Karen Barrett – Memphis Flyer

“My Favorite Things,” which has become a holiday classic song over the years, triggered the idea to ask Memphis chefs and food aficionados what memory sticks with them as one of the best things they’ve ever eaten anywhere. They might not be able to fit it into a stocking, but it ranks up there with “bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens.”

Kelly English, chef/owner of Restaurant Iris, The Second Line, Panta, and Fino’s from the Hill: “There is one dish that really made my mind up to jump in and try to be a chef — the gnocchi and gulf crab meat with truffle at the restaurant August in New Orleans. On a flavor and texture level, this was a mind-blowing dish. But it was simple. It’s a bite I will never forget.”

Keun Anderson, head chef at Texas de Brazil: “I love anime and Naruto is one of my favorite animes. So, when it comes to the best food I ever had, I can’t help myself. I love ramen. And Flame Ramen is the best.”

Reuben Skahill, veteran Memphis bartender/server: “I had a bender of goat cheese pasta with blackened chicken from Amerigo [Italian Restaurant] five days a week for three years and was always satisfied … warm pasta that makes its own creamy sauce from the goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes as you mix all the flavors together.”

Karen Barrett, chef/owner of The Happy Belly Company of Memphis: “One of my favorite food memories is when I was learning to cook with my great-grandmother, and she literally made the best sweet potato pie I’ve ever had in my life. The crust was perfect and her pie filling was so rich and deeply colored you’d almost think it was pumpkin. … I won’t share the secret to her pie, but I will tell you there’s nothing wrong with adding a little bourbon in your recipe. Trust me on this one.”

Josh Steiner, MealMD executive chef: “My grandma Jacqueline’s lasagna. It has all kinds of cheeses like whipped ricotta mixed with fresh herbs. It also has a lot of fresh marinara. And I like to add lots of black pepper to it.”

Jimmy “Sushi Jimmi” Sinh, chef/owner of Poke Paradise food truck: “The tomahawk [steak] from Folk’s Folly. It’s a lot better ’cause the bone adds more flavor to the meat. And they just make it the way I like it.”

Justin Hughes, assistant pastry chef at The Peabody: “One of the best things I’ve had was from The Crazy Noodle. It was the cucumber salad and spicy Korean ramen they serve. The ramen is well-balanced with flavor.”

Nick Scott, chef/owner of Salt|Soy: “My friend Mitsu Isoda ran Jewel Bako in New York. He did a dry-aged bluefin tuna nigiri. It was the absolute best piece of fish that I’ve ever tasted. He now runs Omakase Room by Mitsu in New York. He dry-aged it for around 25 days in a very cold temperature. It compounded the flavor and tenderized the meat. It melted as you ate it. He brushed soy on it and put a small amount of wasabi underneath the fish. It didn’t need anything. It was easily the best thing I’ve eaten.”

Miles Tamboli, chef/owner of Tamboli’s Pasta & Pizza: “Artesano pizza bar, town of Lagoa da Conceicao on the island of Santa Catarina in the city of Florianopolis, Brazil. This place used to be way less fancy. When I went there around 2005 they had this burger they called the X Burger that had everything you can imagine on it. Two patties, peas, corn, a hot dog, special sauce, a slab of ham, all kinds of shit. It was incredible.”

Schuyler O’Brien, founder/creator of Over Yonder ice cream: “The best meal I ever had was a 13-course tasting menu at The Barn at Blackberry Farm. The most memorable thing I’ve ever eaten were the Pig Face Parker House rolls from Odd Duck in Austin — classic yeast rolls stuffed with braised pig face on house Dijon mustard.”

Karen Barrett just made it easier for bellies to be happier.

Owner of The Happy Belly Company, Barrett opened Happy Belly Kitchen October 18th. The commercial space in the CloudKitchen at 3237 Summer Avenue will be used for curbside pick-up and delivery only. The rest of the time it will be used as a production kitchen for catering and meal prep.

Barrett’s cuisine is varied. “I have always been into Southern comfort, but I always put my own twist on it,” she says. “I have a lot of island influences. I like to mix those cuisines with what we already have in our city.

“My speciality is a hot water corn bread sandwich. It’s two hot water corn bread pieces. And it has collard greens, smoked turkey, and chow-chow. You get a cup of pot liquor on the side.”

The Happy Belly Company umbrella also includes her catering business, The Happy Belly Experience. “I even make ice cream: Happy Belly Scoop. I feel like there’s not anything I can’t do with food.”

Born and raised in Memphis, Barrett says, “I’m a preacher’s kid, so very early on I was taught to serve.” And, she says, “If I can give you that moment with a good plate of food, I’ve done my good deed for the day.”

She loves the reactions she gets from people who enjoy her food. “They’re happy. They sing. They dance. In the South, sometimes they want to hit you.” Those are the people who go, “Oh, my God. This is so good I could just slap you.”

Barrett perfected scratch pancakes while spending summers with her great-grandmother. But she wasn’t so great on her first attempt at hamburger steaks, mashed potatoes, and gravy. The gravy was the problem. “I added too much flour so it was thick. I didn’t season it or anything.” But her grandparents were troopers. Her great-grandfather said, “That’s the best I ever had.”

“I knew he was lying ’cause I saw them passing a package of Tums in between them at the table.”

Barrett, who worked at various corporate jobs, attended the old L’Ecole Culinaire, where she was asked to cater a Christmas party. That led to more catering jobs and a catering business.

She moved to Nashville, where she worked for an insurance services company but returned to Memphis two years later. “I had to make food work for me. I still had people calling for catering.”

She began posting online what she was cooking. “And I’d sell out.”

Barrett got a job at the old Marley’s Caribbean restaurant on Beale Street. “West Indies food was the same thing we already had to eat in the South. It’s just the different spices they add to make it taste different.”

Barrett, who opened Happy Belly in 2018, decided what direction to go after a friend asked her to cook a dinner for eight during the pandemic. “I cooked their entire meal, set it up for them, made it pretty, packed up, and left.”

Her specialty now is intimate events, catering dinner parties for 30 people or less. “I literally set up all of the food. I do craft cocktails as well. Signature drinks for that particular event. If you want music, I have live music I can set you up with. Photography. The entire experience, so you won’t have to worry about it.”

Barrett, who’s always been considered “the life of the party,” says, “If I had to decide what I want to do all the time, it would be eat, drink, and be merry. So, I wanted to monetize it. I was always doing it just because I wanted to. I still do it because I want to. People just pay me to do it now.”

She would like to see her food in grocery store frozen food departments. And a TV show isn’t out of the question. “I really want Happy Belly to be a name everyone knows and to know they’re going to get something delicious. I’m going to make all of the bellies happy I can.”

Go to happybellyexperience.com for more information.