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News Fri Mar 30 2012
Cooking Together
There are entrepreneurs and then there are entrepreneurs. Vanessa Moses, founder and head Chick of the Chicago Cooking Chicks, a Chicago meetup group that has grown beyond typical meetup group into what she dubs the "new foodie" club, falls in the latter. I met Vanessa at my first Cooking Chicks event on one particular Sunday. She was shorter than I expected which is probably the same reaction I get from people (I'm 5 foot flat). She was sporting her usual glasses and sipping on a glass of wine. I liked her already. Moses is one of those easy to approach, casual, no formality yet detail-oriented gals who constantly has an idea churning in her head. And unlike other people who have just have ideas, it's mostly likely that hers will come to fruition. And she's passionate about food.
Cooking Chicks, a community of professional women who love to eat, create, cook and share their love of food is her baby and Moses has grown this group in a short period of only 2 years to a full 700+ members. What many people familiar with The Cooking Chicks don't know about Vanessa is that her day job is in the real estate world, and it was only 3 years ago that her relationship with food started -- a relationship that would turn into a quickly growing group and brand and a side career of food ambassador and demonstrator for big food brands such as ConAgra. This may just be one of those picked-up-a-microphone-last-week-and-now-has-a-recording-contract-story.
We decided to meet at Jam in Logan Square for breakfast where we were treated to an amuse bouche upon sitting. How rockstar. We hemmed and hawed over the menu. I settled for the eggs benedict, a pork belly and beet hollandaise sauce eggs benedict that is, Moses for the smoked ham, gruyere and brussel sprout omelet. "You can't come to a place like this and just get a side of eggs and bacon, right?" I quipped. She agreed. Predictable would have to wait for another day.
Moses didn't waste any time, I quickly reached for my recorder.
"At the time that I started Cooking Chicks, I was at the point that I was looking for an outlet. I used to go on Meetup for real estate networking so I was aware of it and I came up with the idea for Cooking Chicks, a fun but not hard-core group for women professionals looking for the same thing. It was fun and quirky as a name so I went with it. After we started, we just had one woman join after the next and after the next and soon we were building this really big group. Not too long after the Kenmore Live Studio opened up and they invited our group to go out and see a local chef demonstration which 35 of our members attended. This was really a huge starting point for us. Through the force of all this happening I got a call from Sears asking me to bring out 20 people for the Sears chef challenge to which I told them, you know we're not really chefs, right? So I brought in 20 people and we tried out for the challenge. Then a few weeks later to my surprise they called me and asked me to be one of the the chef's to represent Chicago to complete in the Sears Chef Challenge which was an amazing opportunity for me to grow as a chef. As our group was organically growing, we now had this whole other side of social media marketing and partnership and the work I was starting to do personally as a food ambassador to help. This combination of events helped elevate everything to a whole new level. With all the amazing women who have joined and believe in what we are doing we have gone beyond just a Meet Up group and are now one of Chicago's biggest organized group of women who love to create, cook, eat and share in the love of food."
So was Kenmore and Sears the catalyst?
"We were growing organically so it definitely had its own natural energy. We didn't want to be a group just watching things, we wanted to be actually doing things so that's where the Cooking Underground series and the Cooking Classes started. Soon to follow we launched our Will Read For Food Bookclub which is really popular. So there's a lot of little things that started happening during this time with the Sears thing and the Kenmore thing and as we moved into our first year as a group we were able to leverage those relationships. After that, we really catapulted our numbers, moving into the 600 range and the PR we were getting from places like TimeOut really blew us up."
So what does a typical event look like?
"From the Book Club to the Underground series it's all about hosting in the home. I've never had a lack of women saying they wanted to host. The group brings all the supplies needed and the group size ranges anywhere from a group of 7-8 (minimum) to 20-25. It's interesting, I see this every time, people walk in and they are very shy and formal, and by the end of the night, everyone is laughing and having a great time."
And who is a typical Cooking Chick?
"Somebody excited to share recipes, talk about dishes, engage in food conversations. Our members are in the 25-45 working professionals demographic and are somebody who wants to get out and connect with other women and be able to build friendships with others while eating and cooking. This is a eating and food loving group. We have everyone from the eater to the home cook, to those who just want to bring a bottle of wine, to the professional chefs, so we have a really, great diverse group of women which is a great offering for people who are interested in joining. Our goal is to really capture the young professional or stay at home mom interested in cooking and we want to continue to build our network to keep us as diverse as possible and provide value for our members."
Do you see this as a networking channel or is it about the food?
"It's definitely about the food but what I notice is that women do come back to our events through other women they had met at previous events. It was about the food but then it became about what happens as time goes on when you bring people and food together. You can't just make it about food and not about human interaction but it was surprising in a great way to see how quickly it became about that. I've recently expanded our event offerings, such as the Connections events, that are more focused on Cooking Chicks who own their own business, which allows for a little more conversation about food outside of the kitchen, which in turn builds relationships."
