Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrea Letard

Hi Andrea, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?

I went from never stepping foot inside a kitchen until my late 20’s to a couple of years later turning cooking into a business. In 2010, right after getting married, my grandmother gifted me the family heirloom cookbook with recipes from family members dating all the way back to the 1800’s. It took that book with my favorite childhood recipe inside to motivate me to cook my first real meal, and I guess you could say that recipe goes down as the start of my love of cooking and the discovery of a hidden talent I never knew I had.

This particular recipe, called Holiday Ravioli, was only ever served at Christmas. When she gave me the cookbook, Christmas was months away, but I insisted I needed to eat that most delicious, special dish right then. Being someone who never cooked, I failed to even look at the directions of the recipe and instead ran out and bought all the ingredients for it. When I got home and actually started cooking it, I decided I had successfully picked the most difficult recipe EVER to cook my first meal – haha! Everything from start to finish was from scratch – including the pasta dough, which needed to be rolled out with a pasta roller or rolling pin. I hardly owned basic cooking utensils much less a rolling pin, so in true fashion, I rolled my first pasta dough out with a wine bottle. The dish turned out perfectly. Then and there, I fell in love with cooking. I became obsessed and so immersed – from reading cookbooks to watching videos on repeat to searching for the answer to every cooking question I had – it’s all I did in my spare time. Years later, homemade pasta is still one of my favorite things to cook!

Shortly after I started cooking, MasterChef came to Memphis looking for contestants. I had never watched the show but had several friends encouraging me to try out. I did, and that year out of 40,000 people who auditioned, they selected 100 to be flown to LA. When I returned home, I told my husband I wanted to quit my job and pursue cooking as a career. I started my career as a personal chef, and having a master’s in journalism, I decided I wanted to also write a cookbook so I put that to work and a couple of years later had a book published.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?

I remember in the beginning of starting my business hating to get asked the question, where did you go to culinary school? I didn’t. So at first, I struggled with feeling like because I hadn’t that I had to go above and beyond to prove myself to people. I’m not typically one to care what anyone thinks, but I had worked so hard teaching myself to cook and studying all things food and cooking, I didn’t want anyone to see me as inexperienced because I didn’t have a degree in it. I actually learned, people admired the fact that I didn’t go to school for cooking, yet started a successful business in it. And I also learned along the way, that if you’re incredibly passionate about anything, you can teach yourself to become an expert in it.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?

I’m a personal chef, cookbook author, and content creator. No matter which one of these roles I’m playing in a given day, I pride myself on putting out recipes that are tried, true, and well-tested. The food I serve clients and the recipes from my cookbook and that I post have all be tested multiple times and will never be presented to anyone unless they’re perfected and one of the most delicious things you’ll ever eat. There’s so much content out there today, so with recipes, you never know what you’re going to get. I can promise, mine are tested and absolutely delicious.

What makes you happy?

My family and friends – generally surrounded by great food. A calendar full of upcoming adventures – I love constantly traveling. Halloween and Fall – I look forward to them all year. Rock n Roll music – my husband and I are avid concert goers and it’s always on in the background of anything I’m doing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://andreascooktales.com
• Instagram: @Andreas_Cooktales
• Youtube: @AndreasCooktales

Image Credits

Nicole Cole
Madi Aldrich