Over the past several years, University of Vermont graduate Harmony Edosomwan has gone from selling meals out of her apartment to catering for Ben & Jerry’s.

Harmony’s Kitchen is a Winooski-based Afro Fusion soul food business run by chef-owner Edosomwan that blends Nigerian, Southern, and Puerto Rican cuisines. Edosomwan’s dishes include fried chicken, baked mac and cheese, honey-glazed cornbread, Cajun green beans, collard green beans, Puerto Rican-style rice and beans, empanadas, and Nigerian jollof.

While Harmony’s Kitchen does not yet have a storefront, Edosomwan offers catering, takeout, and a supper club.

“Here at Harmony’s Kitchen, the goal is to make everyone have a positive, soul-filling moment,” Edosomwan said. “When you bite into that chicken, I want you to close your eyes and be like, ‘You know, life is good.’”

From college side business to Ben & Jerry’s caterer

Edosomwan moved to Vermont in 2016 to attend UVM. She was born and raised in the Bronx, where she developed a passion for food from a young age.

“Growing up in the Bronx, there’s so many different types of food. You can get any food all over the world inside the Bronx. So that heavily influenced my love for food,” Edosomwan said.

When Edosomwan arrived in Vermont, she found options for culturally diverse foods to be more limited, especially seven years ago. This lack of options presented a niche which Edosomwan saw to fill with her soul food.

In 2019, Edosomwan founded Harmony’s Kitchen while attending UVM.

“I was cooking out of my apartment, where I lived with like five other people,” Edosomwan said. “I was selling plates everywhere, selling plates out of parking lots, out of my apartment. There’s a point in time where I had a line of people outside of my one-bedroom apartment.”

From there, Harmony’s Kitchen took off, garnering nearly 4,000 followers on Instagram. For the past two years, Edosomwan has been the official caterer for Ben & Jerry’s Juneteenth celebration.

“I met Jerry! That was the best thing,” Edosomwan said. “We hugged it out. He was like, ‘You’re cool for doing this.’ And I’m like, ‘Man, you’re cool.’”

The challenges of finding a kitchen space

This year, Edosomwan earned her commercial kitchen license, and has started cooking out of the kitchen in Winooski’s O’Brien Community Center. The space has allowed Edosomwan to take on bigger catering operations, including an event at Harvard University. However, the space is not permanently available, so Edosomwan is still on the hunt for a permanent kitchen space.”Having a reliable kitchen space, that’s a huge issue, not just for myself but a bunch of other business owners,” Edosomwan.

Despite the difficulties of securing a permanent kitchen space, Edosomwan is determined to realize her longterm goal of opening a restaurant chain across the Northeast.

“That’s the thing about me. Give me a kitchen, I’m gonna make it work. I’m not going to give up on my dreams,” Edosomwan said. “I’m going to figure it out regardless.”

Contact April Fisher at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @AMFisherMedia