chronic illness. Having lupus myself, I know what a difference diet makes in overall health.
People began asking me for recipes and to cook for them and I found myself as a part-time personal home chef. Before long, a local grocery store came knocking and my food was featured in their prepared foods section. I have been living between Wellington, FL and Charlotte, NC for my entire adult life. When I made the move to live in Florida permanently, I was working in restaurants in both FOH and BOH positions. I was blessed with the birth of my daughter, Eleanor, in 2021. I needed something I could do around the baby’s schedule, so I moved to the private chef sector.
A close friend asked me to chef for herself and her mother and the private chef jobs started rolling in from there. From there, I worked as the Executive Chef for Kokoro, a Wellington, FL seasonal meal delivery service. During this time I began getting calls for private in-home events and have cooked for celebrities and other very discerning clients. While I prefer to work in a restaurant setting, being a private chef has challenges that I enjoy. There’s no re-firing when you’re cooking in someone’s home. You can’t run to the store. You have what you have and you have to execute it perfectly the first time, every time. For smaller, more informal events, I also plate, serve, and clean up. Timing these dishes to account for serving, plating, pouring drinks, and dis removal requires down-to-the-second timing. I enjoy these challenges and cooking for private clients.
Today, I cook for clients on a limited basis and love sharing my love of food with others. While I’m no longer vegan, my food has a focus on fresh fruits and vegetables. There’s no greater satisfaction than seeing the look of awe and complete satisfaction on someone’s face when they’re eating food that I prepared. Most chefs cook because they want to take care of people and that’s certainly true for me. I share my love through my food and I hope you enjoy my recipes.
Now that I have more availability, I have happily moved back to restaurants, where I feel most at home and am able to do what I truly love. I enjoy cooking, developing recipes, marketing, brand development, managing and developing staff, and the financial and technical aspects of the Executive Chef position, where I truly thrive.
Feel free to reach out to me with any cooking questions or to inquire about chef services or job opportunities.
