Chef Kareema Inc

To look at Kareema Beckles, owner of Chef Kareema Inc., you’d never guess she followed her love of food into a catering and cooking business. “I like to eat, number one, you’d never tell,” she laughs. “I’m one of those, ‘Don’t trust the skinny chef’ [cooks], but I love food. I love food, and I like how people feel after I feed them or see them eating...I love to see the enjoyment of food because we need it — we need it to live, we need it to survive.”

For Kareema, it’s a simple joy, and it’s one that drives her to keep creating new products each time she gets in the kitchen. Even if her customers want something as seemingly simple as macaroni and cheese, her artistic side comes out and whips up a new dish. One of her more popular dishes, Shepherd’s Pie, is something you’ll never look at the same way again. “I’ll make a jerk Shepherd’s Pie,” she says, noting how she incorporates Caribbean fusion into her cooking. “You’re still going to get that English feel, but it’s going to have a twist of the Caribbean in it.”