Featured
Adventures in Bitters
The hidden ingredient in your cocktail
Growing a Future Farmer
Summertime is county fair season in Kentucky! Forget the midway rides; the real show takes place in the livestock pavilion. That’s where some intense competition is underway as 4-H youth like Peyton Zinner are exhibiting their animals in the lead-up to the Kentucky State Fair.
Ouita’s Great-Grandpa Zim
Aaron Rufus Zimmerman was Chef Ouita Michel’s great-grandpa on her mother’s side. He lived in Thermopolis, Wy. where he grew a vegetable garden big enough to feed his family and neighbors, and loved to entertain his great-grandchildren with tall tales and silly rhymes like the one about a possum eating pawpaws.
From Earth to Table
Sarah Culbreth settles in at her potter’s wheel to spin the story of transforming dirt into beautiful objects for our Holly Hill Inn table.
Sustaining One Another
Chef Ouita Michel just got back from the 2022 Food & Wine Festival in Aspen, Co. While there, she participated in a panel discussion on sustainability in the restaurant industry and had her expectations upended in an eye-opening way.
An Urban Eden
Seedleaf Community Garden is a real-life experiment in land use, community development, sustainability, entrepreneurship, and the possibility of making dreams come true.
From Back Home to Up Home
We turned the tables on filmmaker Harrison Witt and got a backstage look at his movie-making experience and his inspiration for producing our video-series Up Home.
Holler Hospitality
Down in the valley, valley so low – are 300 acres of rolling meadows and hillsides where Barbara Napier has cultivated a world-class but uniquely Kentucky retreat at Snug Hollow Farm.
Up Home at Holly Hill Inn
Mama Des, the matriarch of the Parrish family, did more than plant seeds, the flowers of which still bloom a century later. Through her care of the house and land that we call Holly Hill Inn today, and the children she raised to extend a welcome to all, she planted a legacy of hospitality and community we’re honored to carry on.
A Little Happy Spot
We walked into Ruth Hunt Candy Co. looking for a bourbon ball story. We left with our story, a box of chocolate-dipped cookies, and the feeling that we’d just spent an afternoon with a big, boisterous family. Everyone was smiling and eager to share details of their work, and the personal imprint of their hands was obvious on every piece of candy.
Our Bouquet Garni
A bouquet garni flavors everything we do. It’s the perfect illustration of our focus on Kentucky’s food culture – and how our stories grow richer together. Farmer and long-time collaborator David Wagoner has brought our bouquet garni to life on the grounds of Holly Hill Inn and is a wealth of knowledge and creativity.
The Measure of Her Worth
Freda Raglin is 100% genuine. We can’t resist the pull of her stories or the lingering aroma of her famous yeast rolls or the realization that Freda is a self-taught culinary genius. Her innate skill and ability to create delicious dishes by taste and touch are a treasure worth preserving.
Wallace Station Then and Now
Chris and Ouita Michel opened Wallace Station on Old Frankfort Pike in the summer of 2003. Referred to on maps as US Hwy. 1681 and by oldtimers as Shady Lane, Old Frankfort Pike is a national scenic byway. It’s a beautiful drive any time of the year but especially in the spring and summer as ancient trees embrace in the center of the roadway to cast a canopy of shade.
Salad for Ouita
Pamela Sexton wrote a poem called “Salad for Ouita.” It’s an ode to salads, a lyrical recipe. Chef Ouita built a salad with her mother’s poem as a guide and the contents of Holly Hill’s refrigerator as an inspiration. Where will Pam’s poem take you; what will go in your salad bowl?
Living Our Salad Days
Maggie Dungan grows fresh produce on her Salad Days Farm in rural Woodford County. We cherish her green lettuces in the dark days of winter and celebrate living our salad days all year round.
The Incomparable Agnes
Chef Agnes Teresa Marrero Rosa infuses the warmth and spirit of her native Puerto Rico into everything Smithtown Seafood serves. Chef Agnes melds Puerto Rico’s sensuous tropical flavors with Kentucky Proud ingredients. “Every week, I try to put that on the menu in my specials. That’s my inspiration. My cuisine and the Caribbean and all that. I grab it with all my heart.”
Foraging Fools
Forager Storey Slone explores a local wildlife area with us, looking for edible wild plants and fungi. Along the way, she shows us that collecting and preparing wild-harvested products is a labor of love. A connection to the natural world and a reminder to be thankful for those things that are often invisible and yet bountiful in our daily lives.
Treasure Hunt
Ray Papka has been foraging since he was a kid on a paper route in Thermopolis, Wyoming. But instead of food, he searches for discarded objects, found around us everyday, that contain inherent beauty or the promise of an idea. Then he turns those objects into vividly imagined and intricately composed pieces of art.
Dreaming Up a Restaurant
Chef Ouita Michel dreamed of a restaurant. Inspired by culinary icons like Julia Child and Madeleine Kamman, and the intersection of Old World traditions and Southern cuisine, she aimed to open a slow and one-of-a-kind place in a world of fast and casual eating. A restaurant that would celebrate history, agriculture, family, poetry and art and be an expression of Kentucky.
Homecoming
Wendell Berry said “it all turns on affection.” For people, creatures, place and planet. Learn how The Berry Center and Our Home Place Meat bring to life this timeless advice from Kentucky’s leading philosopher, poet, and protector of our land.
The Art of the Menu
Writing a menu is an art form; take a peek behind the curtain at the creative process used by our renowned culinary team