16 years of Veet’s Vegan Cooking School

Profiles > Work / Play

The story of Veet Karen’s successful venture in Australia, from catering to teaching

On 19th May 2008, I took courage and started a business – despite the fact that I didn’t come from a line of entrepreneurs; my family had for generations worked for the man (although my mama and grandpa did for some years have a turn at owning a pub).

To follow a passion of mine, cooking, I decided to created a home delivery service in my area – and anyone who knows the Byron Shire (NSW, Australia) will know what a mammoth task this is.

I would start cooking at 5am, be done by 2pm at the latest, then start delivery. Up dirt driveways. Being chased by dogs. Staggering down rocks and boulders to find studios on people’s rambling properties. Letting myself into houses to pop the food into the fridge… Being shouted at by unreasonable people for going to the wrong address.

But… I did it. And I could live from it, but I made only a little money since I packed my organic meals in expensive returnable containers funded by my first investor (my beloved Mak).

But I began to be known.

It still makes me giggle when I go somewhere and someone says, “Oh, I still have one of your containers at home,” even though I know full well that they had never ordered a meal from me. Maybe someone had brought them some food for a potluck in one of my containers? In fact my containers (each one worth over $10) are all over the shire. Funny but not.

Anyway, that little business got me known in the shire and I was soon booked at music gigs. This was good, but always so unpredictable – sometimes a roaring success and at other times I would come home with 6 unsold cakes.

The worst, I remember, was when I catered for a musician who hadn’t even planned a f###ing interval, although he knew well I was there – he had come and collected his complimentary food before the show! I must write to him about this, because I have to forgive him one day.

At the time, though, I was grateful to him because he was the catalyst for me to stop catering for music gigs and to focus solely on catering for retreats. This became a success, paying the rent and funding the holidays I seemed addicted to in those days.

My first-ever catering gig was for 12 people. Then the venue rang and told me they had booked in a second gig for those same days, “You will have to cater for it as well. Our kitchen is too small to have you and a second caterer working in there.” Of course I would do it, but I had no idea if I could. There were now an additional 35 people who wanted an entirely different menu to what I had planned for the original 12 people.

Not having yet leaned, in those early days in business, how to make boundaries, I said I would do it. With the help of 3 very incredible people – Mel, Samantha and Pathika – I did it. And it was a success!

The venue were impressed and they recommended me to others, and so I went on to secure all the big jobs. Thank you, Power Living, for the days when there were 55 people on your retreats. We all rocked it!

Just before I secured that first catering gig, I had started to get the wobbles, wondering if I could really be a business owner. I often felt small and insignificant as a caterer, although I had learned to stay my ground in front of a class of excited schoolchildren during my 13 years of teaching.

I was doubting myself a lot, until I stumbled upon the words by Osho that were played at my sannyas celebration in 1998: ‘Sannyas is initiation into freedom, making you aware about your wings, making you also aware that the whole sky, with all its stars, is yours. You need not worry about security and safety: existence is taking care of so many birds, so many trees, so many stars – it can take care of you too.’ (The Razor’s Edge, Ch 21, Q 1)

Then, doing the Path of Love process with Turiya and Rafia in 2009, something really big shifted in me. From then on there was no stopping me. I was away from home, catering, 1/3 of the year for 8 years. I was driven, and loved the intensity of 16-hour work days.

In 2015, I decided I should put my primary school teacher’s degree to good use. I had noticed that there were no trainings for vegetarian chefs out there, let alone vegan chefs. That same year I created a vegan chef training.

I started teaching cooking classes every month and sometimes every fortnight. There was a real need for them; the classes were always booked out.

I was giving classes while keeping my catering business going. Thanks to the impeccable staff I had, it worked. I had up to 7 wonderful people on the books. During the last few years, I couldn’t have done it without Metche, my sous chef who stepped in and ran retreats on her own, helped by her brother-in-law Wayne, who did the set ups and pack ups, which we would call the ‘bump in and outs’.

At the end of 2019, I decided to stop catering; I could no longer do both the school and the business. It was a sad decision… but I was ready.

We all know what happened in 2020. I had no idea how I could move my work online. I went into flight mode, rather than fight, and went back to catering – cooking for heaps of people in the shire, making their empty days at home more enjoyable by having my food in their freezers. They didn’t want me to stop cooking for them, but then the school was beckoning.

The following year, when lockdown was lifted, I decided to extend my knowledge about food and enrolled in university to get a degree in nutrition.

And roll on to now: I am absolutely proficient in running online cooking classes – and they are thriving. I am exactly at the stage in my business where I want to be – helping people get and stay healthy through food.

Wow, what a journey it has been! 16 years ago, when I set off on my first-ever delivery service, I didn’t have an inkling of where my business would be today. I am chuffed beyond belief.

I am also very grateful that on this journey I have discovered how wonderful it is to go from a vegetarian to a vegan diet, one which I will remain on for the rest of my life.

Vegan food is so delicious! I love the pleasure of eating taste-popping mouthfuls of such clean, good, organic, sustainable food.

I highly recommend embarking on a business of your own. Some days can be super tough, but the personal growth, and the interaction with people, have made the tough days seem insignificant.

Only two weeks ago, after a year or more of not really feeling connected to Osho, I grabbed the Book of Secrets off my bookshelf and out fell a piece of paper with the words from my sannyas celebration. I took it as a sign to start going through the meditations in the book. I feel my love for Osho rekindling.

I am forever grateful, along this path in business, for the lessons I learned from Osho’s work. If it were not for Osho, I do not believe I would have been so brave in taking the business to where it is today.

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Veet Karen

Passionate and ethical vegan cooking school facilitator. veets.com.aufacebook.com

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