BE A REBEL An interview with Chef Pilar Valdes about her experience becoming an entrepreneur by Gaby Fernandez
How did you know you wanted to be part of the culinary industry? That’s a really good question… I don’t think I actually ever quite knew. I was always a really good eater, ever since I was small. I love food and it brings me so much joy. But I don’t think I had really, truly considered cooking as a profession until much later in my life. I actually worked for 10 years, in a nonprofit, working with young people doing political education, collective media making… pre cell phones. I started cooking for my friends…as dinners for six people morphed into barbecues for 40. And I was doing it so much that I couldn’t afford to keep doing it. My friend was like, “Yo, you need to stop feeding us for free. Have you considered doing something in culinary?” At that point, I was probably 28 or 29. I felt a little too old to go back to school. I think culinary school offers a lot of really great things. But it’s also really expensive. I didn’t feel comfortable at that point in my life paying that much to go to school. And I was like, I’m not sure which way to go. I love food but, l didn’t feel valid. Cooking for years for friends and studying and trying to learn how to cook on my own, I was always second guessing it. However, a friend of mine reached out to me, and he was like, “hey, you know, a friend is having a baby shower, would you cater it?“ he was like, “Dude, it’s totally fine. It’s only 25 people. You have more people in your house on a regular basis, don’t sweat it, it’s going to be great.” So I gave in and did the catering for the event. People were coming up to me …asking me for my business card. I was like, “I don’t have a business card.” And they were like, “You don’t do culinary?” And I was like, “No, not really. I just do it on the side.” And they’re like, “Maybe you should consider it.” From that day I went home, I called one of my good friends that was also working in nonprofits who I knew wanted to of make the shift out of that field, and then said, “Hey, would you think about trying to start a company
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together? Would you cook with me? She was very much like me: we were always cooking, researching, eating, testing recipes, and doing all these things. We started very, very much in earnest. I started cooking out of my home; we did a lunch delivery service. We ran it like a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) where you partner with farmers and buy a share for their future season to ensure that they have customers, and then you get access to great vegetables. We used that model to do a lunch delivery service and customers would sign up, and they would pre pay us, let’s say for 15 lunches, and we would make farmers market meals, and deliver them twice a week. This was also before Uber Eats and Seamless and all that stuff. She and I would literally be on the subway, carrying bags and criss-crossing like crazy ladies in the city. Our conversations were like “how many clients can we take on and how many boxes can we carry?”. I do not recommend it. But you know, we were just learning and playing with the idea. And then we got into an incubator program at this place called Hot Bread Kitchen. They supported predominantly women and immigrant-owned small food businesses. That
