Today we’d like to introduce you to Dommi Raye.
Hi Dommi, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I’d like to think that I arrived here on red clouds embellished in pink glitter, green goddess bowl in hand, draped in my favorite fancy duster. But let’s be real, the road has been challenging, full of error, tears, fear, and experimentation. It’s the mashup of experiences that honestly creates the most gorgeous story. I was diagnosed with Hidradenitis Suppurativa in 2010. It was a time when HS was unknown and considered rare due to the lack of medical knowledge. I experienced ugly times during collegiate years, resulting in three surgeries that provided more financial stress than anything. Looking back, I truly believe that the onset of my HS was at the age of 9 when I began my menstrual cycle. Every month around that time, I developed huge boils on my buttocks area.
Curious what Hidradenitis Suppurativa is? It is a very common autoimmune and inflammatory disease that directly affects the skin. Simply put, it causes recurring boils in the folds of your skin accompanied by potential rheumatoid arthritic symptoms ranging from moderate to severe. Customarily the affected areas are your armpits, groin, breast, and/or buttocks. It is also known as “acne inversa”. HS has three stages which can be very complex in managing, depending on severity. Aside from the medical drama that I accumulated, I have always been a lover of food, fashion, and events! I loved helping my mother host events as a child and I loved hosting events for my friends. Cooking has been a pastime for me for as long as I can remember; I love to eat, okay! While my friends in high school discussed wanting to study at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan, choosing a college and major was challenging for me. I was torn between fashion design and culinary. While my mom and dad supported everything that I do, neither career choice was discussed at holiday dinners with our family. I decided to ditch them both for wanting to attend an HBCU with thoughts of landing one of those well-paid business careers.
In college, I maintained a close connection to my true calling by changing my concentration from Marketing to Hospitality Management. I had the greatest advisor, Dr. Thrash. My plan was to take culinary courses at the local community college to transfer over to my degree at Thee Central State University; however, funding was an issue to see this vision through.
During my junior year, I was selected by Dr. Thrash to attend the National Coalition of Black Meeting Planners conference in Las Vegas, NV. One student is selected from each University per year, all expenses paid. The conference was incredible! I met a lot of industry professionals and gained exposure to take my career in event planning further. The following year I became the first intern for the new conference services department. Here I learned a great deal about events, working as a creative director for photoshoots, vendors’ fairs, etc. After obtaining these amazing experiences, Dr. Thrash orchestrated an interview as an Assistance Restaurant Manager for one of the premiere Marriot hotels in Cincinnati, OH. The fear of working nights and weekends concerned me. Therefore, I left college to chase what I thought was good money working in Cooperate America and non-profits. The titles, entry-level salaries, and work hours were more appealing to me at the time. It’s hilarious to me that 10 years later, I’m working nights and weekends! I’m grateful to be in love with my work, for the first time.
Fast forward to 2010, after being diagnosed, I knew something had to change. The hard part was accepting what needed to be changed. My journey became a science project, that I was determined to take control of. I began with the elimination of beef and pork. That aided my weight loss journey but it didn’t quite fit the bill for the remission of HS. In 2017, I watched ‘What the Health’ and Bam! I knew I was done with animal products. The lifestyle change was not that easy, but you get the picture –laughs!
