Blind pastry chef from Picayune to be awarded for his years of work
This weekend, a blind Picayune resident will be heading down to New Orleans to accept a pastry award for his work over the past three years.
Paul Alexander is a small cooking business owner who specializes in baking. News 25 spoke with Alexander and discussed his journey from a start-up business owner to pastry chef award winner.
Alexander began his business with his wife three years ago, just two years after he lost his sight.
Alexander has spent the majority of his life learning how to cook. He began honing his culinary skills with his grandmother when he was just six years old. “I was the only grandson she had so I used to hang in the kitchen with her and picked up some traits.”
While he has spent the majority of his life perfecting his cooking, he only began baking three years ago.
Paul says he picked up this skill two years after having a life-changing medical emergency. On February 17th, 2017, Paul woke up to a busted blood vessel in his left eye and had to have surgery to clean the retina in hopes to save his sight.
As the left eye was healing from the surgery, he began losing sight in his right eye. On November 26th of the same year, Paul went completely blind. “It happened so quick. They didn’t know what it was. They thought it was my diet; they thought it was diabetes; they thought it was all kind of stuff.”
Around January 2019, Paul began to teach himself how to bake. When Paul and his wife Karla got home from their honeymoon in May 2019, he told her that he wanted to begin selling homemade cheesecakes.
The duo began baking from home and giving out cakes to anyone who wanted one. On July 31st, they officially opened up P’s Sweets and began selling pastries and cakes of every kind right from their kitchen with Paul baking and Karla decorating.
Within the first week of August, business began booming. “We went from, you know, a 30 to 40 dollar week to, you know, a couple hundred dollars here and there. That was a big deal to me being at home all day sitting around the house trying to figure out something to do.”
This weekend, the National Black Chef Association will be giving out 92 Pastry Chef Awards to chefs from Canada, the U.S., and Africa. Paul was chosen to be one of the recipients.
He will head to New Orleans this weekend to accept the award that captures three years of hard work and perseverance. Karla said, “It’s amazing. It’s amazing. We pray together and we enjoy the journey together.”
If you would like to order something from P’s Sweets visit their Facebook page or call 228-357-0104.
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