Greater than 70% of People say a rewarding profession or job is extraordinarily necessary for them to stay a satisfying life — extra necessary than household, pals or wealth. CBS Information interviewed a broad array of staff who selected distinctive jobs, for a collection we name: Distinctive jobs, extraordinary lives. 

Katya Ekimian, a personal chef with a background in vogue design, has created customized knit robes for high-profile company at occasions together with the famed Met Gala. She’s properly conscious of how a lot appearances matter – at a current vogue world feast, Ekimian, accountable for the meals, not the attire, knew to verify each regarded and tasted nice.

“I usually work with actors, folks in vogue, artwork and design, as a result of I believe there’s a pure connection. With my background, it is pure that my purchasers can be in that line of labor,” she mentioned. 

She has made 5 customized attire for Sandra Jarvis Weiss, who’s married to Daniel Weiss, the previous CEO and President of the Met, for the museum’s annual ball, certainly one of vogue’s most-watched occasions. 

Whereas she referred to as the expertise “a really particular chapter” in her design profession, she now spends her time enthusiastic about meals, together with its taste and bodily kind. 

“I really like highlighting produce as near its pure kind and taste. I can be fairly playful and foolish with a few of my purchasers; adorning meals with cattle, themed dinners, writing little messages within the meals. It is all the time good enjoyable when households have youngsters as properly,” she mentioned. 

It is a provided that her meals must style good for purchasers to maintain coming again, however it’s additionally necessary {that a} desk setting look lovely and bountiful, she mentioned. She provides private touches to the way in which she plates meals and units tables. “Having the ability to have full artistic management over a complete night is absolutely enjoyable,” she mentioned. “It has a lot to do with appearances, and I actually get pleasure from making meals look actually fairly and enjoyable. I really like a giant, joyful, colourful meal.”

It is not simply aesthetic — consuming meals of various colours appears to be like good and likewise “makes for nice dietary steadiness,” Ekimian mentioned. 

Russian-American Ekimian, 25, was born in Washington, D.C., and lived in Cairo, Egypt as a young person. At age 17, she moved to New York Metropolis to review vogue on the Parsons College of Design.

In contrast to many non-public cooks, Ekimian entered the sphere by means of an sudden path. As a pupil in New York Metropolis seeking further revenue, she began cooking meals for rich households. Later, at age 19, whereas working a summer time job at a farm on Martha’s Winery, an island off the coast of Massachusetts, she resumed non-public cheffing and has since constructed a strong shopper checklist by phrase of mouth.

“Proper place on the proper time”

“I used to be on the proper place on the proper time, however I additionally had the expertise,” Ekimian informed CBS MoneyWatch. She had labored as a personal chef getting ready weekly meals for a household in Harlem, New York; a gig she secured by responding to a job posting on Care.com, a web site that connects households with caregivers. She had additionally labored at a meals corridor at Yosemite Nationwide Park, cooking buffet-style meals for greater than 500 company every day – her model of culinary college. 

Lots of her friends attended culinary college and later entered the restaurant world. There are roughly 174,400 cooks and head cooks within the U.S., based on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2022, the median wage for cooks was $56,520. In contrast, there are fewer non-public cooks, who earn a median of $45,510 yearly, based on the BLS. 

Ekimian paved her path by combining her creative sensibility together with her on-the-job expertise on the meals corridor. 

“It was the precise reverse of being a personal chef,” she mentioned, including that it is the place she discovered about meals security and picked up different expertise required for the job. “I cooked kilos and kilos of bacon for a buffet. I discovered lots about meals security and dealing with. As a result of it was a giant company, all the pieces needed to be by the ebook and FDA-approved. It was all standardized. To see meals being produced at that enormous a scale was actually informative.”

There was tons of demand for cooks on Martha’s Winery and “usually you are caught with whoever you’ll find on an island,” mentioned Ekimian. “After I received there folks had been excited that I used to be new there, they usually mentioned, ‘Let’s use her.'”

