10/11/2025
Toni Chapman aka , had just been fired from her job as a bank teller when a casual Tweet catapulted her into a culinary career.
Although she had no formal training, Toni grew up in a food-loving, multicultural family and made elaborate lunches for her then boyfriend as a creative outlet. When she was fired from her banking job, she offered to make her elaborate packed lunches for people en masse via social media, and one of her first customers was none other than director Ava DuVernay. With a little help from DuVernay on social media, Toni was able to scale her hobby into a full-fledged meal-delivery service in NYC called ToniCooks. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she took her passion for food to TikTok, where she has amassed an audience of millions by teaching her followers how to cook her bold, cozy, and comforting dishes. As her platform grew, she joined Buzzfeed’s Tasty platform as on-camera talent and legitimized her recipe-testing process. Most recently, she released her debut cookbook, Everything’s Good: Cozy Classics You’ll Cook Always and Forever.
Tune in to Second Life wherever you get your podcasts to hear how Toni Chapman became The Moody Foody. Link in bio to listen!
