We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Erica Palfrey. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Erica below.

Erica , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.

Ok so my first client as a private chef found me on Instagram! I had just got fired with no explanation why from my corporate job of 3 years about 2 weeks prior to them finding me so I was very excited, and just in like complete shock because when you go through things like losing a job in life you can tend to get a bit stressed especially when you have a large family like I do so it was just pure excitement and relief honestly. That’s when optimism and determination really started to kick in for me. They ended up booking me the whole weekend and everyone absolutely loved their food and to this day 4 years later they are still repeat customers.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Yea of course so Chef Kali is really a down to earth, funny God fearing woman who really enjoys singing. There’s so many things I can say to try to describe myself but I really feel like most things about me just have to be experienced you know.

I started my business with a trial period I guess lol of just cooking for family and friends and then started selling platters to the public and assisting other established chefs in the valley with their events as needed. Once I saw that ok people really like my food and it became a demand I really just honed in on perfecting my craft by learning new cusinies and putting creative spins on original dishes. Really spending time in the lab (my kitchen) creating and just vibing with the food you know. My goal has always been to provide high quality home cooked food from scratch always using fresh ingredients while adding my own twist on dishes wether it be just creativity or combing two flavors and mashing them together.

What definitely sets me apart from others is a couple things. My authenticity and originality. There are so many people in Arizona that are up and coming aspiring chef’s meaning it’s so easy for others to see someone else doing what their aspiring to do and just like take ones ideas and run with it as their own then you end up with 101 people attempting to provide the same product. So authenticity, originality and creativity is very important to me. Also just being in my own lane moving at my own speed and not feeling pressured to keep up and do what I see most chef’s or content creators do.

Cooking for celebrities within my first year of starting my private chef venture after my corporate job let me go makes me very happy but what I’m most happy about is my growth overall. From my skill itself to how I book clients just seeing where I started and where I am now makes me the happiest!

I’d want my future clients and followers to know that my presentation and new content is about to be exquisite! I’ve already had good display when it comes to my food but what I’m about to do is what will take me to the next level I’m looking to reach and will really set me far apart. I want people to know that when they book me they’re not just getting food, but they will be getting food with an experience!

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

There was a time when I had a close call lol I didn’t really believe a certain celebrity booked me so I kind of didn’t really take the inquiry too serious until I got a facetime video call with said person confirming I’m showing up in an hour with food lol. I jumped up off my couch got to the store and bought everything got to their home and my adrenaline was really running I was nervous and shaking that was most definitely a close call.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

As a private chef I find myself in a lot of situations where being able to move with resilience despite difficulty is like such a common thing. I’ve dropped ingredients while cooking which resulted in me having to improvise on creating a dish without all ingredients. I find in these moments this is what makes what I do that much more fun to me

Contact Info:

• Website: www.chefkalieats.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/chefkali__?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
• Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/ChefKali__

Image Credits
PonderEdits