Jennifer Newbold has been the chef at Rathbun's Blue Plate Kitchen for about six months now. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, she grew up eating food from her family farm and would like to see an easier way to bring the farm to the table here. She came to Dallas via St. Loius and San Diego, and she makes a strong case on why you should try her mussels.
We sat down with Newbold for this week's interview.
When did you first become interested in cooking? My grandpa passed away before I was born, but he was a chef. My father cooked a lot too, and growing up in Tacoma, Washington, we would go hunting and fishing regularly. I remember always being in the kitchen with my dad. We'd go pick chanterelles and make a big batch of chanterelle soup. And we always had gardens. We didn't have a lot of money, so we grew a lot of our own foods.
And at a young age I remember going to the grocery store with my mother and she would read the labels on everything to see where it came from.