We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Andrea LeTard a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Andrea, appreciate you joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

When I started learning to cook and writing recipes, I realized every recipe I developed didn’t just come out of thin air. In fact, every recipe I wrote had a story behind it. Whether it was created from a childhood memory, my travels, or a recent experience I had with my husband or with friends, all my recipes had stories. I decided to call my recipe blog Andrea’s Cooktales – a story behind every recipe. When I launched my personal chef business, I thought the name should stick, and eventually it’s what I called my cookbook. My cookbook is full or stories along with the recipes, so it was only fitting. My book ended up winning an Independent Publisher’s award “Ippy” for non-fiction. So it was the stories responsible for such an honor. To this day, I rarely write a recipe without being able to tell a story to go along with it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a self-taught cook, turned professional chef. 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.. My business wouldn’t be called Cooktales without a story, so here’s how it all started:

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, it’s become my business and to this day, homemade pasta is still one of my favorite things to cook!

Today, I’m the author of Andrea’s Cooktales: A Keepsake Cookbook and run a full-time cooking business where I’m a personal chef, cooking instructor, and blogger. I won Food Network’s Supermarket Stakeout cooking competition show and have been featured on Cooking Channel, Today Show, and was chosen as a Top 100 Contestant on MasterChef Season 6. One thing I’ve learned for sure is, you can discover your true passion and calling in life at any age!

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I’m completely self-taught as a chef. I didn’t go to culinary school. I have a master’s degree in Journalism. That’s my education background, so when I first started my business I was terrified people wouldn’t take me seriously. I remember being asked in cooking demos for large groups, in cooking classes, and even in my client’s homes where I went to culinary school. That question used to hit me like a dagger. I always felt, how are they going to trust me as a legit chef when I have no professional training? But then, I started noticing at the end of those demos, classes, and dinners after hearing me talk about food and eating my food, many people would come up to me praising me on my knowledge and cooking talent. I’ve heard everything from, “I’m so impressed by how much you know about food” to “This is one of the best dishes I’ve ever had.” I quickly learned people were MORE impressed that I didn’t go to culinary school and taught myself everything I know. I’m also incredibly passionate about food and doing food “the right way,” and it shows when I talk about it and when I cook it. Moral of the story, if you’re passionate about something, you can teach yourself anything. You don’t have to always go to a professional school to be taught something, if you love it enough, you can teach yourself and become REALLY great at it.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Being present. If you’re not showing your face and constantly talking about your business, whether it be in person at events, on social media, or both, no one is going to know about your business to hire you or buy from you. I have gotten most of my clients from in-person events and from social media. I truly believe showing up is what grows a business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.andreascooktales.com/
• Instagram: @Andreas_Cooktales
• Facebook: AndreaCooktales
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/AndreasCooktales
• Other: @andreas_cooktales – TikTok

Image Credits
Nicole Cole Madi Aldrich for KGP