Loring Felix is The Fiery Chef!
The Fiery Chef began as a simple food blog in July of 2017 while still the Executive Chef at Mesa de Notte restaurant. Mesa was and still is the best Italian restaurant in North Central Florida.
But then, things changed!
As it so often happens in my business, there came a time to part ways. And, that’s exactly how I found myself with enough time on my hands to put all those years of cooking (40+) to better use.
I made the decision to apply those skills I’d honed over so many years in the restaurant business to creating the best “Prepared Meals Business” Ocala FL has ever seen.
And, that’s how The Fiery Chef became much more than just a “Simply Food Blog”.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my blog. But I just couldn’t control my urge to cook for people. So, after building a customer base with my loyal followers, I realized that I could make as much money (well, enough to live on anyway) by only having to cook 3 days a week instead of 6.
Trust me, that’s unheard of in the restaurant business. If you don’t work at least 50-60 hours a week, then it’s considered a part time job. NO LIE!
At first, I added an e-commerce store to my blog, www.thefierychef.com. But, it grew too big and too fast and the website became cumbersome, overcrowded with too many things to do and look at. So, I built another website. This new one I named www.thefierychef.com.
Although my website building skills were improving, I finally realized that I was really just a cook. Albeit a pretty good one, but a cook just the same. I had to admit that I was never going to be some “Master Web-designer”. It just wasn’t gonna happen.
So, I hired professionals to take over the reigns.
And, that brought me full circle. This new website (the store) has the original name www.thefierychef.com. But, this time, things will be done right. At least according to the pros who know how things are supposed to work. The blog will be extension of the store, not a separate entity.
It can only make things easier for me 🙂
With the growing need for healthier, faster, easier ways for people to feed themselves, my focus shifted to the “Health and Wellness” sector of the prepared meal business. I’ve always been a good cook (I hate to say chef, because in my opinion, you have to be a good cook first), and with over 40-years experience cooking in upscale restaurants my knowledge of food was pretty extensive.
What I needed to learn was how to apply those learned skills to create healthier meals.
At first, it was hard, or more to the point, difficult. I’ve always disliked cooking special meals for customers trying out one new diet-fad or another. But, what I finally realized was that my frustrations stemmed from lack of knowledge, not so much time. Because in the restaurant business, time is always a factor.
When you run an upscale busy restaurant, the last thing you want is one special meal slowing down the entire process. But, that wasn’t a true assessment of where my real frustrations came from. I needed to learn more about the nutritional aspect of food, not just how to put this and that together.
It was a tough truth to swallow. Especially because I was so good at putting unfamiliar food items together and making them taste like I’d been working with them my entire career. Once that time factor was removed, I could see where my real shortcomings stemmed from.
So, in order to take it to the next level, I hooked up with a couple local holistic medical facilities and began working with licensed nutritionists.Today, even though I’ve learned enough to properly cook the meals in each category I sell, I continue to take nutrition classes, to learn, and to work with doctors who specialize in obesity and diabetes.
Bottom line – Life continues to be one big learning curve. And, for that, I’m eternally grateful.
So, please, enjoy the fruits of my labor.
Loring Felix
The Fiery Chef