We recently connected with Cornelius Jemision and have shared our conversation below.

Cornelius, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of our favorite things to hear about is stories around the nicest thing someone has done for someone else – what’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?

The kindest thing anyone has ever done for me is believe that I am capable of good and great endeavors. There is a catalog of people that I could fill out and tell you how me met, how they inspired me, and how they presented me with a new opportunity or a new challenge.

At the Area Career Center I attended in high school, and throughout my college years, I was fortunate that my instructors Allen Bild and Derek Bodley invested into my curiosity with Culinary Arts as young and eager lad. It was their support that pushed me and led to my first feature in the Northwest Indiana Times paper in 2014 and finding credits and materials to make Culinary School a breeze. To think I met them as a 19-year-old stranger and that I have been able to reach out to them later in my adult years and young career for support. Whether it’s a personal phone call or assistance with learning about new resources I need to explore

Though at a point in your come up, your previous mentors, will let you go on. I believe they will always witness what you do from afar, but they are making room for your new teacher(s). These day, it is very easy go against yourself. Having love and encouragement around you, even on your worst, can be really important.

Cornelius, 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 a Midwesterner with over 8 years of experience in high volume catering, fine-dining and casual restaurants. I am team player who is thrilled about serving guests with enticing plates, notable service and etiquette. I provide you with an extraordinary experience and welcoming hospitality in my area of expertise. My food is a style comprised of years of interest in Asian fusion cuisine with a focus on quality ingredients. I believe in my expression of food and I am always eager to hear the needs of my clients as they also help me learn. I handle in-home dinners, celebrations, large gatherings, corporate events and on-site catering which you will see at Corny.Co Catering and Corneliusrjemison.com I am also a content creator with good looking and easy to do recipes mixed what food you want to eat and my goofy entertainment.

I have learned in a variety of kitchens including chain restaurant groups, family diners, corporate hotel and casino catering, and ski mountain resort hospitality in Indiana, Chicago, and Vail Valley. I ventured in hard in Michelin-Starred establishments cause I thought it was the coolest thing to make literal edible artwork the way they do. The notoriety of those kitchens is also empowering on a resume. I learned a lot and found my love for Asian technique (not just fried rice lol) working at Elizabeth and Kitsune by Chef Iliana Regan. My first taste of that environment was in Grant Achatz’s Roister. All I can say is commuting, sometimes 3-4 hours a day for me, to grind in a beast of a kitchen like those for 10-12 hours takes discipline, commitment, and being a little crazy and that’s what I did for months until I went back to high-volume catering at the Bears Stadium. That is a literal beast when the numbers go from maybe 50-150 guests a night to 500-70,000 across a massive stadium.

For me I think the event starts with great atmosphere and a great attitude. Doing what I is very different from a traditional sit-down experience at an establishment. You are trusting me, who is often a stranger in the beginning, and allowing me into the privacy of your home to essentially take over your kitchen facilities for the morning/afternoon/day. Our relationship has begun before I even arrive with my prep and equipment and the hospitality feels more intimate throughout the evening. From the decorum I lay over the table, our interaction and conversation as I fill your home/venue with smell goods, the service is catered to you and your guests to make you feel special and taken care of.

You would never forget a terrible meal paired with bad service and awkward interaction. You will remember great meal and some awkward interaction; relationships are never perfect in the beginning and that’s okay. You will always relive and relay memories of amazing night where great food is coupled with caring service and attentiveness by a chef cooks for you like your a guest in their own home.

I am a recipient of the NWI 21 Under 21 Award, and advocate for Career and Technical Education with the Career Centers of the Midwest, and been featured on theatre production, chef contests, other articles and write-ups. I am fortunate to now be in a position to present guests with my ideas and stories on the dinner table.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

For my team and the many chefs that have worked under me, if I do not feel I can confidently and accurately execute a task, how can I expect them to? When I design menus for larger parties that require more manpower than just myself, I need the menu to be replicable by someone other than myself who may be at a different skill and/or comfort level. That does not mean I hold back creativity or my skills. Anyone can cook when it is simplified. I always tell new people “You are anxious or nervous because you care.” and I know that person is teachable.

I have been yelled at so I could never do it to someone else because they ruined a dish. Actions and a conversation is needed but aggression is not. The restaurant industry is also one of the most competitive markets in the world. Everyone is grinding at a position that can probably never pay them enough your time, commitment and sacrifice, for an opportunity to be the head chef. That does not make it okay to be someone who sabotages their team or keeps them down.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

For me personally, when building an online presence I think it is most important and impactful to love yourself and what you do. What I mean by that is you cannot and should not allow the content you want to make to be hindered as a result of seeing someone like a Mr. Beast’s success.

When I was the catering Chef de Partie for the Chicago Bears at Solider Field, I would wake up at 5am every morning to stream myself playing Injustice 2 on Twitch.TV/CornyGuyy for one hour before I had to throw myself to the wolf that is Chicago traffic haha. I did not know anything about streaming, sponsorships, stream/content monetization, or any famous youtubers other than Epic Meal Time (I really liked their content and bacon.). I had accrued a healthy following of peers who would be up watching me and having a good time with me somewhere across the globe and that is what you have to remember. Your viewers choose you because of you. I still have my Twitch channel but have been inactive, because I learned too much, too fast, and it deprived me of my adolescent love of just getting up and creating content. I is on my list to start up again, but I have more plans than just gaming.

For my followers and such, me just messing around in the kitchen and tagging up photos regularly
is what brought them to. As I moved up in my career, friends, friends of friends and family, clients and connections began seeing and enjoying my pictures which then turned to videos. In a way you are truly only a piece of your own success online. The rest is your support, your following, and making sure you are making the best quality content possible for yourself. But it should be attractive and/or engaging.

There billions of people saturating the market with similar, or the same, content. Rightfully so if you make your salary making videos and stay home when you want to right? Your biggest and only tool in my opinion is yourself when getting started. Professional equipment, a crew, editors, ect., are not quite frivolities, rather levels that you hit when you have established and blooming content, not requirements.

Contact Info:

• Website: Corneliusrjemison.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CorneliusJemison
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cornelius-jemison-6a0b10126/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwUrN4T6RihhgE1Z4A4LDzw
• Other: Twitch.TV/CornyGuyy
• Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cornyguyy
• Links & articles: https://linktr.ee/CornyGuyy
• Google Business Reviews: Corny.co Catering https://tinyurl.com/4d5yf7j5