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"Is anyone a fan of Cupcake Wars on the Food Network? I somehow always manage to watch it while I&amp;#x27;m on the elliptical (this is either a great idea or a terrible idea, though I&amp;#x27;ve yet to figure out which), and I remember catching one episode about which I was particularly excited. It featured a young, female vegan chef, Chloe Coscarelli, who ended up winning the whole show--the first vegan baker to snag a title. Woo! Then, Chef Chloe popped up again......this time, in the New York Times, while I was researching recipes for my vegan Thanksgiving this year. Since then, Chef Chloe has officially been on my radar. When I found out she&amp;#x27;d just released her debut cookbook, Chloe&amp;#x27;s Kitchen: 125 Easy, Delicious Recipes for Making the Food Your Love the Vegan Way, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to not only introduce you to her food, but to Coscarelli herself. Coscarelli went to University of California, Berkeley, but decided cooking was really her passion. So, she headed to New York City to attend the Natural Gourmet Institute of Health and Culinary Arts and Cornell&amp;#x27;s Plat-Based Nutrition Program. Needless to say, she&amp;#x27;s found her calling. I chatted with Coscarelli about the highs and the challenges of being a young, female go-getter, and I think you&amp;#x27;re going to like what she has to say! GLAMOUR: What do you find most challenging in the food industry: being young, a woman or a vegan? What do you do to combat that opposition, and how did you learn to do it? CHLOE COSCARELLI: That&amp;#x27;s a tough question because I&amp;#x27;ve experienced difficulty with all three! But I&amp;#x27;m going to go with being young. I&amp;#x27;m 24 years old, but without makeup, I look like I&amp;#x27;m 12. I&amp;#x27;m also a perfectionist, so during the making of my first cookbook, Chloe&amp;#x27;s Kitchen, there were a lot of times where I needed to speak up to people who were twice my age, whether it was asking a photographer to redo a photo because I wasn&amp;#x27;t happy with it or asking a food stylist to add more sauce to the pasta. I&amp;#x27;ve always struggled with balancing &amp;quot;being nice&amp;quot; and standing up for myself, but I&amp;#x27;ve learned that remaining calm and phrasing things in the most polite way possible is key. Another great tip is to send a well-written email to someone rather than engaging in a face-to-face confrontation where your age may put you at a disadvantage. GLAMOUR: What&amp;amp;#8217;s your overarching motto or attitude towards overcoming obstacles and taking risks? CHLOE COSCARELLI: I&amp;#x27;ve always been huge on taking risks. Even at a young age, I was always the one trying out for the part in the school musical that I didn&amp;#x27;t stand a chance at! Why not? The more you go for and the more risks you take, the stronger you will get and the sweeter success will be. You MUST believe in your own success or no one will. GLAMOUR: Did you always have an entrepreneurial spirit? CHLOE COSCARELLI: Not so much. I became an entrepreneur simply because I wanted to create a job for myself doing what I loved. It hit me one day while I was baking an elaborate four-tiered vegan birthday cake for roommate in college that THIS is what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing. This might sound crazy, but I can physically feel the passion, fire, and excitement in my heart when I&amp;#x27;m in the kitchen. Managing my business and building my brand is a lot of work, but it all stems from a passion that I cannot ignore! GLAMOUR: Do you keep your personal life and your work life separate, or are they inextricably intertwined at this point? What effect do you think that&amp;amp;#8217;s had on your success? CHLOE COSCARELLI: I wish I could say that I keep them perfectly separate and balanced, but that would be far from true. I work from home with tons of help from my incredible mom and my four dogs are always barking in the background on my business calls. Some days I have so much recipes testing to do that I never leave my pajamas and fuzzy socks! I sometimes work all through the night because everything I do is a labor of love. It tires me out, but it&amp;#x27;s impossible to &amp;quot;clock out&amp;quot; of your dreams. I often envy my friends who get dressed every morning in cute business casual outfits for their nine to five jobs, but I guess the kale is always greener on the other side! GLAMOUR: What&amp;amp;#8217;s been your most surprising, or even shocking, experience so far as a result of where your career has taken you? CHLOE COSCARELLI: I never ever expected to have my own cookbook out just a few years after college! When I made the choice to go to culinary school, I told myself it was just for fun. I thought, If nothing comes of it, at least I will do what I love and be able to make great meals for my family and kids when I&amp;#x27;m older. One thing led to another, and now I get to cook every day as an actual career! GLAMOUR:Are you comfortable with being looked up to as an inspiring role model, both in the food world and as a leading woman? CHLOE COSCARELLI: I love it and feel so honored when young girls and women write me to tell me that I have inspired them! I can always relate. I know what it is like to go to prom without a date, struggle to choose a major in college, be the only female working in a restaurant kitchen of men, or make a crazy decision like taking my college degree to culinary school. I&amp;#x27;ve been through a lot of the typical and not-so-typical &amp;quot;girl stuff&amp;quot; and I&amp;#x27;m always happy to share my experiences! GLAMOUR: What advice would you give a young woman trying to pave a path that has something of an offbeat slant, like, let&amp;amp;#8217;s say, a vegan chef? CHLOE COSCARELLI: Go for it, girl! There is nothing more thrilling than paving your own path and we are so lucky to live in a day and age with the internet at our fingertips. Start a blog or Twitter account and begin sharing your unique gifts with the world! Don&amp;#x27;t listen to any naysayers--sometimes even your closest friends will doubt your choices. Everyone will always have an opinion on what you should be doing with your life, but the only one that matters is your own! And what kind of Glamour writer would I bet without leaving you with one of Chloe&amp;#x27;s recipes? Straight from Chloe&amp;#x27;s Kitchen, enjoy this sweet treat! Here&amp;#x27;s the page in Chloe&amp;#x27;s book where you can find this recipe. How good do they look?! Cinnamon-Espresso Chocolate Chip Cookies MAKES 26 3-INCH COOKIES Make-Ahead Tip: Cookie dough can be made in advance and kept refrigerated for up to 1 week or frozen for up to 1 month. 2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup vegan margarine 3 tablespoons instant espresso powder 1 cup powdered sugar 1/2 cup packed brown sugar 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (dairy-free) About 1/4 cup granulated sugar for sprinkling Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 or 3 large baking sheets with Silpat or parchment paper. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Using a mixer, beat margarine and espresso powder until well combined. Add powdered sugar and brown sugar, and beat until combined. Mix in the flour mixture 1/2 cup at a time. If dough seems too dry to scoop, add 1 to 2 tablespoons water. Stir in chocolate chips. Scoop about 2 tablespoons dough at a time. Roll each scoop in a small plate of sugar. Place each scoop, round side up, on the prepared baking sheets, about 2 inches apart. For crisp cookies, gently flatten the dough with the palm of your hand. For soft cookies, leave as is. Bake about 12 to 14 minutes, or until the edges are browned. Let cool and serve. BRB, faking sick so I can go home and bake. (Not really, editors! But that doesn&amp;#x27;t mean I don&amp;#x27;t want to.) Pretty cool that Chloe followed her dream, right? If you could drop everything right now and follow your passion, would you become a chef? Something else? Photo Courtesy of Free Press"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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