Mom of 4 & 'Next Level Chef' Star Omi Hopper Is Creating a Legacy She Never Expected

As a professional makeup artist, Omi had dabbled in social media prior to creating her popular YouTube channel, Cooking Con Omi, and experienced some success posting makeup tutorials. But it wasn't until she tapped into her passion for cooking — specifically, Puerto Rican cuisine — that things really took off for her.

"I love it. And I've always — even before makeup — I loved the kitchen. I've always loved creating food. I love the feeling that it gives for someone else to try my food," Omi says. "It fulfills you in a very different way … that's really what brought me to social media," she explains. "I never intended to be Cooking Con Omi or go viral or any of that."

But being 2020, TikTok made it possible for Omi to reach a huge audience with just one short video. Following fellow social media personality Tabitha Brown, Omi was inspired to master one-minute videos, which she had some experience doing for her makeup page.

After starting Cooking Con Omi accounts on Instagram and TikTok, she began posting more regularly and before long she had a viral hit with her recipe for sofrito frequesito, a classic Puerto Rican seasoning base consisting of a variety of peppers, garlic, onion, cilantro, and other herbs. Once that video gained attention, Omi began racking up followers by the thousands.

"Every time I would go to sleep and I'd be like, 'Babe, I think I got 10,000. babe, I think I got 20,000 followers. Oh my God, I got 50,000 followers!" Omi says. Basically, things happened fast, and Omi let them. She didn't hesitate, she didn't self-sabotage, she didn't doubt her abilities — at least not in a way that stopped her from pursuing what was already happening.

As a makeup artist, Omi was already an entrepreneur before the pandemic and the inception of Cooking Con Omi, but her life still changed dramatically after her first viral cooking video.

Some might imagine it would have led to a more overwhelming schedule and demands on her time as a work-from-home mom, but, her career transition has actually allowed Omi to prioritize her family and time with her kids more, not less.

Previously, she worked many early mornings, weekends, and holidays, since events generally required her services during those times. Now, Omi starts her days early and devotes specific blocks of time to work so she can be more present with her children and husband.

"You have to remember that I've been running my own business since before this. My hours there were very demanding. Every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I had an event or a wedding, or some sort of special makeup that I was doing for someone, and so, I didn't have balance," Omi explains.

"I feel for me personally, that the pandemic … for me, it was hitting the reset button in my own personal life and really understanding that I don't get time back with my boys," she says. "You blink and they are full-blown teenagers, and I'm going, 'Why did you have hair on your chin? Like, stop,' It caused me to be more present and be really intentional with the time that I spent with them."

To make it all happen, Omi wakes up EARLY. She tells us her weekdays start at 5:20 a.m., when she wakes up her 16-year-old. "Once I notice that he's actually physically out of bed, then I will go downstairs and I will start breakfast," she says. "I prefer for them to go with something warm in the stomach." Once her youngest gets on the bus at 8:15 a.m., she jumps into work mode, checking emails and social media (though she does have help with that these days). When lunchtime rolls around, Omi often opts for day dates with her husband, and they'll go out to eat together. He was diagnosed with a degenerative bone disease several years ago that left him unable to work.

"It makes us happy to go have a date for an hour and a half, and then I'll come back home and continue on responding back to emails, getting back to anything immediate, and then by like two-thirty, three o'clock I'm cooking dinner," she says.

That wasn't always the case. Omi tells that as a child, she always came home to a homecooked meal, and was never able to do that for her boys in her previous career. "It was always something that I wanted to do for my boys that I didn't get to do while I was doing makeup," she says. "For 10 years, it was always like, let's warm up the food that I made yesterday. But again, just wanting to be present and wanting to have that, now they come home to a homecooked meal, and from there it's chaos."

The boys are athletes, so like so many of us, most of Omi's evenings are spent doing the second shift as chauffeur and sports mom, helping them hunt for lost gear and getting them wherever they need to be. Sounds familiar!

Even though Omi's four boys are older now, all of them have their own demanding schedules, and with Omi's career having turned her into a public figure, self-care is still something that needs to be intentionally prioritized.

"I love spending time with girlfriends. Usually, I try to do that once every two weeks if I can," she tells us. "I love my skin care routine. To me, that's like my 'me time.' I sometimes will also close the door in the bathroom and just take a long bath and forget about the world for a little bit," Omi explains, noting that she also likes to read and connect with her faith through books.

More from CafeMom: 20 Quick & Easy Ways to Practice Self-Care

Thanks to her newfound TV celebrity status, Omi has been fortunate enough to get to travel the country to various events where she gets to meet celebrities, engage with her social media followers, and generally have a good time. But that's not her everyday life. That said, she does pick up some cool new skills to bring back home and make a part of her wind-down time as well.

Thanks to partnerships with companies like The Singleton whisky and Bootblack Brand mixers, Omi has also been trying her hand at whipping up craft cocktails, along with the recipes she shares across social media. We had the chance to try one and it was so good we had to share the recipe. Perfect for summer, this Coquito Colada is just as good served up at a barbecue as it is on mom's night in.

Coquito Colada

Serves 1

Ingredients:

• 1.5 ounces of Singleton 12-Year-Old
• 2 ounces of pineapple juice
• ½ ounce coconut cream or Coco Lopez

Garnish: Pineapple slice

Glassware: Rocks glass with a large clear cube or pebble ice

Method: Hand-shake very well with ice and strain over ice into rocks glass with a large clear cube or pebble ice. Garnish with the pineapple slice.

But even when things don't look perfect and time with friends and delicious cocktails are not plentiful — because, let's be real, as working moms, those things aren't often a part of our day-to-day — Omi knows that there's purpose to what she's doing.

"My 'why' has always been my sons," Omi says. "Wanting to leave a legacy to them that's tangible. Not just something they watched mommy do," she explains.

"I want something that in the event that something were to happen, they'd have something to fall back on. Mom has created something they can fall back on in case they want to go that route."

To find more of Omi's authentic Puerto Rican recipes as well as recipes for some of her favorite classic American dishes, follow her on Instagram and TikTok.