Marla Oden: Moving On Again to A Moveable Feast

By Fletcher Word
Sojourner’s Truth Editor

Akron native Marla Oden arrived in Toledo three decades ago, along with her mother, determined to make a life for herself in the Glass City. She did just that. Now, after all that time – and marriage, children, divorce, an established career, a move out of state – she has returned and is once again determined to make a life for herself. A totally different life this time.

When she first arrived in Toledo, only a few years after graduating from high school, Oden attended cosmetology school and eventually became a successful hair stylist. As the years passed, however, she became interested in developing her cooking skills and eventually started catering for small groups here and there.

A single mother by then, Oden was raising children, running her hair salon, cooking occasionally – doing it all to be sure but facing a personal crisis that led her to feel she needed a drastic change of scenery.

“So that’s when I decided to make a change,” she recalls. “Believe me, this was the hardest decision I have ever made in my life. The plan was to walk away from my salon and my loyal clientele.”

Where would that change take her?

“I had always wanted to move to Las Vegas,” she says. “While visiting one day, I set up an appointment to tour a culinary school. I remember driving on the freeway literally crying so hard looking at that mountain and how beautiful it is there. ‘Tell me I’m supposed to be here.”
 

Oden made the decision to enroll at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Las Vegas. She paid up her rent there for four months, sold everything in her house here and, with her son’s help, packed up her car and headed west.

Over the next year, Oden was in perpetual motion. She attended classes at Le Cordon Bleu, she worked in a food truck, she found some hair clients in Vegas and, every other weekend, she boarded a red eye flight to return to Toledo and work on her clients’ hair here.

Somehow, in this blur of activity, she managed to maintain a 3.5 to 4.0 grade point average at the school and received her degree in French techniques.

“Going to culinary school taught me a lot about making fresh pasta, gnocchi, cooking risotto and skinning fish. The one thing I love about Vegas is how diverse it is giving you access to so many different kinds of fruits and vegetable because of all the cultures that are there,” she says of her experiences in the desert.

After graduating, it was time to return home. Oden moved back to Toledo and accepted a position at the Hollywood Casino’s Final Cut steakhouse where she worked for two years and helped the restaurant achieve and maintain a four-star rating. She also opened a salon (In the Kut Hair Salon at 1515 Penn Road) and resumed her original business.

Now, it’s time for another change. Oden has departed The Final Cut and is starting her own catering business – A Moveable Feast. From Cut to Kut to A Moveable Feast. Her opening act occurred during this past December when she catered the Christmas party for Local 500 – up to 350 people – with the students from the Maritime Academy assisting her.

A Moveable Feast will also be focusing on private dinner parties for small, intimate gatherings. This will present an opportunity for Oden to put into play the culinary creativity that was uncovered and nurtured at Le Cordon Bleu. It’s an opportunity to connect with kindred souls of all types – anyone who loves food, that is.

“Food is our common ground, a universal experience.” -- James Beard.

Copyright © 2014 by [The Sojourner's Truth]. All rights reserved.
Revised: 08/16/18 14:12:24 -0700.

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