Hi y'all, I'm Carly Beardshear, executive chef and owner of Daily Chew Catering. I started Daily Chew Catering in 2018 to celebrate my love for food and to pursue my dream of becoming a chef. Here's a little about me...

I was born and raised in Palm Springs, CA then moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma with my family when I was 11 years old…this is when my love for comfort food developed. To this day, two of my favorite things to eat are mac & cheese and chicken fingers, and I blame this on Oklahoma!

I discovered my passion for food and cooking when I was very young. Having two working parents with full-time jobs pretty much guaranteed that we would be eating take-out or frozen dinners with canned green beans. I constantly found myself asking my mom if I could cook dinner for us, which I later realized was because I was traumatized from eating Hamburger Helper three nights a week. I began to experiment in the kitchen by using anything I could find in the fridge or pantry and attempting to make a meal out of it. Looking back, it was almost like I was competing on Chopped with random basket ingredients for the majority of my childhood.

When I started college at the University of San Diego (USD) I quickly learned that living in the dorms was going to be quite difficult since I only had a microwave and mini-fridge. Luckily, my older sister also went to USD, and we worked out an agreement where I could come cook her dinner if she bought the groceries (win-win!). I was once again in my happy place with the creative freedom to cook any and everything…and I didn’t even have to pay for the ingredients!

Being on my own in college and having the freedom to buy my own ingredients allowed me to further my cooking skills and teach myself how to craft some amazing recipes. Prior to buying my own ingredients, I wouldn’t have even been able to identify the majority of the vegetables in a Whole Foods store. Once I started grocery shopping on my own, I started to buy anything I hadn't heard of to familiarize myself with the ingredient. Today, you’d think I work at Whole Foods by the amount of random knowledge I have about produce and ethnic ingredients.

In 2016, I graduated from USD with a marketing major and an international business minor. Soon after, I started a corporate job as a social media manager for an ad agency dealing with high-profile clients. I quickly realized this was far from what I saw myself doing long term. I was working 50-60 hours a week which left me with no time or energy to cook for myself. After a year and a half of misery, I gave my two weeks notice with no plan in sight. The next month I was unemployed and absolutely loving life. I was constantly in the kitchen and immediately fell back in love with cooking. I would spend 4-5 hours a day preparing gourmet meals for myself and others, which ultimately led me to the realization that my true passion in life had always been food. I decided that the easiest way for me to dive into the culinary world would be to start a catering company since I had very little capital after being unemployed. Starting this company has given me the opportunity to provide intimate and unforgettable moments for my clients while also getting to know them on a more personal level. I’m so fortunate to share in all of these memories and I wouldn’t trade it for the world!