Tag: catering

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Flipside Asia Catering

Kimberly Bolan, Kurt Kaiser, and Katherine Terry (Photo: Michael Donahue)

Kimberly Bolan and her brother, Kurt Kaiser, own Flipside Asia, a catering company that also sells Asian cuisine to the public.

And they have a mission.

“We’re educating people on what Thai curry should taste like,” says Bolan, 53. “A lot of people don’t know. They assume they hate it.”

“We get all our spices from Dubai and Southeast Asia,” says Kaiser, 43. “We do Indian food, but the focus is more on Thai curry. Just the spices they use. Thai curry is typically a paste. And you use the paste with coconut milk, lemongrass. Indian curry is more cumin, paprika, and chilis. It’s just completely different.”

Bolan and Kaiser, who cook out of the Memphis Kitchen Co-op Marketplace in Cordova, offer 20 dishes via @flipsideasia on Instagram and Facebook.

They do a lot of private parties. “The spring roll class I’ve been doing for girls nights and birthday parties is really fun,” Bolan says. “We show you how to make a Vietnamese fresh spring roll.”

Usually, what they cook during the week, they’ll sell to the public at the co-op at 7942 Fischer Steel Road.

They also sell at Curb Market, Grind City Grocer, and Cordelia’s Market. “Right now we’re just introducing our Thai vegetable curries with jasmine rice. If people like those flavors, they’ll love the others.”

Their food items, cooked fresh every week, include their popular laab namtok, or “lettuce wraps.” Kaiser described it as “a spicy minced pork with fresh herbs.”

They also make an Indian butter chicken, which is popular. “I’ve been making it over 20 years,” Bolan says. “It’s a tomato-based Indian dish served over basmati rice. It is so good.”

“Butter chicken is probably the most ubiquitous Indian dish around the world,” Kaiser says. “One of the things that separates ours is the spice we get directly from the Dubai market.”

They have a travel connection that brings back spices from Dubai, Bolan says.

A native Memphian, Bolan began cooking exotic dishes when she started traveling around the world after high school.

Seeing the different dishes in Peru and the Maldives, where she lived, made her want to learn. “It was fascinating to me that the food was such a huge part of their culture.

“That’s what, I think, spurred me into this whole thing. I’ve always loved to cook for people. And I didn’t want to live the rest of my life not having this food in my life.”

Most of her recipes are family recipes she got from friends living around the world.

Kaiser, who got his master’s in biology, spent about eight months with Bolan in the Philippines after graduation. “We started messing around in the kitchen in the Philippines,” he says. “We always kind of cooked a little bit together.”

He began cooking on his own after he moved to Vietnam in 2018 to open tap rooms for a brewery. But that job ended when the pandemic hit. He moved back to Memphis.

Kaiser recalls the origin of Flipside Asia: “I remember saying, ‘Your recipes are badass and I can’t find that flavor.’”

“Here we are,” Bolan says. “Two white kids from Memphis. And we’re not Asian, clearly. And we’re not really chefs.”

But, she says, “You have these recipes that have been handed to you from generations of people. And you’re interested in this and you want people to taste it. You want them to open their minds.”

Kaiser made a list of what they were making and he began delivering the dishes to a couple of neighborhoods.

“All our curries are notoriously mild,” Kaiser says.

“We want it to be authentic without blowing somebody’s brains out,” Bolan adds. “The general public doesn’t want it spicy in this part of the world. We want you to enjoy it. Like any food, you should taste it first and then decide if you want to add spice.”

They might open a food truck or a restaurant one day, but, Bolan says, “I’m riding this wave of happiness right now. I don’t want to mess anything up. And we’re having fun. If you can’t have fun, don’t do it.”

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Chef Keun Anderson is “The Big Guy”

The Big Guy” was the perfect name for chef Keun Anderson’s culinary side business.

“Because I’m a fairly big guy — 6’3, 280 pounds,” Anderson says. “Why not go with ‘The Big Guy’?”

Anderson, 31, kitchen manager at Slider Inn Downtown, began his side business making and selling cheesecakes and other cuisine online a year ago. But he kicked everything up a notch after his previous job at Arrive Memphis’ Longshot restaurant ended due to the pandemic.

strawberry cheesecake

Growing up in Charleston, South Carolina, Anderson enjoyed his mother’s soul food. “I love to eat. That’s like another job.”

His mother made him help in the kitchen. “I really didn’t care about it. Peel the candied yams. Shuck peas. Trim the collard greens.”

He thought about going into the military, but his mother said there was “too much going on in the world. My mama said, ‘It is not a good idea for you to fight now.'”

That’s when Anderson’s cooking education began.

He got a job working on the grill at McDonald’s. “It really wasn’t cooking. Press it down and set it on a timer.”

Then Waffle House. “It was my first time learning about eggs: sunny side up, over easy, over hard, scrambled light, scrambled hard. I just always scrambled it and it was done. I thought it was amazing you could do eggs so many ways.”

He learned how to cook on a broiler at Olive Garden. Buffalo Wild Wings was next. “To me, that wasn’t cooking. It was just pushing out food.” He learned to make natural-cut French fries and creme brûlée at Ruth’s Chris Steak House.

Anderson worked “literally every station” at Little Caesars Pizza. He even worked for a time at Pioneer Casino in Fern Lake, Nevada. “I think I made over a million pancakes working there.”

