Her mother, Irene Hayes, assembled What's Cookin' in Kentucky, which has sold 200,000 copies. More restaurants are discovering the possibilities in Kentucky cuisine, says Jamie Estes, a public relations consultant in the food-service field. At the luxury Seelbach Hilton in Louisville, guests can order several Kentucky dishes served as if they were filet mignon. The fried green tomatoes, for instance, come with roasted garlic aoli. The Seelbach's pork chop rib is marinated in bourbon and spicebush berries, which taste like cloves and allspice.
Pawpaws are a sweet fruit that grow wild near Kentucky creeks.
So do I. Karen Samples is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. Her column appears on Sundays and Thursdays in The Kentucky Enquirer. The Cincinnati Enquirer , a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper.