RECIPE A WINNER

Chef fled abuser, found success in just 4 yrs.

IT WAS ONLY four years ago when Rose Michel — homeless, pregnant, abused by her boyfriend — could not imagine the life she now lives.

“I used to envy who I am now,” said Michel, successful founder of Belmere Catering, mother of two and author of an upcoming cookbook.

There was nothing to desire in Michel’s life when she fled her abusive relationship in 2013, seeking help from Sanctuary for Families — a group assisting 16,000 survivors of violence each year.

The Brooklyn woman, now in her 30s, had found herself trapped in an abusive relationship with a controlling partner. The couple had a young boy, and Michel — unbeknownst to her — was pregnant with their second child.

“It was a manipulating situation, like ‘What are you spending your money on?’ ” Michel told the Daily News. “He tried to have control over everything . . . . Going out with co-workers for happy hour? Things like that weren’t possible or even thought of.”

Her decision to leave home was spurred by her 6-year-old son’s exposure to the household violence.

“Do I actually want him to grow up thinking it’s OK?” she remembered wondering. “The cycle kept continuing, and I thought, ‘I can’t raise a boy like this.’ ”

She thought back to her own high school days, when her boyfriend used to scream constantly at Michel.

“Little girls grow up thinking it’s OK,” she said. “I thought it was cute, but that’s because nobody taught me nobody’s actually supposed to talk to you that way.”

Michel, with the help of Sanctuary, landed in a shelter with her little boy — only to discover at that point that she was carrying her daughter.

“I was tempted to go back (to the abuser),” she acknowledged — but the staff convinced Michel to stick around.

“It was a breath of fresh air, a relief,” she recalled. “I thought they were going to kick me out.”

She was instead steered to the 15-week Economic Empowerment Services program. By then, she had already realized her passion for cooking was the key to her future.

“I always knew that I loved it,” she said. “But it wasn’t until I got into the shelter that I really knew it was a gift. And it was healing — like therapy.”

She started making nightly dinners for fellow shelter residents and their families. By 2015, she had founded her catering business — providing food for a girlfriend’s bridal shower.

Michel soon became a Sunday regular at Prospect Park, setting up a food table with her son sometimes working the register.

She was selected a few weeks back as one of 25 chefs to cater the 10th anniversary of the New York Wine and Food Festival. And she’s in the process of selfpublishing a cookbook of her favorite recipes.

It’s no surprise, given Michel’s liberation from her old life, that her signature dish is “Freedom Soup” — her spin on the traditional Haitian fare known as “soup joumou.”

“I felt like (cooking) gave me freedom,” Michel said. “I was creating my life again, and creating my children’s life.”