Who is The Experimental Gourmand

The Experimental Gourmand was created by Kathy Blake in 2005 reflecting her love of cooking and recipes, exploring the food markets of New York City and abroad, and venturing out to local events to check out the latest tastes and trends, writing about them on this site and for local publications.  For many years she covered the best of the local NYC food entrepreneurial scene, highlighted the bounty of the local farmers’ markets and gave delicious ideas for what to do with all of that produce that you bought, and shared the kitchen tips and recipes that she gathered from growing up in Virginia as well as her years living in England, Italy, and France. 

Then, she took the leap and enrolled in the International Culinary Center/French Culinary Institute for formal culinary training in classic French cooking techniques.  Since then, she has created food and beverage menus for well-respected catering companies, developed recipes for local brands, led hospitality operations projects at multi-million dollar companies, and tested and edited recipes for cookbooks.  She's worked with private clients, restaurants, high-end large-volume catering companies as well as in multi-unit enterprises, both on the production and on the management sides.  Her hybrid culinary operations and hospitality technology background has enabled her to amass a range of industry expertise and insights to bring to your business development, food and beverage menu, and content writing and editing projects. 

Click on the Work With Me tab to find out more about opportunities for Culinary Consulting; Menu and Recipe Data Management; and Writing, Editing, Proofreading expertise. Reach out via the Contact Form in the sidebar on the right to discuss how we might be able to work together.

Culinary Consulting

Tap into my culinary background as an event planner, caterer, and chef manager, working with food stylists and prominent chefs, designing menus and creating recipes for a variety of events and occasions.

 

I’ve done cookbook recipe testing, plating for menu and cookbook photo shoots, interactive chef demonstrations, beer and wine pourings and pairings, and on-site prep for gatherings large and small from dinners at the James Beard House to buffet-style get togethers at private residences and culinary charity activities.

 

Menu & Recipe Data Management

Much of my time working in the hospitality industry has been on-site in culinary operational roles, figuring out how to get things to work the way they need to so that business can move forward and then to put systems and processes in place to capture efficiencies and generally to get things to work better for the company, employees, and clients, saving time and money, and minimizing frustration along the way.   

Food Writing, Editing, Proofreading

I have written, proofread, and edited thousands of recipes in all formats and for many kinds of publications and usage, reviewed cookbooks and tested their recipes, and have developed custom, event specific menus for clients.  In addition to creating and testing recipes, I also covered the local NYC food events scene on this website for many years and wrote content for other award-winning websites and publications.  Some of my photos were also published on these websites.  

 

 [photo from the NYC Chocolate Show; article in Woman Around Town]

 

Updating The Experimental Gourmand

Moving on from the old (right) to the new (left) 

Long time readers of this website might have wondered what is going on, as the format and design seem to have gone a bit retro recently.  Tech things, is the short answer.  Much like the suitcases, in the photo above, my trusty website that I build years ago, has frays and cracks and basically crashed due to incompatibility with newer systems.  So, like the suitcase on the left, I decided to move on to something similar, but sleeker.  Fortunately, I'm able to build on a really old Blogger site that I used to have, which was still active but out of date.  I also set up a GoFundMe to help me out financially, after my job was eliminated due to the company being bought by a private equity firm.

Chile con Queso for Super Bowl Sunday

 

Chile con Queso 

 

This is a recipe that I developed for Brooklyn Salsa Company using their Brooklyn Salsa product. They seem not to be in business as of 2025.

It might sound a bit naff, but I really like the Tex-Mex classics, even though I know that they might not represent authentic Mexican cuisine, which I also do enjoy.  They were the way that I first learned about these flavors, which were completely foreign to my generic 1970s-80s upbringing.  One of the things I probably first ate was Chile con Queso.  I used to love to order it when we went out, but I never seem to do so now.

Chocolate-Covered Sea Salt Cashew Toffee

 

Sea Salt Cashew Toffee

This recipe was originally created in 2011 for Nuts+Nuts and published on their website as well as on The Experimental Gourmand.   

I first got to know Cyrilla Suwarsa, co-founder of Nuts+Nuts, at the New Amsterdam Holiday Market back in December.  She was there selling the farm-direct gourmet cashews that her company imports from farmers in Indonesia, her home country.  When I tasted her cashews, I was instantly struck by how flavorful and meaty they seemed.  She explained that this is because the Indonesian kind is a different variety from the ones that are usually available from South America and are typically found in the U.S. 

Coconut-Citrus Chicken Skewers

 Coconut-Citrus Chicken Skewers

This recipe was originally created in 2011 for Schoolhouse Kitchen and published on their website as well as on The Experimental Gourmand.  This company has since gone out of business.

Last month, when I was at the Fancy Food Show, I had a chance to check out a few new products in Schoolhouse Kitchen‘s range.  Their new Coconut Citrus Vinaigrette is a fantastic addition to their product line.  It is deeply flavorful with a smooth texture from the coconut milk, a dash of spice from the curry, and a zing of citrus shining throughout.  The tastes are all so well balanced and would be perfect for drizzling over a salad of seasonal summer greens.  For me, this brought back memories of eating Thai Chicken Skewers when out with friends.  

Poire Belle Helene

 

Poire Belle Helene

I remember my mother’s homemade chocolate sauce very well. She didn’t make it all that often, usually also around the time that she would make homemade ice cream. The taste of it is, however, firmly imprinted on the part of my brain that stores childhood food memories. There’s only been a few times that I’ve eaten another product that even came close to the same thing. Slickepott Fudge Sauce is one of these.

Vegetable and Tofu Stir Fry with Noodles for Oxo & Plated Contest

 

Vegetable and Tofu Stir Fry with Noodles 

 
I’ve been a big fan of Oxo‘s kitchen tools, which make my life much easier in the kitchen.  Their vegetable peeler was my constant companion during culinary school, and comes with me to every catering gig as part of my standard toolkit (where it is borrowed on a regular basis).  When I received an email asking for recipe suggestions for using a selection of their utensils as part of a contest sponsored by Oxo and Plated, a meal delivery service, I knew that I wanted to take part in it, squeezing it into my busy working chef schedule.