28 min
E.4 From Struggling Actress to Food Network Superstar with Chopped Winner Rachel Reuben Lifestyle& Success with Dr. S
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- Business
“Food is the gas in your tank, it’s the raw material of who you are, so why wouldn’t you eat well?” asks Chef Rachel Reuben, creator of the popular recipe blog and cooking school by the same name: Food Fix Kitchen. Her take on food goes right to the gut. “Most people take better care of their cars or their pets than they do their own bodies. They understand how high-octane fuel and regular maintenance makes a car run better, or how a high-quality diet affects their dog, but they have this disconnect when it comes to food and their own well-being. They’ll eat anything!”
Reuben has been on a mission to change all that. Through her cooking, writing, teaching and personal appearances, Chef Rachel has delivered the credo she lives by: “cook well, eat well, live well,” teaching clients and groups how to best fuel their lives and loved ones. Her unique personal story is one of overcoming childhood abuse, traveling many life paths (actress, waitress, singer, caterer, stand-up comic, writer, graphic artist, and mother) to find fulfillment and culminating in a courageous, culinary-inspired reinvention. She acted on a life-long passion for cooking and went to professional culinary school at age 50, at the same time as her 19-year old son.
“I like to say that we followed in my mother’s ‘FOODSTEPS’” says Chef Rachel, “because my mother was a private chef for nearly 40 years, working until the week she died at age 86. She was a Holocaust survivor and knew what it was to go without food, so she lived her life as a gastronomical celebration. Cooking and feeding people was her way of healing others and herself.”
Today, Reubens’s son, Max, having worked for nearly 8 years for the famed chef, Thomas Keller in his restaurants, Per Se and The French Laundry, is currently an Executive Chef of the Penrose Room at The Broadmoor Resort in Colorado.
Reuben is a Food Network’s Chopped Champion, a freelance food writer and founder of a successful NY metro area recreational cooking school and chef services business, Food Fix Kitchen. She has appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America several times and contributes to the abcnews.com Food Page. She has brought her culinary skills, living-well credo and message of “reinvention at any age” to schools, corporations, medical centers, destination spas, women’s groups and charity events. In 2016 Chef Reuben headed a healthy dining initiative at Rutgers University, NJ Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health. The project took the form of a new “from-scratch” restaurant, Harvest, which reflected the IFNH’s mission to combat degenerative diseases through healthy food and lifestyle. Reuben designed the menus and ran the project for it’s successful first year.
Reuben’s focus these days is on teaching and sharing inspiration through what she calls “Recipe For Reinvention.” She explains, “I’ve been reinventing myself over and over throughout my life, whether in response to crisis or to my own curiosity and need for growth. I share my own insights and hope to help others ‘cook up’ their best selves along the way.” Chef Rachel leads Recipe For Reinvention workshops for women’s groups, and leads intimate luxury retreats in beautiful locations like Tuscany, the Amalfi Coast and Spain’s Andalucia region where her guests can have amazing culinary experiences and explore what feeds their soul. Her Instagram account #foodfixmama is
lately more about “stirring things up” in the way she thinks and relates to life, than it is about food and cooking, but that’s to be expected with Reuben, who seems to approach life like it’s an opportunity for a delicious feast, but it’s all in what you bring to the table.
“Food is the gas in your tank, it’s the raw material of who you are, so why wouldn’t you eat well?” asks Chef Rachel Reuben, creator of the popular recipe blog and cooking school by the same name: Food Fix Kitchen. Her take on food goes right to the gut. “Most people take better care of their cars or their pets than they do their own bodies. They understand how high-octane fuel and regular maintenance makes a car run better, or how a high-quality diet affects their dog, but they have this disconnect when it comes to food and their own well-being. They’ll eat anything!”
Reuben has been on a mission to change all that. Through her cooking, writing, teaching and personal appearances, Chef Rachel has delivered the credo she lives by: “cook well, eat well, live well,” teaching clients and groups how to best fuel their lives and loved ones. Her unique personal story is one of overcoming childhood abuse, traveling many life paths (actress, waitress, singer, caterer, stand-up comic, writer, graphic artist, and mother) to find fulfillment and culminating in a courageous, culinary-inspired reinvention. She acted on a life-long passion for cooking and went to professional culinary school at age 50, at the same time as her 19-year old son.
“I like to say that we followed in my mother’s ‘FOODSTEPS’” says Chef Rachel, “because my mother was a private chef for nearly 40 years, working until the week she died at age 86. She was a Holocaust survivor and knew what it was to go without food, so she lived her life as a gastronomical celebration. Cooking and feeding people was her way of healing others and herself.”
Today, Reubens’s son, Max, having worked for nearly 8 years for the famed chef, Thomas Keller in his restaurants, Per Se and The French Laundry, is currently an Executive Chef of the Penrose Room at The Broadmoor Resort in Colorado.
Reuben is a Food Network’s Chopped Champion, a freelance food writer and founder of a successful NY metro area recreational cooking school and chef services business, Food Fix Kitchen. She has appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America several times and contributes to the abcnews.com Food Page. She has brought her culinary skills, living-well credo and message of “reinvention at any age” to schools, corporations, medical centers, destination spas, women’s groups and charity events. In 2016 Chef Reuben headed a healthy dining initiative at Rutgers University, NJ Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health. The project took the form of a new “from-scratch” restaurant, Harvest, which reflected the IFNH’s mission to combat degenerative diseases through healthy food and lifestyle. Reuben designed the menus and ran the project for it’s successful first year.
Reuben’s focus these days is on teaching and sharing inspiration through what she calls “Recipe For Reinvention.” She explains, “I’ve been reinventing myself over and over throughout my life, whether in response to crisis or to my own curiosity and need for growth. I share my own insights and hope to help others ‘cook up’ their best selves along the way.” Chef Rachel leads Recipe For Reinvention workshops for women’s groups, and leads intimate luxury retreats in beautiful locations like Tuscany, the Amalfi Coast and Spain’s Andalucia region where her guests can have amazing culinary experiences and explore what feeds their soul. Her Instagram account #foodfixmama is
lately more about “stirring things up” in the way she thinks and relates to life, than it is about food and cooking, but that’s to be expected with Reuben, who seems to approach life like it’s an opportunity for a delicious feast, but it’s all in what you bring to the table.
28 min