Whereas she did not disclose the names of her purchasers for privateness causes, it is dwelling to a number of high-profile summer time residents starting from Hollywood actors to gamers within the political sphere. Former President Barack Obama has owned an island dwelling since 2020. 

“That basically launched my profession. I’d go over to folks’s homes in my overalls and prepare dinner them meals. It actually was an awesome alternative to be in an awesome place with wonderful produce I’d get from native farms, plus the set of clientele. My whole shopper checklist has webbed off of that summer time,” Ekimian mentioned. 

She presently juggles about seven to 10 purchasers at a time, which she considers a full workload. A few of her purchasers ask for weekly meal prep, whereas others rent her to prepare dinner for dinner events. 

In New York Metropolis, it isn’t unusual for a shopper to achieve out and ask her to prepare dinner for a celebration the day earlier than the occasion.  

“Generally it is like, ‘Are you free tomorrow night time?'” she mentioned.  

“You may’t be company”

Ekimian occupies a novel place in her purchasers’ lives. She’s cooked for a variety of purchasers with uncommon dietary wants, together with skilled athletes with strict regimens, actors making an attempt to chop weight for film roles, and other people experimenting with a brand new crop of appetite-suppressing medication, like Ozempic. 

She turned involved sooner or later when a longtime shopper did not eat their meal, “I assumed there should have been one thing fallacious with it. However they mentioned, ‘No, it is so yummy, we’re simply full.’ And that is once I realized they’re all on Ozempic,” she informed CBS MoneyWatch.

However folks who solely take just a few bites of meals and gawk on the relaxation make up a small sliver of her clientele – many others open up their lives and houses to her. It may be a tricky steadiness, she mentioned. 

“You may’t be company, particularly in long-term gigs, however it’s a steadiness,” Ekimian mentioned. “You need to be heat and pleasant since you’re in somebody’s dwelling, however you additionally all the time want to take care of a degree of professionalism.” 

She will spend all day in somebody’s dwelling, usually alone, however is not their good friend or part of their household. She tries to take care of a demeanor she describes as “pleasant professionalism.”

She nearly all the time works solo; it is hardly ever cost-effective to rent assist. Which suggests she spends most of her days alone. That features time spent looking for groceries and substances, prepping meals, labeling Tupperware containers and organizing purchasers’ fridges. She sources the majority of her substances from farmers markets or immediately from farms. 

“It is lonely, and it is the identical for everybody. You are so drained on the finish of the day that each one you wish to do is lie down and go to mattress, and also you understand that you have been alone for 15 hours,” she mentioned.

There are upsides to her distinctive association that make it a satisfying profession, although. She usually travels with households she cooks for, with jobs taking her to Europe and the Caribbean.

“It is an unimaginable perk of the job and such a particular alternative when you may have an awesome bond with a household. It all the time makes the job a lot extra enjoyable. And if you end your shift, you may go for a stroll and do your personal exploring,” she mentioned. 

Full artistic management

In her first job doing meal prep for a household in Harlem, she earned $15 an hour. She now has set hourly, every day and month-to-month charges, relying on the size of a job. In accordance with Certainly.com, New York Metropolis-based non-public cooks earn a median of $38 an hour, and as much as about $60 on the excessive finish. 

She mentioned she makes extra money than she thinks she would in a vogue or design job, however nonetheless will get to freelance as a knitwear designer. 

She additionally finds methods to be artistic whereas cooking, each with substances and flavors, and aesthetics – an final result most seen when she caters to vogue occasions. “There’s some enjoyable crossover to it,” she mentioned. “That is once I can get actually artistic with what I’m making,” Ekimian mentioned. 

Her fantasy is for her dinner company to put on her knitwear creations whereas consuming her meals. 

“It might really feel like a dream having the ability to create my very own little world. Designing after which producing each facet of what goes on the physique and within it,” she mentioned. “For me, cooking and creating clothes can also be a type of love so it will be the final word expression of myself.”