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]