The Festive Chef
The Culinary Studio
Cassandra can’t remember if her love for cooking began after receiving her Easy Bake Oven Christmas gift or during the many family gatherings where food was the center of the festivities. Growing up, Cassandra seemed to always be surrounded by a love of cooking and the enjoyment of good eating. Her grandmothers and great aunts were fantastic cooks and her parents enjoyed cooking as well. For a while, Cassandra’s parents ran a carryout and catered small dinner parties when they were younger. At a young age, her parents instilled in her an entrepreneurial spirit. During the summer months, Cassandra and her brothers would run beverage stands and by the ninth grade she was teaming up with a friend to sell home cooked chicken dinners. Collecting recipes and testing them on her family was a great learning tool.
As a corporate event manager, one of the first things Cassandra would do upon arriving to her destinations was search out the best restaurants to sample the cuisine of a chef she read about, or the local flavors. She also had the opportunity to incorporate her love of food into her business by working with local caterers, restaurants and hotels to coordinate business-to-business meetings and special events in various cities and countries by seeking out the best restaurants for clients, and coordinating special events. In 2007, Cassandra decided she wanted to change careers and really do something she loved. Hence, The Festive Chef was born and Cassandra became a personal chef in the Metro-Detroit area.
Cassie honed her cheffing skills through culinary classes at area community colleges, internet classes, attending her chef association conferences and devouring culinary resources in her home library. Having worked in the event management arena for some time, she really developed a love for executing festive events with celebratory themes. Along the way, Cassandra developed a passion for healthy eating and instruction. She prides herself on using the freshest ingredients and loves to focus on local and seasonal ingredients when preparing menus. There have been numerous opportunities for Cassandra to share her passions, including conducting classes for the West Bloomfield Library, in-store demonstrations for Chefs USA, and healthy food demonstrations for the Area Agency on Aging, The American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association.
In 2008, a car accident caused Cassandra to re-evaluate how she saw her culinary career and business in the future. Cassandra focused on re-inventing her career and services by building a culinary team of personal chefs and bakers to assist in executing requests for customized meals, catering and in-home dinner parties.
During this reinvention, Cassandra partnered with another food entrepreneur, Jo Coleman of Healthy Eating Community, to open a state-of-the-art, fully licensed, shared-use kitchen facility in Metro Detroit called The Culinary Studio. As food entrepreneurs, The Culinary Studio, located in Southfield, Michigan, allows local food entrepreneurs the opportunity to see their dreams come to fruition while avoiding the high costs associated with opening their own commercial kitchen.
Chef Cassie is “ServSafe” certified in food safety and sanitation by one of the top three nationally recognized and accepted food safety programs, the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation. She is also a founding member of the Personal Chefs Cooperative, and a member of the United States Personal Chefs Association, and Women Chefs and Restaurateurs.
Chef Cassie is originally from Sewickley, PA and grew up in Washington, DC. She now lives with her husband Chuck in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and enjoys everything food, including The Food Network, The Cooking Channel, Bravo, surfing the internet for food blogs and reading cookbooks like novels.
The Festive Chef
The Culinary Studio
