— Nadja Quick

So when I was a student at Rouxbe 10 years ago, um, I had sort of like an idea of what I wanted to do. And what I loved about my time at Rouxbe is the structure of the program sort of helped me to develop a direction of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. I loved to cook. I still love to cook. And, uh, having been a teacher, I also love to teach. So how would I combine those two? So the first thing that you have to think about with that passion and passion is always good 'cause it's a really good motivator, but it's important to think of things like this. When I start this business, where will I cook? Will I go to a shared kitchen where I might have to pay X amount of dollars a month? Will I go to my local church, uh, and ask them if I can rent their kitchen for four hours once a week? Uh, will I have insurance? Because you need, as a chef, you need to have insurance, and you also have to have your, um, uh, serve safe, uh, certification as a manager so that you understand all of the elements of cooking and prepping, food, storing, et cetera, et cetera. So I say this, uh, I didn't wanna sound like Debbie Downer, by the way, with that first thing, uh, when I finished Rouxbe, I had my eye on a vegan restaurant, uh, not far from where I live. And I knocked on the door of the owner and I said, my name Char Nolan, I just finished this class. I love what you do. Um, how can I work with you? I wanna learn the ins and the outs, the ins and outs of working the back of the house. And we struck up a wonderful friendship and ended up doing pop-up dinners together. So pop-up dinners are a wonderful way to sort of get your feet wet and to see if this is something that you want to do. I have some friends from Rouxbe who make muffins and sell muffins at farmer's markets, and they wholesale them to grocery stores and things like that. So finding your niche is the most important thing. And you know, they always say that that road to success is like full of squirrelly marks. Uh, it's not just a straight trajectory. And I do believe that is true. And, um, one day I was minding my own business and someone called me and said, uh, we're from the library. We're looking for somebody with your background, uh, a teacher and somebody who's a chef, and oh, you need to have your safe serve and insurance. And I was like, oh, that's totally me to the tea. So eight years later, I still get to do wonderful things in the community doing all kinds of interesting things where I teach specifically whole food, plant-based, no oil, to, um, a population who might have several, uh, comorbidities and challenges with their own health. So for them to see how they're able to lower their blood pressure or lower their A1C or whatever, those kinds of things come into play as a chef instructor. And I also, in the beginning would do personal chefing. And I personally didn't love it. It just wasn't kind of my thing. Sometimes people will call and say, my Aunt Rose is sick, can you make her food for a week? And I always say yes, because I figure, you know, let's make Aunt Rose feel better with delicious, delicious food because food is medicine. So Nadia, if you ever have any questions specifically, please feel free to email me at Char@rouxbe.com, and I would be happy to send you some books that, uh, sort of give you some other tools to think about. And I also wanna say, at the risk of sounding corny, that one should never, ever, ever use age as a detour to wanting to achieve what is in your heart. So, uh, if this is something that you love, I just say keep on going and keep in touch with me. I wanna hear what you're up to. Thank you so much for that great question and sorry for the long answer.