I began to juice for myself and my family. That lead to neighbors and friends asking to try my juices. It became a hobby for me and I began to create elixirs and my versions of raw cocktails. I took my first culinary course in 2020 after being laid off from both my career and part-time job. While at the time, I understood exactly where God was taking me, I didn’t dream the vision would be this great! For years, I continued to tell myself I would quit working for someone else and step into full-time entrepreneurship, but there was a number, financially, that I wanted to earn before that happened. God sped that timeline right along. I met Chef Maxcel Hardy during my participation in a culinary program. A few weeks in, the program shut down due to COVID. Chef Max launched a project “Too Many Chefs in the Kitchen” an initiative to keep Detroit’s front-line employees and community well fed during the pandemic. I learned a lot of restaurant techniques during the mission, and we served over 30k meals in just 43 days! The experience was both humbling and rewarding. I took things a step further and began the “Eat Yourself Sexy Journey” created by Queen of Greens Chef Lauren Von Der Pool. The journey was incredible during my participation. It really opened my creativity up for cooking with flowers and other herbs. Eating raw foods has been a great help in maintaining my health and hormones. I encourage my clients to try old favorites I’ve recreated as a raw meal such as pad thai, spaghetti, brownies and gazpacho soups. Today, I am beyond grateful that my path has come full circle. Some say my experience is all over the place, yet I like to call it well-rounded. I remember being asked to explain my dream job in interviews, I’ve always hated that question. I gave generic answers to gain the job applied for, knowing no company had yet provided me with my dream. I sincerely believe that it is useful for one to explore different career avenues and changes if you find that you have many interests and/or hobbies. It has allowed me to place my life into perspective to step into my dreams. We are co-creators of our lives; it makes for a better story and daily feeling when you know your steps are ordered. To the bosses who laid me off in 2020, it was the best decision you could’ve made!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Beginning to cook with vegetables was my initial challenge due to growing up in a home that loathed real vegetables! Our produce intake mainly consisted of broccoli, frozen mixed vegetables, lima beans, peas, bell peppers, corn, string beans, and potatoes. Pinterest, Instagram, Food Network, and YouTube were my guides for recipes of a new lifestyle. When I get new knowledge, everyone around me gains new knowledge. That’s my excitement for teachable moments and better living for my people. However; I cannot force my family into good health. Force and good health are not complimentary of each other. I have learned to allow my loved ones to live the life that they choose to live because this is their experience, not mine-although I still sneak the good stuff into it Lack of funding, network, and resources prevented me from pursuing my dreams. It all felt too overwhelming to focus on with my family’s health as my main priority. There are times when I have to choose between doing things for my family, my health, and my business. Finding the balance in trusting God’s timing vs your own can be difficult when you have a plan. Developing flexibility and adaptability have been pivotal to my growth and lifestyle. I recommend writing that business plan. As painful as it may be, this is the secret sauce to gaining investors and grants. The sooner you complete it, the better. The business plan is your vision on paper; it helps and it’s necessary for progression. Initially, I chose to bootstrap funding for my business, and it has been difficult.
When starting a business, you wear many hats if not all of them. Working to maintain an entire business alone is not an easy task. The more technology grows, the more it seems that my job as a business owner grows. Working to be everything in my business and everything to my family and friends is the equivalent of being a superhero and that sounds like God’s responsibility. It took me until the age of 30 to fully understand that it isn’t possible, it’s harmful to all parties involved, and it’s also a trauma response.
As you know, we’re big fans of Dommi Raye the Brand, LLC. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Thank you, I appreciate the love, truly!!! The DR Brand exudes passion for creating beautiful experiences with plants for myself and those in my community. I am on a mission to showcase the power of plant medicine through beautiful memories with the plant-based fare and creative flare. Dommi Raye the Brand is a personal brand and platform for HS management tools and resources, plant-based culinary experiences and private chef offerings (through Dining with Dommi), fashion, lifestyle inspiration, and community. Subscribers have access to all recipes including: plant based meal options that I have created to better manage my HS, mocktails full of beautiful nutrients and flavor, along with other herbal creations that encourage better health. I currently offer merchandise, herbal consultations, and popup events. Shea butter, face mists, essential oil roller balls for hormonal support, stress, and pain management will be added to the site very soon!
At DRB we consider life to be a luxury and we treat ourselves, others, and our surroundings as luxurious. I am most proud of the level of knowledge that I have obtained over the years to better serve my community. My creativity and focus on healing will continue to set me apart from other chefs and companies.
To anyone looking for the answers to your prayers: Don’t give up on yourself; that’s the greatest mistake made on our journey in life. Instead, pray for strategy, discernment, focus, confidence and glory, God’s glory–then watch the miracles unfold.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I grew up in the middle of Detroit and spent my summers in Louisiana with my dad’s family! My favorite thing about my family growing up was gathering for Holidays and food! My mother and father raised my sister Kayla and me, to maintain our sisterhood no matter what. We have been mistaken for twins all our lives and she’s five years younger than me. She’s my best friend and now publicist! I like to call her my Samantha Jones pre “And Just Like That”.
