I’ve known Deann (a.k.a. Pepsi) since high school. In the picture, she’s the one with the fly hairstyle in the middle of the back row and I’m the one rockin’ the collared/buttoned dress shirt with tennis shoes (wtf was going on with my style, btw). When Pepsi’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013, she started selling desserts to raise money to help her parents pay medical bills. A year later, Pepsi hit a fork in the road when her job didn’t offer a permanent position after some time on furlough. She decided it was time to attend culinary school and set a goal to graduate with an Associates in Baking/Pastry and Culinary Arts in 3 years. Pepsi met her goal and graduated from The International Culinary School at the Art Institute of Indianapolis in September 2017.
Pepsi creates delicious, home-cooked meals, especially around holidays when everyone could use a little help getting food on the table. Her baking game is on point but you can see by those crab legs in the picture that she doesn’t just still to desserts.
I almost featured Deann’s Delectable Dishes (D3) on my Hustlin’ Honeys post, that I dedicated to women that I know that run a side hustle outside of their 9-5. However, unlike my dabbling in painting, I can tell that Pepsi’s love for cooking is going to be main gig. When you support my high school friend, your money is going straight to a self-made woman with a big heart.