Food Fantasies offers from

Every week, Chynna Denny creates fresh, colorful and comforting meals for others. It's all part of her growing dream, creating pastas, meal deliveries and catering as she builds her business, Food Fantasies.

It all begins with her flavorful pastas. Made with fresh ingredients like garlic, mushrooms and beets, her egg dough pastas are all made by hand. She makes her sauces from scratch as well, loves to cater private dinners, and creates a new menu of take-home meals each week.

Denny, who lives in West Allis with her husband, Nawaf, began Food Fantasies in 2020. She works out of a commercial kitchen in Milwaukee, and during winter months she's at Kenosha Harbor Market every other Sunday, and Milaeger's Great Lakes Farmers Market in Racine from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. every other Sunday. Menus are updated weekly and orders are placed weekly, with delivery available in Milwaukee. To order go to foodfantasiesllc.com.

If no one was around, and there were no cartoons, I would watch a cooking show. Nobody told me "you could be a cook for a living." I didn't consider it. I started going to school for criminal justice right out of high school. I had a whole different plan, but I always saw the culinary students at MATC.

In my 19-year-old head I thought cooking was not a real job. I thought if I went to culinary school people would make fun of me. But culinary school is really hard! It is like two jobs. You're there at 7 a.m., you have to be in your chef uniform, they check your knives, your nails. Once you pass inspection every morning, you can start the lesson. It was a long, hard road. I didn't get a lot of sleep for a few years, but when I graduated in 2018 I felt great about myself. It was an accomplishment.

When you're at MATC, you have to work in the industry so you don't get out of school and don't know what you're doing. To graduate, you have to get a job in the field for one semester. I worked at Tenuta's, and I was there for about three years. The chef there, Eli Murphy, he taught me so much. School is so technical, and culinary school taught the discipline you need in the kitchen. I am so grateful I got both experiences.

When I worked at Tenuta's they made some of their own pasta, like the pappardelle, ravioli and gnocchi. I was interested from day one. They have a man who has worked there for a very long time, and he was mostly in charge of making the pasta. I begged to be taught. It is hard, because time is limited. It was a small restaurant and it was busy. Eventually he taught me a little, but I was nowhere near where I am now.

In 2020, I decided I wanted to start my own business. I was terrified. I just started experimenting. I never even looked into dyes or powders or concentrated juices. I always went for the fresh whole vegetables, and made what I wanted, like a roasted red pepper and chile flake pappardelle. I do whole bulbs of garlic, squeeze them in.

Most pasta makers just buy extracts, but you're losing flavor. It is not just flavor, you lose the smell! If you open a bag of my pasta, you smell the flavor, the freshness. In others you might just smell the semolina. Customers tell me it is the best pasta they've ever had.

My first market in Whitefish Bay, I sold out. The next week people returned and said it was so good. I was so nervous! I now have lots, and lots, of dowels. I need lots of dowels, lots of space. Those pasta racks you see usually are too small.

The demand keeps growing. I actually met farmers at my first market and they were like, "We would like to sell your pasta in our farm store." I couldn't believe it, and to this day it is still in their store, LarryVille Gardens.

I basically make whatever I feel like making. I have gotten some fan favorites I do keep in rotation, about 10 (pastas) actually. I make a roasted garlic fettuccine, a beet fettuccine, a rosemary basil fettuccine, a sweet potato and sage pappardelle, a sundried tomato pappardelle, a roasted red pepper and chile flake pappardelle, and a portabella and thyme fettucini. That is really popular, people like my mushroom pasta. I also do a spinach and peppercorn that's popular. Those are the most popular, the top of the list always.

I do make more. For Halloween I do a special squid ink pasta, because people like how it looks. It is black. I have one customer who calls it witch's hair.

I've done dessert pastas with cinnamon and sugar with a chocolate ganache. It smelled amazing, like a churro. I just went for it. I was feeling creative one day.

I also sell different sauces every week, Bolognese, asiago cream sauce, tomato butter, and also different meals every week. I really love cooking, but people love the pasta. There has to be pasta, but it all sells.

Every week I do a different meal, always different. I don't stick to any kind of thing, like always American or always Italian. It is always different. One customer said "I want meatloaf," so I made one with a cherry bourbon glaze. People loved that. I have done chicken scallopini with a potato gratin, little layers of potatoes with cream that are baked and you press it down and you can cut it into shapes. You then see all the beautiful layers and brown the tops. It is delicious and beautiful. I did Tanzanian stew and I wasn't sure people would go for it, then I had somebody come and almost buy me out for a dinner party.

People always surprise me. I feel I have gained the trust of my customers, which gives me so much freedom. They want to be adventurous, and that makes it so much fun.

People always say, "Chynna why don't you start a restaurant." I’m not ready. I like the freedom of what I am doing.

The ravioli are very popular, especially the wine braised mushroom and mascarpone. That is probably my best seller. I had a woman who would buy them every week and freeze them just so she could make them for her family for Christmas. I have never been so happy to labor. People are so thankful.

The ravioli, I cut that all by hand. The pappardelle I cut out by hand. I did get a pasta cutter for the fettucini.

The pasta I make is really rich. Each 3-pound ball, for each flavor, has at least 15 eggs in it, fresh vegetables pureed in it, and extra virgin olive oil. The eggs and olive oil change it, it is a nice, silky chewy experience. You don't have to smother it in a sauce. Just boil it and add a little olive oil and you have the flavor. it is more of an experience than just to fill yourself.

I have a catering friend who sent me a list of all this industrial equipment to make pasta. I refuse to do mass production. I don't use dyes or extruders. People look at me crazy. Why aren't you just buying this equipment to make the pasta? It changes the texture, it changes the pasta. There is no love in it. I might as well be Barilla.

I put out what I am going to make a week in advance, my pastas, my meals. They can go to my store and order. I do delivery on Sundays. Meals are individual sizes, but the portions are large. Most of my people split a meal, but I tell people it is individual size in case I run into that person who can eat a lot.

I put them in containers where you can pop them right in the oven, sometimes with a side salad or different dessert. I make them at the wee hours of the morning because I want them to be fresh.

I make about 50 bags of pasta per week right now. In summer it is more because the demand is much higher. I am very against all the additives and crap that is being put in our food. … I try to use the most wholesome ingredients. I don't use canola oil, soybean oil, or anything like that. I stick to avocado oil, extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil on occasion, and Wisconsin butter. I don't add preservatives. I try to buy things without additives.

I want to give my customers something they can feel good about eating. That is my goal in life. I think it shows in the flavor of my food. I think they can tell it is done fresh and made from scratch. I really do put effort and love into my shopping and cooking, and it makes me happy.

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