Home Cooks Guide

A professional chef's guide to the home kitchen

About the Blog

Welcome to the Home Cooks Guide.  My name is Kara Taylor, executive chef, meat processor, catering director, entrepreneur, and busy mom.  The Home Cooks Guide is my latest project where I share professional tips for the home kitchen including recipes, cooking lessons, ingredient information and recommendations.  Whether you like following recipes or geeking out on the how and why of cooking, you’ll find interesting to-the-point information here. 

You’ll notice that this blog is Ad-Free.  I’m just not into writing articles based on trending keywords or vouching for products I’ve never tried for the affiliate commission.  I simply write about what I am most interested in and knowledgeable about, in a way that I would want to read it if I was the reader.  I hope you appreciate this approach, subscribe and support this blog as you are able to.  Most of all, I hope you enjoy reading, sharing and commenting on my posts.  

About the author

Kara Taylor

I am a self taught professional chef with 20 years experience in commercial kitchens.  I learned by doing. By trial and error.  By devouring cook books with a voracious appetite. And by observing the many talented chefs, line cooks, moms and grandmas that I’ve spent countless hours cooking beside.

I started cooking when I was 15  at an Italian Restaurant in a small coastal New England town. At 25 I launched a gourmet Charcuterie business in Northern California and became a CDFA licensed meat processor specializing in sausages, duck confit, pate and bacon.  At 29 I opened a Farm-to-Table Restaurant with my husband where I was the executive chef, general manager and catering director.  A couple of years into restaurant ownership, with a two year old, we were both burned out.  We traded the restaurant in for a house and a better work-life balance.   I remained on as the executive chef under the new owners and was awarded Best Chef in 2018 and 2019 in Style Magazine Reader Choice Awards.   At the restaurant  I developed all our seasonal menus and recipes, trained kitchen staff, oversaw ordering and inventory and planned and coordinated catered events and winemaker dinners.  In May of 2020 I had my second child and at the same time, the restaurant closed due to the pandemic.  I took that as my cue to exit the restaurant industry to focus on other things.  I detoured into local politics, serving as a City Council Member/Mayor through the pandemic years (which was wild).  In 2023 I moved to Missoula, Montana to build a house on 5 acres with my dream kitchen, a root cellar and big garden and orchard.  This blog is my passion project, a way for me to stay connected to my love of food and cooking.

Subscribe for Recipes in your inbox and a FREE “Quick Guide to the 5 Tastes”