Anderson is thankful for all his restaurant experiences. “Every job I had made me who I am today.”

But working at Loflin Yard was a turning point. “That’s where I really started the love of cooking ’cause Andy Knight taught me so much. I love him to this day.”

Knight, who was executive chef, taught him how to “cook the perfect fish,” he says. “Make sure the skillet is piping hot. Put a little oil on it and put that bad boy skin down. You can’t go wrong with that.”

Anderson, who went on to work at Belle Tavern and Mardi Gras, began his side business after he left Loflin Yard. But Longshot executive chef David Todd helped him perfect his cheesecake. He told Anderson, “Man, you can do better. Think outside the box. Why don’t you make a candied bacon maple syrup cheesecake?'”

Anderson knew he’d arrived when Dawn Russell at Arrive’s Hustle & Dough told him, “I lived in New York, and this is the second-best cheesecake I ever had.”

Anderson began making his cheesecakes and selling them on Facebook.

He had more time for his side business after Longshot closed. He created a “meal prep” with low-sodium, low-carb food. “I did my smoked salmon with asparagus and sweet potato salad. I learned that from Andy Knight.”

Other Anderson items include buffalo chicken egg rolls, spinach dip, macaroni and cheese, fried catfish, chef’s salad, and a fruit tray. His Sweet Nola Hot Wings made with Louisiana hot sauce and sugar are one of his hot items, especially at his catering jobs. He uses cornmeal instead of flour to keep the sauce on the wings.

His spicy chicken sandwich is another popular item. The chicken, marinated in a wet batter, comes in a brioche bun with Romaine lettuce, tomato, pepper jack cheese, and a sambal aioli.

And, Anderson says, “If you want something outrageous, I can make it for you, too.” That would include his three-layered cheesecake: regular cheesecake between two layers of yellow or any other type of cake. “It’s a pretty big cake.”

And what does Anderson call it? “The Big Cake.”

To order from The Big Guy, call 901-480-6897.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

A Feast with Flair

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Doug Ruddle, owner of Chef’s Palette catering, enjoys combining his experience as a corporate trainer with his passion for cooking. When he decided to study the culinary arts after retiring from a 25-year career at FedEx, his goal was to open a gourmet cooking store and give lessons.

Attending Memphis Culinary Academy was the culmination of an interest in cooking that began with his first job at Shoney’s where he worked as a cook.

“I continued cooking during my career at FedEx,” he says. And though he hasn’t opened a shop (yet), he’s had plenty of opportunities to teach people about cooking.

After he finished culinary school, he gave cooking demonstrations at Williams-Sonoma. Most recently, Ruddle has been teaching at a monthly luncheon at Prairie Life Fitness Center in Collierville. He’s developed quite a following. More than 80 people attended last month’s luncheon. The modestly priced gatherings ($10) feature a cooking lesson followed by lunch.

“We’ve done them poolside, where I showed grilling techniques,” Ruddle says. He’s also covered topics such as Mexican food and cooking with herbs.

With one of the biggest holidays of the year just around the corner, Ruddle is sharing his expertise to show people how to use elements of typical holiday favorites to create unusual Thanksgiving feasts.

It’s all about creating new flavors and adding a little flair to a traditional meal — “anything that steps outside the boundaries of a baked turkey and cornbread dressing,” Ruddle says. “You can enhance any traditional holiday food with the extra things you put in it.”

If scrapping the entire menu for a more modern version is too extreme, Ruddle suggests substituting one dish at a time.

For instance, instead of pumpkin pie, try white-chocolate and cherry bread pudding with vanilla cream sauce. This easy recipe is served in a large glass casserole dish that can feed an army. Also, it can be served warm, which is just the thing people are after on a chilly fall day.

Other departures from the usual approach might include cooking a turkey breast instead of the whole bird. “It’s a really good option to the whole turkey, and it takes a lot less time to cook it,” Ruddle says. “If you’re not comfortable with carving at the table, you can just slice the breast and you’re good to go.”

Modernizing a menu doesn’t mean doing away with all the old favorites. “I may do green beans because everybody loves green beans, but let’s do some slivered almonds in there. Let’s do some pancetta. We’ll do it a little bit healthier. We’ll sauté it.”

Then there’s the cranberry sauce. Is it really that much of a sacrifice to do away with the gelatinous blob that comes out of a can? Ruddle says fresh cranberry sauce is the way to go. Add a little Amaretto for a different flavor.

To switch things up a bit, instead of traditional sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows, try a sweet potato trifle for dessert. Or add chestnuts and dried cherries to cornbread dressing.

One of the more practical tips Ruddle offers is to keep things simple. “I would suggest not serving such a huge variety of things. There’s no need to make six side items,” he says.

Before any big holiday meal, Ruddle recommends skipping the appetizers: “You don’t want people filling up on finger food.” He suggests starting out with a nice soup, like wild mushroom or squash, then skipping the salad and going right to the entrée.

“I love the wild mushroom soup,” he says. “It’s really earthy and good. This time of year it will warm you.”

And even though everyone wants to get through the holidays without going up a pant size, menu planning is not the place to save a few hundred calories. It’s better to watch the portion size and use smaller plates, Ruddle says.

“People can always get seconds,” he explains. “If you give them a big plate, they feel like they have to fill it up.”