I’m told my love affair with food began in early childhood. My mother has a particular story from those years that she loves to tell. It involves me and a mouthful of sweets that I gave myself permission to eat. I began to cook not too long after that. Before my age hit two digits, I was responsible for the mac and cheese at family gatherings and was baking from scratch. To know me in high school was to sit at the island in my parents’ kitchen while I made something out of nothing. To know me now is to sit at the island in my very own kitchen while I serve a 5 course Italian style dinner. I wonder what another ten years will bring.
In hindsight, it seems so obvious: food is my passion! If only I had recognized this much sooner. Most of my work experience has been in the Front of House of many restaurants ranging from fine dining to casual chains. I always viewed this work as a means to an end, an end to what? I was never sure. Lost and depressed, I quietly dropped out of college and began searching for a “real job” on the other side of the bar. In a job I received solely from nepotism, I saw another part of the food and beverage world: Distribution. I loved it. Well, I loved the food. This job exposed me to rows upon rows and SKUs upon SKUs of high end, small batched, shelf stable food products, the people who made them and the people who sold them. It was incredible, albeit short-lived. I was laid off from that job on Thanksgiving Eve 2019, a secret shame I kept from my family until now, really. Back to bartending, I went until the world stopped some four months later. Now everybody was laid off. I wasn’t alone.
Like so many others, I found my calling during the COVID-19 outbreak: It’s food; it’s always been food. Since then, I started my little catering business that doesn’t make any money. I experimented with plating, flavors, cannabis, and more. I created my Instagram page, @kim.alwayshungry in July 2019 while I was still selling jars of nut butter by the case to small businesses. Even then, I had something to share, but it wasn’t until the pandemic forced me to a complete stop that I had a clear vision for my future.
In these past few years, I have honed my craft by developing recipes entirely on my own. All the methods I use have been self taught. I have never worked in a kitchen, nor do I plan to. I plan to take cooking classes around the world and use that practical knowledge to develop an extensive product line. Perhaps someday there will be some other college dropout selling my sauces for a boss who fails to see her value. For now, I’d like to share with you some of my thoughts, recipes, and experiments. Are you hungry? I could eat.