Last month, I was reading the newspaper and it had an article about Pyet DeSpain. I know her. We aren't close friends and the last time I saw her was at my son's wedding. He was getting married to Pyet's half sister. At the time she had an office job for a local car dealer. I learned from the article that she had gone to culinary school, moved to LA and was making meals for delivery to clients when she decided to start creating meals based on her background. She and her mother and grandmother are members of the Potawatomi tribe and her father and his Mexican family lives in Kansas City She grew up in both cultures. Her food attracted some attention in Los Angles and was asked to be a contestant on Gordon Ramsay's Next Level Chef She was the winner of Season One. She has a cooking show on PBS. This was all news to me. I preordered her cookbook and after it came, had it signed it at a book signing event here in Kansas City. This is the first cook book that I will have read from cover to cover and am acquiring items for her recipes that are not often found or grocery store shelves, like sumac and juniper berries. I remember sumac trees all along an area where I used to take walks in Junction City and made tea with them once in a while but now have a chance to learn how to put them to greater use. Same for juniper berries. I have a tree in my backyard that has a gazillion of those blue seeds on it. She has some sauces that have been modified to use as BBQ sauces and I do a lot of BBQ in my smoker and have used fruit flavors in my sauces and her sauces also use fruit flavors. I have inclded another picture of my son's wedding day taken with is bride and her siblings. Pyet is on the left.