I was always in the center or a part of the center of attention. My mom dressed us well, I mean the cutest little “Sister, Sister” outfits of the 90’s yet, I loved to wear Phat Pham because I was a tomboy-oddly enough. I loved to cook, play outside with friends, pick flowers with my dad, ride my bike around the neighborhood, and create music on DJ EJ (a CD-Rom music editing software). I was a ball of energy, imagination, determination, and bossy behavior. I wanted to do everything, and in a way, I did! Ariana Grande’s song “7 rings” is a way of life for me. As a kid I truly embodied the “I see it, I like it, I want it, mom’s buying” energy. The mindset carried over into adulthood with a few tweaks of maturity. I lived my life as if everything were a performance and still do. Growing up, more than anything I wanted to be a performer; I wanted to sing and dance. I mean, I wanted to be Beyonce before Beyonce was Beyonce, you know what I mean! Pleasure has always been my driving force and key to life. If I do not have fun, I instantly begin to look at ways to eliminate it.
Growing up between 6 Mile and Puritan on Ferguson Ave provided so many memories, I don’t know where to start. I was creative before everyone knew to call us creatives and I loved music as my first love. My mother still teases me to this day because I can learn the melody and ad-libs to a song instantly, but the words sometimes get lost in translation and I will sing it anyway! My parents allowed me to host talent shows in our backyard where we charged $2 to get in and I performed at least three times. I orchestrated the kid’s fun with my dad for block parties, (he was President of the Block Club), I made dance routines to my favorite music videos with friends, sang lead in my dad’s church choir on Sunday, and made consistent attempts to stay outside past the streetlights. I was adventurous and art was my teacher. This foundation and my love of the arts blossomed in many ways. I participated in Modern, African, and Latin dance in High School. I also became a classically trained Mezzo-Soprano which landed me a collegiate choral scholarship.
The greatest piece of my childhood that I will cherish forever was the toy kitchen that my parents purchased for my sister and me. We turned our basement into a 5-star restaurant. It was a Serious Matter for both of us. Kayla and I pretended to be stressed over the two hours wait that our guest experienced. We used our Dr. Suess book collection as menus and my Barbie cash register to check all guests out. It was the best fun we girls could have! From childhood to now I have talked about becoming a DJ, fashion designer, stylist, event planner, chef, business owner, writer, performer, art buyer, etc. The dreams appeared exaggerated in the past, today my business provides a platform for me to do these things and more in a way that is both healing and exciting.
My very first business was actually “The Lil’ Diva’s Cheerleading Camp”. My mom helped me to place ads in the yellow pages for my upcoming bootcamp during the summer of 2003. Parents began to call our home phone to sign their daughters up for the camp. I had five participants including my sister who went on to participate in competitive cheer. In 2016, I founded Levitated Conscious. It was a conversation piece. I created it to inspire thought proven conversations amongst our people. To debug the negative energy surrounding the way in which we live. While I have closed shop for Levitated Conscious, it was an experience full of cool moments, lessons, and community.
My parents, grandparents, and Godparents were my greatest influences as a child. I took a piece of each person’s recipe book to create the love that I give to my clients.
Mom- Never sacrifice flavor.
Dad- Grow your own vegetables.
Grandma- Cook with delicacy and detail like a Southern Belle.
Granddaddy- Simple meals provide what you need
Godmother (Auntie Carrie)- Dress like it’s your party. (You didn’t take culinary advice from Auntie Carrie, she put sugar in everything even Spaghetti –laughs– but she was always best dressed.)
Godfather (Uncle Mike)- Eat like a King.
My village was powerful and full of love. I was raised on real manners, respecting your elders, Southern Hospitality, and community. My parents were great to my sister and me. For that, I am honored to be their caregiver.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://www.dommirayethebrand.com
- Instagram: dommiraye and diningwithdommi
