CLEVELAND — Chef Claude Booker has been cooking since he was a little boy. He started by taking notes from his father.

“When I got a little bit older, five and six, he would get a step stool,” Booker said. “He will let me stand on the step stool and watch him cook.”

Years later, Booker is taking the soulful seasonings and recipes that have been in his family for generations and is sharing them with the world. Collard greens, macaroni and cheese, peach cobbler, and candied yams made easy because of Booker’s Soul Food Starters, a business that Booker and his wife, Crystal, launched after realizing work as a buffet chef wouldn’t be profitable during the coronavirus pandemic.

“I had to say, okay, this virus isn't going away,” he said. “It was just honestly just knowing that I had no choice but just suck it up, move forward. If I believe in my product, which I knew was right. We would be successful,” Booker said.

He’s already seeing success. Booker’s online orders are booming and Soul Food Starters will soon be in 415 Stop and Shop supermarkets. He said since each soul food starter kit includes all the necessary seasonings and spices for the meals, they cut shopping and meal prep time in half, something both a kitchen novice and professional cook can appreciate.

“Instead of having all of these seasonings, everything all over you counter, you just open in a package we perfectly measured it,” Booker said.

Booker said although his products are for everyone, it’s not lost on him how special it is to have a successful Black-owned business, and he hopes serves as motivation to others.

“We’ve got something that should rally us as a community to say, let's be makers, We’re 14 percent of this population, 43 million strong,” he said. “We are to let the world see how wonderful our products are so that's really I’m hoping I inspire other folks to say, I'm going to do it too.”