On a Mission
Ouita Michel is ready to hit the road, and the skies, and the seas! And she’s going to take Kentucky along for the ride.
Chef Ouita has joined the ranks of other culinary professionals as a member of the American Culinary Corps, a diplomatic culinary partnership formed by an alliance between the U.S. State Department and the James Beard Foundation. She’ll be working with folks like Padma Lakshmi, Samin Nosrat; Meherwan Irani, founder of Spicewalla, and fellow Kentuckian Edward Lee.
Their mission will be “to embrace and utilize food, hospitality, and the dining experience as diplomatic tools to engage foreign dignitaries, bridge cultures, and strengthen relationships with civil society.”
We can’t think of a better culinary ambassador than our own founder and asked Chef Ouita how it felt to be officially recognized as one.
It’s an incredible honor to be included with such amazing chefs from around the country, to serve the State Department and the James Beard Foundation in their diplomatic culinary partnership.
My entire career has been dedicated to the idea that food can connect us to each other, to our communities, to our landscape, our past and our present. To think about sharing our American and Kentucky food culture and traditions as a way to bring the world together is inspiring. We feel so dangerously divided, and such a simple notion of communal dining seems almost impossible to attempt. But if given the opportunity I’d give it my ALL. A friend of mine once said, “I can’t do much, but I sure can cook for a crowd”.
And what would she cook for such a crowd?
If I had to make a Kentucky meal to feed and heal the world, and I could pull from any time of year… in the name of world peace, I’d make Weisenberger cheese grits soufflé – Swiss chard gratin – red, white and blue cornbread with sorghum butter – soup beans – Woodford County asparagus – Happy Jack’s heirloom tomatoes – Ian’s shucky beans – fresh corn off the cob pudding – little potatoes with garden herbed butter – roast leg of lamb with scratch apple mint jelly – skillet fried chicken with cream gravy on the side – slow cooked pork roast or whole roast shoat and bourbon BBQ mop – Granma Zim’s coleslaw – wilted Bibb lettuce with hot bacon vinaigrette – dressed eggs, watermelon rind pickles, okra pickles, Tyler’s Grandma's lime pickles – chess pie, cushaw pie, chocolate bourbon hickory nut pie, blackberry cobbler, hand turned peach ice cream – Freda’s yeast rolls. I think at least the arguing might stop long enough for everyone to get a mouthful in!
Indeed, in his welcoming remarks, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the chefs of the American Culinary Corps that “when we break bread with people, we learn something about each other in ways that transcend divisions of geography or language. In my own time as a diplomat, I have found that sitting down for a meal with my counterparts has often led to conversations, candor, exchanges that simply don’t happen when you’re in a conference room, a board room, in an official formal environment. Put another way, sometimes diplomacy gets more done effectively at the dining room table than at the conference table.”
It’s a job Chef Ouita is ready for –
Secretary Blinken made it clear that as chefs, our ability to bring people together and speak the universal language of deliciousness could help connect America to the world. I’m here for that, and if I am called to serve in the kitchen anywhere, I’m there and I’m bringing my trusty cast iron skillet and my bandana.
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