“Ask Chef Laura” About Her Mission To Make Food Less Frustrating
My friendship with Laura began years ago when I was working at a commercial photography studio. Laura has a warm, charming and deeply introspective soul. She’s driven and intelligent and loves her role as a chef and educator.
As someone who really wishes Pop-Tarts were a nutrition-packed meal option, I admire Laura’s love for preparing food and educating others on how to have a better relationship with it.
Tell Me More About Your Business
I started Chef Laura to help people to understand the relationship between food and health, in an enlightening, enjoyable, blissful way. I realized the impact I could have on people just by teaching them about food.
From being a student at The Culinary Institute of America, to helping people understand and embrace their food intolerances, to teaching classic French cooking techniques to incarcerated women, I have seen the personal change food has had on so many. These changes fueled my passion to positively impact more people and with that, Ask Chef Laura was born.
Pondering The Journey, Fear
As a chef, I believe that building a more informed community is the only real way to introduce positive, life-changing ways to rethink food…and our relationships with it.
But I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome coupled with a divorce from an addict. It’s been a tough journey. I also face a fear of failure. I fight it daily. Being sick a lot, and fearful that because of my chronic illness I will let people down or disappoint them.
What Are 2-3 Things You’ve Learned About Yourself?
People trust me and I have an obligation to help them.
I am capable
Every success I have colored the way my children will see me - they know I do the work for them as much as myself.
Is There Any Advice You Would Give To Others Based On What You've Learned?
On Life:
Live your life, not the life that others expect of you.
On Food:
Life is stressful enough. Your food doesn’t have to be.
Working with incarcerated women specifically highlighted what I’d come to understand the true impact of food to be: it is the glue that creates family bonds and in turn the building block of any community. The act of cooking together is itself a rediscovering of those primitive and simplistic ways of connecting with those around us, and more broadly around the globe.
But we’ve attached a tremendous amount of stress and anxiety to food. How did we let this happen? And more importantly, how do we rectify our relationship with food?
There’s enough in life to worry out about, navigating the grocery store shouldn’t be one of them. I will share with you my own tumultuous relationship with food, and how listening to the brain in my gut quite literally saved me. I learned how to help others uncover fascinating food history, the science behind cooking & baking and empower them with the knowledge that ultimately gives them a healthier relationship with our most basic human necessity: FOOD.
Where Can We Learn More About You?
Visit askcheflaura.com or follow me on Instagram at @askcheflaura.
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