Meet Emma Gabay: Founder, Creator, and Food Enthusiast

We had the good fortune of connecting with Emma Gabay and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Emma, can you share the most important lesson you’ve learned over the course of your career?
Sometimes we don’t need to know what tomorrow will look like today. It might be scary. But the opposite of fear is discovery. The most growth and personal development will happen during these treacherous times. Acknowledge the uncertainty. Seek the discomfort. Embrace your own journey. When you’re facing the inevitable hardships, it’s worth remembering this bit of navigation advice: “there’s no such thing as a yellow brick road.”

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the distance of your goals that we forget the joy that can be found in the journey. Our goals might not make sense to others, they might seem too far to reach for, they might be so small that it might not look like a goal.

As we take steps along our journeys, there’s a certain joy to be found in the mistakes we learn from and the skills we develop. It’s worth taking the time to stop and enjoy these discoveries and allow us to be captured by the world.

Of course, every journey has its problems and road blocks. People might come in your way (good or bad), a concept might be difficult to grasp, a hurdle might be hard to pass, etc. However, we can take inspiration from all of this. We can change our perspectives. We can lend a helping hand, open our hearts, and lift our heads. We need to remind ourselves that new experiences are good, not bad.

Being an entrepreneur is hard. Adding young and inexperienced on top of that can be very scary. It can be very tough to not only educate yourself on running a business and keep your ambitions in check until you expand, but also to deal with the day to day issues that most people encounter.

It’s very easy to get sucked in and feel like you’re not good enough or smart enough to run a business or to even follow your goals. It’s easy to feel like you’re running behind everyone.

This is a friendly reminder that life has its surprises. It’s not meant to be easy. Just set goals for yourself, follow your passions, and change your perspective. At least, that’s what I’m doing.

What should our readers know about your business?
I exist to create food and beverage related content and experiences that humans love. I operate multiple businesses that, at their core help brands, talent and publishers to connect with fans through their passion for eating and drinking. My most cherished memories are with my mom in the kitchen watching her create beautiful meals from recipes she meticulously kept on index cards and printed paper. Those moments gave me indescribable joy and I quickly realized my calling was to build businesses and organizations that would allow others to access this same happiness and fulfillment.

Cuiscene Studio is a modern marketing solutions agency that creates captivating “Tasty” style videos that simplify complex recipes into overhead shot, highly visual digital stories. The ingredients really take center stage and this vibrant short form content can scale rapidly.

Our offering also includes food-related brand strategy, photography and styling, GIFs, animation, graphics, illustrations and eBook development. I have a team of dozens of multi-disciplinary collaborators and specialists – brand marketers, experiential experts, visual designers, creative strategists and producers that are located around the country. We are super agile and build bespoke teams for our clients.

I’m humbled and grateful that our company has been trusted by some of the world’s most iconic brands such as BuzzFeed, Amazon, Cali’Flour Foods, and Kitchen Aid as well as innovative startups, small businesses and funded entrepreneurs including Prince Street Pizza, The Blender Girl and Big Spoon Roasters among others.

Food is an exploding industry. We’re not the first culinary-minded content studio, but we are digitally-native and largely born during a pandemic that has seen a seismic shift in people’s relationship with food and fever-pitched interest in cooking. Coming from a big marketing agency background myself, I like to think we’re a unique blend of brand savvy, forward-looking, food and drink experts informed by business acumen and data but inspired by culture.

I also am the founder of a contemporary culinary lifestyle brand Inspired Foody, which I created to share my long-standing passion for cooking and recipe documentation. It’s a fun, laid-back brand with a serious mission: showing people how easy and accessible good, sustainable food can be to cook. Food has this uncommon power to bring us together and start meaningful conversation. This cruel pandemic has robbed people of what they crave most: shared experiences. I hope that when people check out Inspired Foody they can find a bit of humanity in time that has been so inhumane and that it motivates people to try new things and push outside their comfort zone…even if that is something as simple as cooking a meal for the first time. It started as a hustle, and I’ve been blessed to develop a large and engaged following that has allowed me to create an integrated network of businesses.

Last, but certainly not least, I am the proprietor of Babka Betches, a new product service offering that lives under Inspired Foody. As the name implies we create seriously good, addictive babka. I have a friend who has consulted for multiple James Beard Award winning chefs who has said it is “revelatory babka,” and “the best babka he’s ever tasted.” I’ll leave it to your readers to judge…they can purchase one here.

