Today we’d like to introduce you to Angela Samuels.
Angela, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
When I started cooking in 2010, I was eighteen months post-college graduation and starving for new hobbies that felt right. I had already discovered yoga as a physical outlet but felt like I had more free time on my hands than I needed and one day decided I was going to teach myself to cook. The details of my weekly schedule escape me now, but the only night I had available was Tuesday. And so new food Tuesdays were born. Almost every Tuesday for the next five years, I cooked all new dishes. And we are not just talking one new dish a week. I would make a full meal of dishes I had never made before and serve them up for my roommates, guys I dated, family, friends and coworkers.
In the beginning, it was a complete exploration. Each week I would search the internet for dishes I had heard of but never made before, most of which I had never eaten. I spent hours and hours of my life searching the aisles of grocery stores and produce markets for things I had heard of but never seen before. I did a lot of googling in the aisles of Whole Foods.
Over time, I stopped looking up videos of how to know you safely cooked your chicken and I started creating my own recipes. Once I learned what works, what doesn’t, and WHY, I was really able to start creating my own food. Pretty early on, I felt compelled to write about my experiences in kitchen and in my own life and my website, newfoodtuesdayz.com was born. Not only did I recap the recipes and my own growth in the kitchen weekly, but I created a beautiful virtual diary of my early twenties and thirties. I documented moves, jobs, meeting my husband, the creation of our businesses and the birth of my daughter. But ultimately, the website leads me to realize that I had gone down the wrong path career-wise and I needed to be cooking for people.
Three months before my wedding in 2015, I was laid off from my brand manager position in a wholesale fashion group. In the middle of this meeting where I was being told I no longer had a job after ten + years of working my way up the ladder, I remember thinking that this was going to be the best thing that ever happened to me. I have always been more on the cautious side of things and this layoff was the push I needed to pursue my dreams. The first thing I did was head to my yoga studio and sign up for teacher training. It was something I always wanted to do but never had the time for and I spent every second of my downtime cooking.
In Spring 2016, I started teaching yoga and a few of my brave clients started hiring me to deliver meals to their families. Once I got a true taste of cooking for people, I begged all of my family, friends and clients to hire me to cook or cater for them. I cooked family meals, sold fresh pasta, and started making birthday and wedding cakes. I started styling food for photoshoots, taught others to cook and ultimately, created my catering company Hardware House Kitchen with my husband. My aspirations are big. I plan to expand my baking and wedding cake business and open restaurants. And even though I am really just at the beginning of my career in food, I feel proud and grateful that I was able to transform my life into one I am so passionate about.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The road to being a full-time chef was a bumpy one, with twists, turns and switchbacks.
Since I was let go from my job suddenly, the first few years were VERY tight financially. With little reserves, I jumped into a brand new life and it took a few years to make any kind of money. I had to hustle for every little scrap and I did lots of odd jobs like driving kids in the neighborhood around like a fancy rideshare and using my knowledge as a college swimmer to teach kids to swim.
One of the biggest challenges was that no one in my personal or professional network was really involved in food. There was no one to help me navigate what avenues would be the best for my skill set. I had to try my hand at pretty much everything before I figured out what I liked to do, what I was good at, and what was worth my time and energy.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
My business is broken up into two categories.
Newfoodtuesdayz is a food and beverage company that specializes in easy to follow, seasonal recipes, custom cakes and desserts and food and beverage styling.
Hardware House Kitchen is a custom catering company and my husband and I work closely with our clients to bring their event to life through beautiful, seasonal, scratch made food.
The thing that I am the most proud of is that we get to be with people on their most special days. Planning events or cooking for yourself and others can be stressful, and I take great pride in making their party and food experience easy and seamless.
What makes all the food we create really special is our true love of the ingredients. We spend a lot of time and care selecting the most beautiful and delicious ingredients and even grow most of the herbs and edible garnishes we serve.
What were you like growing up?
The first word that comes to my mind when I think about my personality growing up is tenacious. And not necessarily in the best sense the word. I was very headstrong and very competitive. Some of my most cringeworthy childhood moments were at the hands of my highly competitive, bad loser side.
I grew up on a street full of boys and ended up having two, wild and equally competitive younger brothers. I was a tom boy for sure but I also had this deep need to be creative. There is not a time in my life that I don’t remember being in love with the water, and for years I begged my parents to let me swim competitively before they caved when I was seven. I didn’t stop swimming till I graduated college from Loyola Marymount in 2008 where I studied business management but also dabbled in creative writing and jewelry making. Deep down, even though the focus of my early years had gone down an athletic and business-minded path, I always felt like I was a creative.
As a kid, I dabbled in all kinds of creative pursuits. I took art classes and loved jewelry and beadwork. I had fashion designer aspirations (a big part of why I ended up in wholesale fashion) but I never found a medium that felt right or that I felt really good at.
Because of my very ambitious plans to swim for a division 1 college, school and work, I never spent time at home during dinner time so I never really felt drawn to cooking. I would bake with my grandmother over the holidays, and they are some of my dearest food memories, but I never wanted to cook as a kid or EVER thought I would. It wasn’t till I found cooking in my twenties that I really felt like I found my medium.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.newfoodtuesdayz.com & www.thehardwarehousekitchen.com
- Phone: 7142738552
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @newfoodtuesdayz
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/newfoodtuesdayz/
Image Credit:
Ashley Paige Photography, Priscilla Frey Photography, Leesa Morales Photography
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