Good Neighbor Podcast: Fort Collins

How A Holistic Chef Brings Organic, Nutrition-Driven Food To Your Door

• Nick George • Season 1 • Episode 122

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What if dinner could be both deeply nourishing and easier than takeout? We sit down with holistic personal chef Angie Spuzak to explore how in-home cooking and weekly meal delivery can transform family food routines without blowing the budget. Angie walks us through her model—organic, seasonal ingredients, nutrition-forward menus, and zero use of bad oils or refined sugar—so every plate supports energy, recovery, and real-life schedules.

Angie breaks down practical pricing and explains why a personal chef isn’t just for special occasions. When you compare a week of restaurant meals to five days of prepped lunches and dinners, costs shift and quality skyrockets. She specializes in tailored diets: gluten-free, dairy-free, post-surgery recovery, cancer support, and sustainable weight loss. Each plan puts flavor first—think clean proteins, colorful vegetables, and smart carbs—so healthy eating feels effortless, not restrictive.

We also dig into the business side. Angie built steady demand with strong SEO, a recipe-rich blog called The Tastes Of Life, and a growing content ecosystem that includes social media and an upcoming YouTube channel. Her immigrant journey from Poland, arriving with limited English and just $500, shaped a resilient approach to entrepreneurship and food. That grit shows up in every service: clear communication, consistent quality, and menus that respect culture, seasonality, and health goals.

Ready to rethink dinner and reclaim your weeknights? Press play, meet Angie’s world of holistic cooking, and see how strategic meal planning can lift stress, improve health, and bring joy back to the table. If you enjoyed this conversation, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs easier meals, and leave a quick review to help others find us.

SPEAKER_00:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Nick George.

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Today I have the great pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, Angie Spoozak, with Angie's Secret Garden. Angie, how's it going today?

SPEAKER_01:

Pretty good. How are you?

SPEAKER_02:

Excellent. It looks like you do um in-home catering at next level in-home catering. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I am a holistic personal chef, basically. So I come to people's homes and I cook uh at their home. And I also work at the little kitchen, so I also deliver the food on a weekly basis. Um, so basically, I uh make a food for an entire week for the families.

SPEAKER_02:

Nice. How did you get into this business?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I used to have a couple restaurants in Arizona and Sedona and uh smaller towns over there, and then I moved to Boulder, and like I didn't want to have restaurants anymore, so I decided, I don't know, I was talking to someone and like, oh, there's this idea now that uh you can go to people's homes and cook. It's called like a private cook or personal chef, and I'm like, oh, that sounds kind of good. And I think that it was like kind of like a first one here because that was a long time ago, it was like 15 years ago. I don't think that there was any personal chef then. So that's why I decided to get in into it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I've never even heard of it done exactly this way. Um, can you tell me what the price range is, depending on how big the family is? Let's say an average family of of uh four or five people, uh, two parents and uh and uh two adults and three children, um, you know, what's what's what's the low and the high range for a week worth of gourmet food from you?

SPEAKER_01:

If I have to come to people's home, it starts at 500, but if I deliver it uh starts at 250 and goes up with the amount of meals they want me to cook.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, that sounds very reasonable for the kind of food that I saw on your website that you prepare, which is the best, uh the best quality. Um, what are some myths or misconceptions in home catering?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I think the main one is that it's very expensive, but it's not because uh basically, like if you go um for the meal with the family, you spend you know around$100 now and even more for dinners, right? So like if you uh if you have five days, they usually cook for five days for lunch and dinner. So they have meals for lunch and dinner, that comes down to a pretty good price. And and I am like a holistic chef, so everything I use is organic. Uh, I'm also a nutritionist, so I cook very healthy meals, and I don't use like bad oils, I don't use normal sugar. It's just like everything is like you know, seasonal and uh locally sourced, so it's a really good quality of food.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's making me hungry just thinking about it, actually. I probably shouldn't have started this interview on an empty stomach.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So um we we know that marketing is the heart of every business. How are who is your target family client? Who's your target client, let's say, just in case it's not just families, but baby businesses, and and how are you trying to reach out to them now in the digital world?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, my perfect client, I think I I cook for a lot of anybody really, but I specialize in different kinds of diets. So people with any sorts of health issues, uh, if they're on gluten-free diet, that dairy-free diet, or if they're recovering from surgery, they're recovering from cancer, or like if they want to lose weight. Uh, so those are like um like my target clients. But basically, uh I cook for for all families, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And and how does Word get around in the digital world?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I have a very good SEO, so that's why.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow, that's a good answer.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I've always had a good one. So this is basically my main how I get my business and referrals. I used to go to networking groups and uh you know all sorts of things, but that didn't quite work well for me. So uh I started to put more money into the search engine optimization of my website, and then it started to grow. So that's basically how I get all my clients and reperoles.

SPEAKER_02:

Did you tell your SEO person you were gonna do this? No, but I'm gonna have you ever thought about doing your own podcast?

SPEAKER_01:

Me? Uh yes, I mean I'm I'm working on my on the YouTube channel because I also uh started a blog two years ago, which is called The Tastes of Life.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's when I did you say that again?

SPEAKER_01:

Detastes of Life.com. Yeah, so basically that's where I put all my recipes, and it's like a nutrition and cooking blog, and I also put a lot of uh recipes from my country, from Poland, so it's also very very healthy and nutritious food that people can go and just you know choose the recipes. And so after I'm almost like cleaning up everything there, and then I can focus on uh starting a YouTube channel so I can cook for people on uh on the YouTube.

SPEAKER_02:

That sounds like fun, that sounds like a really good idea. Um what uh what are all the ways that people can find you right now um on the internet? What what's your website?

SPEAKER_01:

It's ngsecretgarden.com and detastes of life.com. I have a Facebook page, I have an Instagram page. Um that's pretty much what I what I can do. Everything is a lot.

SPEAKER_02:

Is there um is there a struggle that maybe you went through in your life that made you stronger and want to be an entrepreneur and um that you want to share with with the listeners, maybe?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I've always I've always been an entrepreneur, even uh in my country when uh I come from Poland and uh when I was raised, it was still a communism. So I always wanted to leave at that time because I wanted to do bigger things, and so I decided to move. And uh I actually originally wanted to move somewhere else, and then I ended up in the United States, and I think that was my biggest challenge, one of the biggest challenges, because when I moved to this country, I didn't speak English at all. So it was everything was the first being on a plane first, getting in the United States first, and everything was just crazy here, like huge, and like you know, the first years was really uh very difficult. And actually, two weeks after I got here, September 11 happened. So that was a lot of fear morning and a lot of other stuff, and I wasn't sure if I'm going to stay, but like I really wanted to learn English, and uh, so I finally decided okay, I'm going to stay. And you know, I I like didn't speak English, so I had to work for myself. So I used to pass flyers from home to home to final jobs, and yes, it was entire adventure, it was, but like I think that made me uh a stronger person for sure, because I had to make it. I only had five$500 in my pocket, so I had to make it.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, Angie, what are all the what do you do for fun when you're not making people happy and healthy with food?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh food photography, making recipes and hiking with my dogs. I love dogs and animals and travel, um, reading, listening, audibles and books on different subjects. So basically, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Awesome. Well, Angie, we really appreciate you being on the show, and we wish you and Angie's secret garden the very best moving forward.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpfortcollins.com. That's gnpfortcollins.com or call nine seven zero four three eight zero eight two five.