My journey has been really unique and serendipitous. My business and ideas started when I was a student at Duke. I was extremely close to dropping out to build my career. But, my mom, wisely, encouraged me to stay in school. Now, a few years later, I am honored to call these widely known companies a partner at Cuiscene Studio and humbled by their trust.

Starting a business is never easy, that’s why most people are too scared to take risks. I’m in my 20s and you would think this is the age people would take their chances, but it’s quite the opposite. It feels that most people are cautious and like to play it safe. I think it’s funny since we are natural born risk takers when we’re children, but when the world is our oyster, people tend to hide. So be brave, begin your story and go out there and let your passions inform what you do with your life.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Welcome to paradise! Los Angeles is the city of dreams, where you can make anything happen, whether you’re pursuing a career in entertainment, pitching your startup in Silicon Beach, or venturing to space.

Our next few days will explore different neighborhoods so you get a perspective of all the areas that make LA so unique. Let’s start on the West Side with Venice Beach to put you in the chill West Coast mindset. We’ll grab breakfast burritos at Great White, lunch and coffee at the hidden gem of Gjusta, and walk along Abbot Kinney Blvd aka the coolest street in America. We’ll have to explore the Venice Canals, which were commissioned by Mr. Abbot Kinney himself in the 1920s to recreate the Italian Venice in America. We can rent some bikes and follow the beach path to the Santa Monica Pier for sunset before wine and cheese at Kustaa and dinner at Pizzana in Brentwood. We’ll stay in Venice for the week so we have walking distance restaurants, bars, stores, and the Marina in our backyard.

Tuesday we’ll drive down PCH to Malibu to make it over to Cafe Habana for their burritos and hike along the ridge of Corral Canyon, ending the day with the Pacific Palisades vista point Top of the World. We’ll take Sunset up to West Hollywood where we catch dinner at Prince Street Pizza and a stand-up show at The Comedy Store, where the best comedians in the world practice their top material during the week before venturing to other cities on the weekends. Only in LA!

On Wednesday, to get a better feel of Hollywood, we’ll have brunch at Bacari W. 3rd then go to CBS Studios and catch a taping of The Late Late Show with James Corden. The sun will have gone down before we’re out, so we can see The Grove and LACMA Lights at night. We’ll grab dinner at Petit Trois for a fun French atmosphere where the chefs are dancing to hip-hop on the speakers.

Since it’s still a weekday, that means the crowds will still be smaller at…DISNEYLAND. We can spend all day with our Mickey ears at the Happiest Place on Earth. I promise you, after a full day walking around the park, we’ll be drained. Dinner at another restaurant can wait until tomorrow. If we’re feeling SUPER adventurous, we’ll drive down to the valley to hit my favorite gelato spot, Tifa.

On Friday, we’ll make our way Downtown to check out Egg Slut for breakfast sandwiches, The Last Bookstore, Bradbury Building, and Arts District Brewery. We can grab an early sushi dinner at Sushi Gen in Little Tokyo, since some of the best sushi places in the country are in this city. But no trip to LA is complete without a game at STAPLES Center to watch the world champion Lakers.

The weekend has arrived! Let’s take a Saturday morning hike up behind the Hollywood Sign and Wisdom Tree to overlook the San Fernando Valley. Since everyone loves talking about every show they’ve binged recently, we can take a studio tour at Universal Studios. If we have time, we’ll grab some poolside day drinks at the Cara Hotel in Thai Town. We’ve had meals made for us all week – now we’ll cook for ourselves at Brothers Korean BBQ before lounging at a Rooftop Cinema Club film in Hollywood.

We’ve been running around a ton this week. Our last day here we can hang out by the beach. LA’s food culture revolves around pop-ups and always finding the newest spots. Of course, we’ll have to seek out all the unnamed taco stands late at night and popular new joints like Heavy Handed smashburgers in Venice.

PHEW. We’ve gone all around the city, so I hope it gave you an idea of how variegated the culture of this city is, how much there is to do and see, and how much more we can adventure to! We didn’t even have time for Culver City, the South Bay, the San Fernando Valley, Westwood, or even the mountains like at Big Bear. Come back again soon! Or better yet, come move here and enjoy the sun 330 days a year with us!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My family is my inspiration because they teach me positivity and simplicity. They push me to focus on my goals and follow my passions. They teach me how to be strong and fight my problems. They inspire me to push my shoulders back, keep my head held high, and always have a smile on my face.

Website: inspiredfoody.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiredfoody/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-gabay/