José Elias
Gabrielle Reyes, also known as the musical chef, has a contagious energy that will have you singing along and creating some flavorful and compassionate plant-based meals.
She got to where she is now by living her truth, which is such a great message for us all. Just like @OneGreatVegan, you can make a difference by doing what brings you joy.
Transcript
Gabrielle Reyes: And I think that's what I've learned in my whole journey in creating One Great Vegan and creating musical plant-based chefery, if you will, is just to live your truth.
My TikTok journey started back in 2018 because I knew she was just poppin' off, and my husband and I started messing around with it. I started creating songs with my recipes as a joke, literally like, "Oh, I love mac and cheese, I love mac and cheese." So we were creating these TikToks, having fun, sharing little daily truths. Sometimes I would sing.
Then, I created buffalo cauliflower wings. "Buffalo cauliflower wings." Buffalo cauliflower wings, still one of my favorite recipes. I created a short 15-second video, even though I did it wrong, but I had fun, and I got to sing a little bit at the end. I put my spirit and my soul into it, and I thought, "Alright, I understand this now. Let me try it again."
The next day, and the next day, and the next day, I continued creating more TikToks. Then, I did a recipe for country fried jackfruit, and that's when things took off. I gained hundreds of thousands of followers because that video got shared, and people were intrigued by this girl singing about jackfruit and frying it, wondering why it looked like chicken. News media started reaching out, including Pop Sugar, New York Times, Tastemade, and other huge companies I never thought I would work with. It was really cool because they quickly noticed me because I was doing something that brought me joy and was true to myself.
Recently, I've been blessed to lean into my Caribbean heritage, especially during quarantine. My husband is Jamaican, so we started filming more and exploring each other's cultures. I wanted to show him some of my Puerto Rican and Haitian culture, and he wanted to show me a bit of his Jamaican culture. It's been amazing to create fusion dishes like Jamaican jackfruit enchiladas and Haitian jackfruit enchiladas, combining the rich flavors of Caribbean and Latin cuisines.
There is a gratifying feeling when kids comment on my videos, saying their moms now make my recipes and feel incredible. I see a lot of kids repeating my songs and doing TikTok dances to my beats and songs. They know that veganism is vibrant, and they understand that people who look like them, who look different, and who have been marginalized can also experience joy.
