How this former Aloette chef combined a love of food and social work into her dream job

Maddy Goldberg is a social media–based food entrepreneur with a hand in everything from recipe development and content creation to private dinners and food philanthropy. Her career has meandered through the food industry, informed by her background in social work, an insatiable curiosity about cooking and the expertise she picked up along the way. Here, she tells us how she ended up where she is today.

When I was attending the University of Guelph and working toward a degree in social work, I realized I needed a creative outlet. So I started an Instagram account called Cook Eat to show people what kinds of meals I was making for myself every day. I didn’t have any money at the time—I was a student, after all. But I knew that, as long as you put in the time and effort, it’s possible to turn the cheapest of ingredients into something beautiful and delicious.

The way I approach food is from the mind of a home cook. When I was young, the only way I could eat really good food was if I learned how to make it myself. We always ate dinner together as a family—the idea of community around food was always present—but when it came to meals, my parents kept it simple. Instead, I was inspired by Food Network shows. I was obsessed with Top Chef, MasterChef and Hell’s Kitchen. It was never even remotely on my radar to become a chef, though. I just loved food.

What can you do with flour, water and eggs? I started making a lot of bread, a lot of fresh pasta—a lot of dough in general. I honed my skills and posted my creations on social media for fun. And then I realized, Oh my god, I really like this. I love cooking. I would spend like eight hours making pierogies and then I would just freeze them all. When friends came over, I had fresh dumplings ready for them. It was a fun challenge to open up my fridge and see if I could make something worth posting on my social media accounts.

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For my co-op placement, I worked for four months at a school for at-risk youth. l loved it, but I also thought that, if I loved cooking even more, maybe I should pursue it instead. If I worked in the food industry, I’d get paid for something I have fun doing. So, after I graduated university, I went straight to culinary school. I also got a job working weekends at Mary Be Kitchen, a restaurant and catering company on St. Clair West.

Then, in 2015, I got a job managing the social media accounts for Mighty Fine Brine, a company owned by a woman who fermented cucumbers in her commercial basement kitchen. It was such an amazing job. We’d meet the farmer in the morning to get the cucumbers, then we’d clean them, pickle or ferment them in the basement, package them, label them, take them over to the farmer’s market and sell them. It was such a great experience in so many ways, and it taught me what it takes to run a business. I saw the full picture.

When Aloette first opened in 2017, their burger got so much attention—people loved it. And the pickle it was topped with was from Mighty Fine Brine. It was then that I became obsessed with working at Aloette. I figured I might as well ask my boss for the name and email address of her Aloette contact. It worked—eventually. After I did four stages, they were like, Okay, fine, you’re on. They used to joke that I’d hired myself. I was there for three years. I thought that, if I could keep up with these people I’d looked up to for so long, then I could do whatever I set my mind to.

One week into working at Aloette, I realized that every person in the kitchen treated food like a sport. They all wanted to own the best restaurant and have the best team and work the hardest and get the most accolades. The industry definitely has this cowboy mentality, and it didn’t resonate with me.

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Then Covid hit. That’s when my life changed forever—in a good way. I’d always been focused on recipe development and content creation, so with a lot more time on my hands, I started a free weekly e-newsletter with recipes. About a year and a half in, a woman sent me a DM asking if I’d be willing to cook a socially distanced outdoor dinner for six people. After I’d worked in a restaurant where I was helping cook meals for hundreds of people, six guests would be easy. About two months after that first gig, I was making four dinners a week. That’s when I realized I could do this as a full-time job. I was so happy to be cooking again.

What I found most disillusioning about working in restaurants was the amount of food that is wasted and how little people care about it. When I raised my concerns at work, I’d be told, “If you want to save the world, you shouldn’t be working in a restaurant.” I get it—it’s a lot of work and stress to run a restaurant. The margins are small, and it’s hard to focus on anything other than making money. But food waste costs money too. From a business perspective, you’re literally throwing money away.

For my first private dinner, because I knew exactly what I was cooking, I only wasted something like five cents’ worth of ingredients. And because I don’t waste food with my dinners, I save on costs. For that reason, I donate 10 per cent of what I make from every dinner to a charity of the client’s choice.

I’ve always loved social work. I like the idea of helping people, and I’ve thought a lot about how I can do that through food. Now I make a hot meal every Tuesday at the Fort York Food Bank. Recently, I made shakshuka for 100 people. I show up each week with no idea what ingredients I’m going to get: you have to make something using whatever they have. It’s fun, and I love it. It reminds me of my university days, when I would open my fridge and think, Now what can I make today?

I recently cut back to cooking only two private dinners a week so I can devote more time to recipe development and food writing. My little newsletter that could is now a Substack with 437 subscribers, and I have 109,000 followers on Instagram.

For me, food was just a fun hobby until I realized that I could turn my hobby into a career. I’m so grateful to have a job that I’m passionate about and that I can have fun with. After 10 years of cooking professionally, I’m now making money from food in a way that makes me feel good about myself and my impact on the world. I couldn’t be happier.