Haas of Rachel

Life Elevated

Haas of Rachel

/Haz ev Raeshell/

N.

A creative housing, if you will, of all defining parts of my entity including, but not limited to cooking, spirituality, designing and anything I deem alluring.

Cooking and I have a blood pact. I grew up with the scent of coffee brewing in lungs and whipping scrambled eggs behind the line from the time I was 6. Unlike most littles, my naps were taken in maroon colored booths in the corner of my mom’s restaurant buried in a tiny city outside of Buffalo, New York. There I learned to be creative as most of my time was spent there. I made haunted houses out of dry storage rooms stuffing a 50 pound sack of potatoes into my Limited Too sweat suit to seem as a person and guarding the door with dirty brooms used to sweep the back of the house floor. The first thing I ever concocted by myself was a cheesecake. I still remember the excitement my heart felt felt as I pressed the buttery graham cracker crust into the pan and peeled several individual cream cheese packets open to create a filling. Those kind of heartfelt, childhood moments lock themselves in your brain and seep into your bloodstream.

Before I knew it, all I could talk about was being a chef so my mom bought me a baby pink chef coat in the smallest size possible, yet I still was drowning in that cotton. To this day it sits in my wooden chest. My grandparents started calling me Rachael Ray. I was always trying new recipes and new flavors because cooking felt as natural as breathing to me.

In highschool, I went to technical school where I first got my hands dirty in the real Culinary Arts. I dove in after competition cooking, late nights studying for practicals and always trying to over succeed. From there I went to the Niagara Falls Culinary Institute where I balanced a full time line cook job and a full time class schedule. I learned some tough lessons gaining excessive knowledge of how real and brutal the kitchen can be.

So I quit. I was uninspired, but knew that I am meant to create. I am a creative. A dear friend of mine opened my eyes to the opportunity of establishing an online presence and the sound of constantly doing what I wanted to do filled me with an almost impossible amount of joy. I created dozens of recipes I wanted to share and there was always some new trend to try. It thrilled me, but it didn’t pay the bills and I desperately wanted to relocate from my farm dust filled town.

A year later I got a surprise call from a chef in Buffalo. He wanted to interview for a sous chef position. Honored and hesitant I went for my first ever interview. Three hours later I got the call. I became a sous chef at twenty one years old. It was a opportunity carefully crafted and beautifully built by the universe. That single call enabled me to move to the big city, sort of, Buffalo. I hunted for the apartment that ticked all of my needs. A glorious studio north of the city. That year taught me more than the last 20. I was growing inside and out like my plants. Allow old ways to die and settle in the dust.

I now live in a exquisite home with my boyfriend of a year and half bonded with our three cats Fig, Marmalade, and Juniper. Here we fill our home with vintage rugs, piano music, waste free dinners and thrifted gems.

My greatest adventure has been me, finding myself. Three defining phrases about me would include spontaneously dedicated, outrageously independent, and yearning for learning. If I truly want something I go at without thinking. I am intuitional thinker and although I allow for opinions and criticisms, I feel it is the right decision I am doing it. I like to think I have always been a leader, so it makes it hard to depend on other people. I think the most important thing we can do for ourselves is to seek more, learn more. Be not only content with our current state, but happy. That is what I strive to be everyday; happy.

Haas of Rachel is a place of freedom for me.