Recipe developer and cooking class instructor Alex Hill shares how she is using her passion to serve others.
One of the most universal ways to show love is through food. Anyone who has ever cooked for their partner (or to woo someone they hope will one day be their partner), someone who is grieving, or their kids knows this to be true. Food is nourishment and taking the time to care for someone’s body by feeding them also nourishes the soul.
Learning how to cook as well as cooking with others have both physical and mental health benefits too. Besides learning how to use nutrient-rich ingredients to make delicious meals, a scientific study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education Behavior found that learning to cook was linked to better family relationships, better mental well-being, and lower depression rates. Another study published in Public Health Nutrition found that community cooking programs lowered feelings of isolation.
Recipe developer Alex Hill sees this first-hand. While her more than 62,000 social media followers are familiar with her mouth-watering photos of Puerto Rican cuisine, super-stacked sandwiches, and herby pasta dishes, what they may not know is that much of her time is spent teaching others how to step up their food game, even if they have limited time, money, or resources. In fact, community is at the heart of Hill’s passion for food. But turning her love for cooking into a full-fledged career took time, effort, and drive.
From Side Hustle to Full-Time Gig
“I fell in love with cooking when I was 11 or 12,” Hill says. “My mom is a great cook and she saw that I was really interested in cooking, so she allowed me to start doing it at a young age.” Hill even planned on going to culinary school right after high school but worried if cooking would really pay the bills, so she decided to study public relations and marketing instead, keeping cooking as a hobby and launching a food blog in 2017.
It wasn’t until the pandemic when she reconsidered making cooking her career. Her food blog was getting more views thanks to everyone being stuck at home and looking for recipes to make. As her following grew, Hill garnered the courage to quit her PR job and go all-in with cooking in 2021. She was able to generate 100 percent of her income through brand partnerships, recipe development for brands, and teaching cooking classes.
Hill says that thinking seriously about the communities she wanted to reach through her cooking has been crucial both for generating income and as a way to use food in a way that’s meaningful to her. “My whole mission is getting people into the kitchen to cook,” she says. “I knew I didn’t want to be a chef in the kitchen like on The Bear or get yelled at over a steak. I wanted to make cooking approachable to everyone. My mission is to create community through cooking.”
Connecting Cooking With Community
Hill’s mission of using cooking to build community is the driving force for everything she does. She’s especially passionate about sharing recipes and teaching cooking classes with Puerto Rican and African American communities. “There are disparities that make it harder for these communities to have access to fresh ingredients or grocery stores,” Hill says. Keeping these limitations in mind, she emphasizes how to use what is available to them, both locally and within budget.
Those with limited access to ingredients may find it easier to rely on fast food or preservative-loaded ready-to-eat meals. While no one should be shamed for their food choices, Hill makes a conscious effort of teaching and sharing recipes that use fresh herbs instead of salt and take minimal time and effort to make. “I love teaching people new hacks or cooking tips that can save them time. It’s one of my favorite things,” Hill says.
Sometimes, Hill’s people-first approach to cooking is more intimate, like responding to DMs about how to perfect a dish someone is cooking for their mom or partner. And of course she loves cooking for the people she’s close with too. “I love creating memories through food whether it’s making a big holiday meal or a date memory where you’re cooking together and getting to know someone better,” she says.
If you want to follow in Hill’s footsteps and turn your own love of cooking into a career, her advice is to think about the community you want to serve. Do you want to work with kids? Health-conscious professionals who don’t have a lot of time? Foodies who will appreciate surprising ingredient pairings and innovative new cuisines? Once you know who you want to reach, she says to market yourself accordingly on your social media and website, if you have one. She also says to let it guide you in terms of what opportunities you pursue.
Even if you don’t want a career in food, you can still combine food and community in smaller ways, like bringing a meal to a new mom or your friend who just got laid off. “Cooking is a way to love people through food,” Hill says. “It just makes them feel good!”