Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Cherry Correa. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Cherry , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

The kitchen has always been my happy place and this goes back to my childhood. Spending time in the kitchen with my grandmother was truly a pleasure for me. When my grandmother became ill, she would sit at the kitchen table and tell me step by step how to prepare a meal. Food was always a key element in our family and what has always invited us together as a whole.
During an exercise with my business coach @thekarinaramos, I was taken into past memories to identify my higher self and true purpose. In that moment, I recalled a very vivid childhood memory of me cooking, talking to the kitchen cabinets (pretending they were cameras), and serving my friends. As this memory popped up in my head, I recognized that happy face and fearless girl. That was the moment I know I was living my childhood dream and am now making it a reality.

Owning a food business and servicing delightful meals has always been a dream of mine. I was uncertain on how to begin so I just started making charcuterie boards, seafood boils, and cooking on premises for some of my first clients.
By word of mouth, my services started to reach more people. They began to reach out to know more about me and my food.

Since then, I have traveled as a personal chef with some of the most amazing female entrepreneurs, crafting a mindful eating experience for them and their clients.
The next step for Mindful Eats is to open a sister business name Juanita’s. This business will be a food truck dedicated to clean Caribbean eating and to honor our grandmother Juanita.

I was born to be in a kitchen creating and mixing flavors that will make people happy.

Cherry , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am Cherry Correa, a personal/traveling chef and owner of Mindful Eats since 2019. I am a multi-passionate person and the mom of two amazing children Yolaila and Gabriel. For me, crafting meals and inviting others to eat has been a fulfilling experience since my childhood. I grew up surrounded by great cooks. My grandmother, Juanita, was the first great cook in my life. She showed me the love for food and how to make a meal out of simple ingredients. Mama Juanita made the most delicious food and always cooked for the entire family. When I decided to create Mindful Eats, I wanted to bring that experience and pleasure into the homes of the people I love. My hope is that they will, in turn, share these dining experiences with the people they love.

I can truly say that I am in love with life and everything it has to offer. My biggest passions are cooking, traveling and educating. These passions have encouraged me to become a personal/traveling chef. Prior to becoming a chef, I was a teacher for students with varying exceptionalities for 15 years.

In my family, and even with my exceptional students, food was always the connecting piece. In my culture, we use food to invite others into our family. When I started traveling frequently, I understood that many cultures had the same values with food and dining: it is a bonding experience meant to be enjoyed with the people you love.

Becoming a personal /traveling chef has allowed me to support working women, their families, and friends to gather around delicious meals to mindfully reconnect to what is important to them. As a busy, single, working mother raising a daughter, it was challenging at times to provide good, nutritious home-cooked meals for her. That was when I realized that my services can be very beneficial to many busy women. My main mission for creating Mindful Eats is to provide my clients clean eating meals, full of flavors and freshness. Beside cooking for my clients, part of Mindful Eats is also teaching them and supporting them to create a healthy lifestyle.

Having a healthy lifestyle was also a goal for me for many years. Not being at optimal health prevented me from being fully present with my family, friends and at my business. Having a business that I love motivated me to make some drastic changes, for 11 months I prepared myself and I became a bariatric patient in June of 2021. Being a bariatric patient has taught me the importance of proper nutrition, portion control and the benefits of using fresh ingredients. At this point, I was fully in control of my health I was living the true objective of Mindful Eats. This personal growth gave me the full potential to serve my ideal clients and relates to their dietary needs.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

I have been dedicated to a lifelong passion of nourishing the body intentionally. Mindful Eats is a reflection of a mindset shift to abundant health and wellness for all. It all started with creating charcuterie boards for intimate events as a hobby. This eventually became a full blown business in 2019.

At this point I had been teaching for many years. I spent two years juggling both, teaching full time and building Mindful Eats, until I realized I wanted to fully invest in my vision. One of the first steps was creating content for social media, showcasing charcuterie boards and meal prepping. This business was created with the objective to support busy individuals and their families with their dietary needs, overall nutrition and intimate events.

Some of the key milestones, have been serving many female entrepreneurs in their intimate events, traveling to other countries to support my clients dietary needs, and creating custom meals that align with their overall nutrition.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Having a healthy lifestyle was a personal goal for myself as well. Not being at optimal health was preventing me from being present with my family, friends, and in my business. I felt embarrassed to promote the importance of healthy lifestyles and not be living one. I had to make the ultimate decision to make changes and stick with them. I began to incorporate healthy eating in my home and movement in my body. I prepared myself for 11 months and in June of 2021, I took full control of my health and body weight.

Being a bariatric patient has taught me the importance of proper nutrition, portion control, and the importance of using fresh ingredients. This personal growth has translated to intentionally serve my clients and relates to all my clients dietary needs.

A year after this drastic change, I can say that I’m very proud of the person I have become and my overall health.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mindfuleats.co/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindfuleatsco
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mindfuleatsco

Image Credits
Chris Rodrigues @chriscreativevisuals Kayla Mendez @kaylammendez