The Tribune

By JEFFARAH GIBSON

Tribune Features Writer

jgibson@tribunemedia.net 

Even after finding success as the owner of three flourishing companies, as a motivational speaker and contributor to philanthropic initiatives, Chef Apple-Elgatha Treco-Wells still remembers what it feels like to go hungry.

And that is why she did not hesitate to take time out from her busy schedule to participate in the eighth annual edition of Paradise Plates as one of its featured chefs.

The Miami-based Bahamian executive chef flew into town last weekend for the express purpose of supporting this signature fundraiser by Hands for Hunger, an organisation that is pledged to the elimination of unnecessary hunger and the reduction of food waste in the country.

Chef Apple – as she is professionally known – said the event is “extremely important” and hits close to home for her. She said she knows first-hand what it feels like to not have enough food to eat.

While the stars now seem to have aligned for the successful cook and businesswoman, Chef Apple freely admits that this was not always the case and that she has faced some serious challenges living as a foreigner in the United States, including being left hungry and homeless. 

Chef Apple grew up in Fox Hill on a farm. She said she was “used to feeding Bahamians” as her grandmother operated a food truck in the 1980s. This love of food and cooking for others was passed down to her granddaughter.

Chef Apple was 24 when circumstances led her to leave the Bahamas and relocate to the US in 2002.

“I got my heart broken by my first love. We were in kind of a clique where we knew everyone and had just about the same circle of friends. And I was at the point where I just needed to get away. So I packed a few bags and cleared out the little bit of money I had on my bank account and left. No one knew, because I felt if I told anybody they probably would talk me out of it,” she told Tribune Woman.  

“When I say I was heartbroken, I couldn’t eat, drink or sleep, and the only thing I was doing was drinking. I had slipped into a really self-destructive path.”

With the goal of finding a new purpose in life, Chef Apple then made her move. Her journey first landed her in Baltimore, Maryland. There, she began picking up the pieces of her life.

Following her stay in Baltimore, her first job in the US was working as a lifeguard at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. It was a job she admits to not liking in the slightest.

“After some time I was like, my body is not built for this; I need to be clothed and hidden. When my contract was up from being a lifeguard I hounded them to put me in the food and beverage department. They did and my passion for the culinary was reignited,” she said.  

Sometime after her stint at Disney World, Chef Apple began working for a restaurant owner who paid her way to culinary school. She completed a nine-month course at Le Cordon Bleu. 

“Right before my student visa expired, I said, look, I need to figure something out because I am not going back to Nassau. I managed to convince the restaurant owner I was working for to send me to culinary school. I told him if he did I would work for him for five years. Now mind you, the course was only nine months, but I am one of those people who will sweeten the pot – no matter where you go you still have Bahamian in you. He agreed and even to this day he always tells me that he never met someone in his life who worked as hard I did,” she said.

After the five-year period ended, Chef Apple said the restaurant owner she worked for retired, which presented another challenge for her. 

“He decided that he was going to retire and I said, ‘No, you can’t retire. This is my job, I make good money here’. And for so long I was struggling. At one point I lived in a warehouse with no furniture and I slept on blankets because that was all I could afford. As an immigrant you really don’t have the luxury of making $60,000 to $70,000 a year, so I slept on the floor and ate canned food,” she said.

“And that was why the Hands For Hunger cause was really important to me, because I have been there. I know what it’s like to walk through a grocery store and have to eat the fruit and pretend as though you’re buying stuff because you are hungry.”

The restaurant owner she worked for eventually allowed Chef Apple to run his business and pay him a percentage. Since then, she has operated multiple businesses, including a nightclub and a coffee shop. 

Chef Apple later retired from the coffee shop business to pursue a Bachelor of Arts degree in Web Design Development and a Master’s Degree in Internet Marketing.

She now runs a catering company, marketing company and spice company.

“Out of everything that I have done, my mother is actually most excited about my spice company. When I come home I buy the salt from the ladies at Potter’s Cay Dock and when I get back to Miami I make all of these salt blends that are all vegan. There are no additives or preservatives or MSG to make sure the salt remains healthy. Everything that I use is all 100 per cent natural and organic. So I have been promoting and building a Bahamian salt company,” she said.

In addition to operating three companies. Chef Apple is also a restaurant consultant, photographer and cookbook author, designer and founder of the website IAmChef Apple.com.