Bren Herrera is known for her bubbly and warm presence and most famously her tasty cuisine. In an interview with Essence, she talks about how believing in herself and her gifts truly paid off. Herrera also opened up about her victories, the most recent one being her cooking show on yours truly CLEO TV called Culture Kitchen.
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But who was Bren Herrera before she officially became Chef Bren? Our cuisine Queen, was in the cooperate law field, until she was laid off. So what did Bren Herrera do? She bossed up and followed her dreams! She told Essence that, ” I immediately shifted, or pivoted, as they say these days (laughs) to working for myself. So, what did that look like in 2005? That was music and fashion. I launched an online boutique called B so Chic, which then turned into a blog and a lot of styling clients and fashion shows that I would produce in Atlanta.”
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That was only the beginning of something truly amazing. What may seem to be the start of a career in fashion, actually led to the start of her true calling becoming a reality. Chef Bren shared that “It all blew up and kind of snowballed when I moved to Atlanta. I was doing all this fashion stuff, but I was invited to cook on Good Day Atlanta, because word had kind of got around that I cook too. I took that opportunity and leveraged it into the House of Bren, my food and lifestyle brand where I occupy and dominate the food space.”
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Hip-hip hooray! Because it all finally came together for Chef Bren. When Essence asked her about that moment she finally got her big break she explained that, “That’s really the date where everything changed for me, because that was my first time ever on TV, like ever, and I was green as the 100 plants in my home. The rest is history.
The road isn’t always smooth and Chef Bren shared her experiences, about the challenges she had and how it molded her into the boss woman she is today, “Everybody has said no to me. Food Network, Cooking Network, the Travel Channel, HBO, Showtime. I have gotten no’s from everybody, but I always said yes to myself. And, if I hadn’t said yes to myself, I wouldn’t be where I am today, being the first Afro-Latina woman to host a lifestyle cooking show on network TV. I probably would have gone back to law school because that would have been the easy route.”
