COVID-19 hit Aureny Aranda’s family hard. Her husband lost his company and she had to close the coffee shop she had started with some of her “kitchenistas” she met through Olivewood Gardens and Learning Center.
Working in the culinary industry for 16 years, her businesses have been up and down, opened and closed due to family obligations, so she decided to do what she knows best and started baking fresh artisan breads from home.
Her business, Au Gourmet, began growing quickly, from four to 40 loaves of bread a day within eight months. She began with a cottage food permit, but with her growth she is renting a commercial kitchen, entering the catering business.
“I am very open to work with the customer and see what they need when it comes to catering,” she said. “I like to keep low prices that work for everybody. I try to work with nonprofit organizations and schools when they need it, so I adjust my prices for them.”
Aranda said with what she learned at Olivewood Garden’s Cooking for Salud classes, she is also transforming many of her recipes into plant-based protein meals. She said that the main reason she went this direction is because obesity runs in her family and she was looking for healthier alternatives.
“With everything I learned at Olivewood Gardens, instead of more catering I am doing more meal prep with plant-based recipes,” she said. “Most of my clients are vegetarians and vegans. Making protein with no animal is what I learned at Olivewood Gardens. Cooking with vegetables and grains, I hope to grow this part of the business in January 2021.”
Aranda, who has lived in Chula Vista for 21 years, came from Mexico City. She said for a long time she was unaware that the cultural Mexican foods she loves to cook were unhealthy due to many of their ingredients.
“It changed my whole life,” she said. “Also, I believe it helped me a lot with my own self esteem. I want to show people that cooking vegetables is not boring. There are so many things that you can do with them. That is the purpose of my business.”
Aranda said she has transformed many of her traditional Mexican dishes to healthy vegetable meals.
“One of my favorites is enchiladas,” she said. “People order these a lot and they could not believe that it was made with no meat. I do a lot more air frying now. Tortillas, masa are made with plain yogurt, so it makes them healthier because you are not using lard. It makes my tortillas very fluffy and light. With my tamales I use a combination of olive and vegetable oils. The outcomes have become tasty, and that is what I am always looking for. I have to make my cultural dishes.”
Aranda said she came to know Olivewood Gardens when someone came to her daughter’s school to talk about healthy foods. Finding out that she worked in the culinary field, they invited her to Olivewood to see what they had to offer.
“Initially, I went to show them my business, but this is a magical place that touches you and makes you want to be there,” she said. “So, I stared volunteering and loved it. Then I joined its class, Cooking for Salud! Being together with all of these chefs learning how to use healthy foods in a different way and the methods of cooking vegetables let me see another world that I was not seeing.”
Olivewood Gardens Cooking for Salud is a bilingual English and Spanish nutrition education and behavior modification program that teaches participants how to make healthy changes at home to improve families’ short and long term health results.
