Hidden Gems: Meet Jacqui Gabel of Real Food Desire

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jacqui Gabel.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’ve been cooking since I was a kid – first for experimentation and play, and later by necessity when my younger brother and I moved in with our dad and were in charge of making ourselves dinner. My desire to be loved, and to connect and nurture through food was born while I was in middle school and cooking beef stroganoff and classic chili from a Betty Crocker binder. But I didn’t pursue a job in food until several decades later. After college, I moved to NYC to work in the fashion industry. I loved my time there, but I burned out after 4 years and decided to move back to my hometown of Minneapolis. This gave me a chance to catch my breath, recalibrate my nervous system, and reconnect with friends and family. In the middle of a cold Minnesota winter, I left to spend 3 months in South America. This is where I deepend my love of learning of other cultures through food (a love that was born in the eighth grade, when I joined a humanities club that took us on adventures to different restaurants around Minneapolis and St. Paul: it was the first time I tried sushi, Ecuadorian and Greek food, and I LOVED it). Traveling for that extended time was exactly the rupture I needed. It gifted me with space to create, to imagine, and to trust in the timing of my life. When I returned to Minneapolis after those three months, I had clarity that I wanted to live abroad for a longer time. I was drawn to SE Asia but instead got a job in Seoul teaching English. I thought I’d stay a year. A year flies, and my year turned into three. I fell hard for the way Koreans ate and their history of food. Koreans eat so beautifully in community, and they know what to eat for whatever physical ailment, emotion, or season. I learned to make kimchi and to experiment with Korean ingredients, to which I’d had basically zero exposure to before living in Seoul. Though I was intuitively drawn to the medicinal qualities of food, I was drinking a lot of booze and eating tons of spicy and processed food back then. My mood, digestion and hormones were a mess, and my skin was showing the effects of a compromised gut. Desperate for relief, I went on a supervised herbal cleanse and my symptoms drastically improved. I had just turned 30, and I knew I would be moving back to the States soon. I thought about what Americans needed (nutrition and food education), and how I could fit what I was passionate about (food and health) into a career that would serve this need. Ultimately, I ended up moving to Denver to pursue education in nutrition therapy and whole foods cooking at Nutrition Therapy Institute. Little by little, I started cooking for people, until eventually I was able to create a full-time personal chef operation in Denver and Boulder. I love the education piece most of all: challenging nutrition dogma and guiding people of all ages on their journey with food, by helping them remember how joyful and nourishing this relationship is meant to be.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I’m like any business owner in that I’ve of course experienced ups and downs along the way. I’ve been completely blessed to have received 95% of my clientele through word-of-mouth. There have been slower times, and these times have invited me to dig deep internally and to double down on my commitment to this work. I’ve had several moments of thinking “maybe I should look for a steady job with benefits” or “maybe I want to change industries entirely.” The pandemic was tough because I had to put the brakes on for two months. But then, more people who wanted to prioritize their health started contacting me and I was busy again. I would say my biggest challenge has been to trust myself and to trust the process. When I’m aligned with my values, everything falls into place, and when I resist whatever is in front of me, most of the time something that’s out of my control, I struggle. Staying curious, adaptive, in the flow, and in reminder of my why always brings more ease.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
My mission is to connect people to the food on their plates. I help people remember that they intuitively know how to eat in a way that’s both fun and optimally nourishing. Our relationship with food is as important as any, because it’s how we fuel ourselves and reflects how we walk through the world. When we neglect our relationship to food, we’re essentially neglecting our lifeforce.

I offer many services under the umbrella of my business, including cooking for people, teaching people how to cook, and bringing people into a more sacred relationship to food through private coaching. It could be co-creating a dinner party that stirs curiosity about a culture and provides an environment for deeper connection. It could be a hands-on culinary lesson that dismantles confusion around cooking with spices and lesser-known vegetables. It could be providing a safe and playful space for kids to touch and try new foods. It could be walking someone from a place of insecurity with food and cooking to a place of feeling peace, freedom, and empowerment.

And I’m on the journey too: I’m in this messy, complicated, beautiful relationship to food like all of us, and it is ever-evolving. I am constantly returning to what I know to be true: that I am whole, complete, connected, and inseparate. That we all are. This is to say: I’m a student, too.

Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
For food podcasts, I love Radio Cherry Bombe and Wise Traditions. I recently discovered The Spiritual Investor and Conversations with Amanda de Cadenet: both are great. The podcast I’ve listened to the longest is The One You Feed with Eric Zimmer.

Zen and the Art of Making a Living is a book I’ve had on my shelf for over 10 years and finally cracked it last month. It’s blowing my mind and guiding me as I think of evolving my work further. For seekers who want to be at the source of their lives (and work): highly recommend!

I use Insight Timer for guided meditations and The Pattern for astrology. NYT Cooking is my favorite source for recipes, and I’m inspired regularly by home cooks that I meet at the grocery store or traveling, at parties, wherever.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.realfooddesire.com
• Instagram: realfooddesire

Image Credits
Beau Ryan Hanley
Dee Soderstrom