04/04/2024
The official 1 year anniversary for Cap City Kitchen is coming up, and what better time to reintroduce myself and my company than now. What is Cap City Kitchen and what makes us different?
Cap City Kitchen is a catering and private-dining company here in Frankfort, KY that was borne from a deep love and passion for all things food. With a focus on seasonal, scratch-made, locally-sourced, and unique eats, my food standpoint is as homegrown as my roots, and they run deep within Kentucky. To really explain my passion for this business, we have to start at my past.
I was raised by a single mom and the BEST grandparents that ever graced this beautiful planet. My Granddaddy was raised in Frankfort and Stamping Ground, and Mimi was from Lexington. It was at my grandparents’s side that I learned the art of southern cooking, the joys of country living, the importance of farming, and so much more.
Mimi and Granddaddy had a beautiful, sprawling farm out on Bridgeport Benson Road from the early 80’s where we celebrated every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and holiday. It was where we had Friday night steak cookouts on the back porch over a charcoal grill, big Saturday breakfasts before we tackled weekend farm projects, and family dinners on Sundays after church. It was on that farm that I learned to catch crawdads in the creek, mow acres of grass, and swim in the pond. I learned how to drive the Massey Ferguson, clean a boat, plow a field, and ride a moped. I also learned how to garden (that one didn’t stick, but the lessons remained), and appreciate how good, nourishing food was grown from love, seeds, and our wonderful Kentucky soil by the very men and women who had learned to work the land to produce, grow, and/or raise our food. To this day, you will find no better tomatoes than the perfectly acidic ones we grow right here in Kentucky. I personally like to think the tomatoes from the farm were the best because of the fish we fished out of the pond or the river to fertilize the tomato garden.
Food played a pivotal role in my early childhood, especially in the development of what would one day be my career. My mother couldn’t cook. That’s not to say she didn’t try, or that she didn’t later learn how to make some good food, but in those early days through my teenage years, she burned more bread than not. Her idea of a hot meal when I was a kid was peanut butter on toast or La Choy canned "Chinese". My mom did her best, but we were on a single mom’s income and later on food stamps when she returned to college. Beyond the beans we used to break in the kitchen, and the produce my grandparents gave us, much of the food we could afford was heavily processed and in a can. My mom used to say that I owed my cooking skills to her inability to cook at all - that it was by necessity that I learned. Maybe, but maybe it was a heightened palate, and a love of great food.
From an early age, I noticed and noted good food when we went to the farm, to a friends, or on the rare occasion, out to eat. I only wanted to eat the best food created from the best ingredients, no matter what it was… be it home cooking, fine dining, or takeout. BLTs with salty, crispy bacon and those in season perfect tomatoes, locally raised beef burgers, or quiche baked with the eggs with gorgeous deep orange yolks from foraging chickens. I’d diligently watch Mimi in the farm kitchen making biscuits and gravy from scratch, baking chocolate chip cookies, cooking Kentucky goulash with farm peppers, or her skillet fried cornbread for her vegetable beef soup. Then, I would use the cooking methods I watched her use to mix different ingredients, taste, experiment, and try again.
While culinary school at Sullivan University helped to hone my skills and develop my palate, it was the lessons and the food from the farm that nurtured and fostered my growth, and love for all things culinary. Those days deep rooted my appreciation for Kentucky farms and the hard working farmers and producers of our great state. That respect and appreciation is why it is important to me to support them and utilize their products, both in my personal life and in business.
My grandparents are no longer on this earth. However, every time I step into a kitchen, a garden, or slice into one of those perfect Kentucky tomatoes, I carry the knowledge and the love language they passed on. In that way, a part of them remains. It was their love language that they were expressing with every biscuit, cookie, burger, and tomato from the vine, and it is that love language that they ingrained in me.
I created a business that feeds people, nourishes their soul, and produces a smile; I can’t think of a better way to honor them and the lessons they taught me. I have a passion for this business, and a passion for this city. I am excited to continue to grow Cap City Kitchen over the years to come. We have some very exciting things in the pipeline and announcements will be forthcoming.
Keep an eye on our socials!
Below: Pics on the farm, boating, and my adventurous and wonderful, Mimi and Granddaddy! 💗
