A cultivated chef by day. A social media maven by night. Apple-Elgatha attended culinary school in Paris and attended Full Sail University where she received degrees in Internet Marketing, Web Design and Development and Mobile Development. She has worked in and owned upscale restaurants. She is also in the process of publishing a cookbook. She has whipped up many delicious meals in the kitchens of stars like late best-selling author Tom Clancy, Olympic Gold Medalist Michael Phelps, Illusionist David Copperfield and late actor and comedian Robin Williams.

Today, Apple makes a living on food - writing about it, creating it, photographing it and even serving as a restaurant consultant.

Apple is always learning new techniques, exploring unfamiliar ingredients, discovering new recipes, documenting successes and failures in hopes of inspiring other cooks to do the same, but to also live life - to really Discover the Chef in you!

In 2010, IAmChefApple.com was born. Its message: “I have a crazy amount of cookbooks, an insatiable appetite for all things concerning food and life. This site is about me because I am Chef Apple.”

Why the site? Why the major social media following? It started several years when Apple entered the world of social media while consulting for restaurants and bars. She had a knack for it and started promoting herself for culinary projects and people liked the quirkiness of her voice, started following her, and a social media maven was born!

Apple began duplicating what she was doing for other people! She gets a high when her clients and their business start trending. It's okay to get 1,000 people seeing those posts, but imagine boosting someone's following to 10,000 or 20.000. She does it!

“If you have any kind of business, social media is needed to keep up with your clients, promote yourself and handle complaints. In this day and age social media is just as important as the web to businesses because instead of traditional readership and scope, you now have a larger and broader audience to market yourself to if it’s done right!”

Apple also likes the explosion of social media because it levels the playing field. Spending money on advertising used to be the only option, but word of mouth via social media gives smaller businesses a fighting chance. Social Media is the way the world is now communicating.