How does this group fit into the current Chicago food scene?
"I think this is part of the new food scene in Chicago and I don't mean that in a way that sounds pretentious because what we are is completely opposite. This is about taking the pretentious out of food, making it attainable, making it non-exclusive. You're here because you want to be here and you can be here. There is nothing that you will see coming out of the Cooking Chicks that's inaccessible. This is really about creating the new back to basics foodie."
I've noticed you have a big fundraising event for Baconfest.
"In April, we are going to be a part of something really big in Chicago, Baconfest which we are really excited about, and I've put together a bacon dish which we will be sampling. (Psst, Baconfest is currently sold out but CC is offering a free ticket to the event if you Like them on their Facebook page and submit their favorite recipe)."
Do you consider yourself to be an up-and-coming food authority?
"This goes back to that organic process thing that I was talking about earlier. This is a bigger mission and It's not just me creating this - it's all the women who join and believe in this. I am honored that my thought to create a little supper club prompted others to join in and these women have made me who I am as a cook. I am a cook and chef because of them. Without them there is no Chicks."
Gotta ask, what about the boys?
"It's definitely a women's group and by no means are we anti-man, I mean, my husband Mike is my biggest supporter and an excellent cook as well as favorite sous-chef, and I appreciate that cooking is just as important to men. We have had men express interest, but there has been an overwhelming commentary for women that they love this format so we going to build on what is working."
Anything new and big for Cooking Chicks?
"We will be launching a new website soon completely separate from Meetup that will really help bring our vision forward and help provide our members the information and resources that they are looking for so look for that soon. One thing we're trying to do is eventually bring in different programming and top chefs in Chicago so that we can create experiences for rewarding people who are really active in the organization. The more people that join and the bigger we get, the greater the opportunity to leverage better deals and opportunities for our members and as we expand we want to bring people into our network that add value to our members verses looking at this from the traditional for-profit model."
Is there a disadvantage for this to get too large?
"I've thought about that, and I think that as we grow with implementing our new structure we're going to have members who have different needs that we can address, some may just want access to new recipes, some might just want to connect. I think the more the merrier. We'll just have to see."
Where's is Cooking Chicks going? What is the big idea?
"The big next step for us would be taking this idea into different chapters in other cities. I'm from Michigan so that's our first target market. We're also thinking about maybe having a boutique concept of a cooking school but a really basic school, like how to do five things with chicken, or how to start your own garden, just easy, affordable classes. And I'd love to eventually see Cooking Chick retail items that have to do with getting people in the kitchen, really practical, almost hilariously dumbed down items. But this is such an organic growing group that I don't want to say what we will or will not do, our real focus is on growing the club right now and listening to our members, but I have ideas."
I'm sure you've been asked this before but any chance for a Cooking Chick cookbook in the future?
"Of course we've been thinking about that and if we do I would love it to be a way to feature our really active members. There are several legalities around that so we'd have to figure those out but it's definitely a thought that I think we will focus on later."
Your personal thoughts as the founder on the group and what it means to you?
"This venture has made me see that bringing people and food together is a really powerful thing and through that and through this group and these women it's motivated me to realize that I belong somewhere in this food world so I can help make an impact. Having self-trained for two years (Moses recently also went to Paris for a month to study food at a cooking school!) and being really involved in this food world though my relationships with larger food brands as a brand ambassador and demonstrator, I've realized that I'm in it, and at this point it's about building the Cooking Chicks and creating this influential group to really bring food back to the kitchen; to bring people together to cook and share and make food for their families and themselves. There's no reason why we can't do that. With all the health issues in the world out there, we want to be that catalyst group that turns that foodie culture into the home cook chef, going back to basics, doing what our grandparents used to do, that live off the land thing. We want to be able to be that group."
Since we're talking about food, what's your quickest go to recipe that the rest of Chicago needs to know about?
"There's an appetizer that I've done with boursin cheese and a jam topping served with apple chips, water crackers, anything. It's the hit of every single party and a great one for all year round, and it's ridiculously easy." (I can vouch for that as not a few days later I threw an impromptu gathering and this was included on the menu. It was a hit and as easy as opening packages).
Moses reiterates again that she didn't start cooking until 3 years ago almost as if she's shocked herself. When I asked her why the sudden coming to Jesus moment, she said that it was something she just stated to like. "I grew up in a house with a mom who cooked all the time and there was always dinner on the table. When I got my first real place and my own kitchen I got really serious and once I started building a little confidence that changed everything for me. This is why this is a shock for everyone I know. They think it's insane that I'm so passionate about food because I never was, but now I'm a home cook turned chef."
"Which is testament how food can really change a person's life," I added.
"Totally," she agreed.
If you're a "cooking chick" and interested in checking out this group, their next class is a Chocolate Truffle Cooking Class on April 1st at Katherine-Anne Confections Chocolate Kitchen.