by Harvest Hale Events Team Made With Love My grandmother is an amazing woman! Maren Hale—or Mun, as the grandkids call her—is always thinking of others and has charity towards all. She regularly sends thank you notes and gifts to each of her 44 grandchildren, and her gifts are always chosen with great thought, not to mention being color-coordinated, themed, and wrapped in a beautiful basket! Mun’s homemade birthday and thank you cards always have paper punched hearts and a little symbol on the back that says “Halemark: Made with Love.” As the mother of eight children, Mun always looks for op ..read more

Big news! The International Caterers Association has awarded Culinary Crafts the Catie prize for Best Catered Event of the Year. In the catering and hospitality world, that’s like winning the Oscar for Best Picture. To learn more about this event, read on. The Best Catered Event of 2023 This event was an outdoor adventure full of food, fishing, and fun. In planning this event, we were inspired by Henry David Thoreau who “went to the woods” not to escape life but to live life more deeply. In the rush of everyday life, it’s easy to become numb and to do things out of routine habit. Even the wa ..read more

by Chris Riding Sous Chef When I was younger, I always wanted to be one of two things, either a general contractor or a chef. Plenty of people in my family had worked in construction, but no one had ever been a professional chef before. I wasn’t ever told that I couldn’t be a chef, but it just seemed kind of impossible. So I took the more familiar route and decided to go into construction. The Long Road to the Kitchen As I earned my construction certificates, I took a job as a meat clerk at a grocery store to pay my way through school. The longer I worked in that job, the more I learned about ..read more

by Brandon Roddy Culinary Director As a chef, I have had the privilege of cooking in some wonderful restaurants and working alongside amazing chefs (including the inimitable Wolfgang Puck and Melissa King). I have enjoyed delicious haute cuisine from all around the world, but the best meal I ever had was about as far from fancy cooking as you can get. My Best Meal A few years ago, I was invited to the Cayman Islands to spend a week working as a private chef. An old culinary friend joined me in the adventure, and we spent the week cooking lunches and dinners for a family of about 30 people. Af ..read more

Last week we bragged on one of our favorite Utah partners, Beehive Cheese. Every year, they help us create some delicious new flavors of cheese to share at our events. The talented folks at Beehive are amazing! Now we want to introduce you to a few of our favorite cheese flavors over the years. In honor of March Madness, we’ve whittled it down to sixteen of the best, going head to head to determine the champion. We’ve been been introducing the cheeses two at a time on our Instagram and Facebook stories. You can vote for your favorites in each round by clicking on the social icons at the botto ..read more

by Robin Kocherhans Field Kitchen Manager I was nine when my dad died. My brain dealt with the grief by shutting down, and over two decades later, I still struggle to find memories of him. But every once in a while, I get pieces: Him helping me deliver newspapers. Or the times he’d bundle my sisters and me in layers of snow gear and blankets and pile us into a cheap plastic sled hitched to his snowmachine. He’d drive us around for hours over frozen streets and across icy rivers into the silent forests of Fairbanks, Alaska. Most of all, though, I remember his joy for food. A surprising number ..read more

A few years ago, my wife treated me to an extra-special birthday present, a trip to Napa Valley and a meal from one of my personal idols, Chef Thomas Keller. (Chef Keller is the owner and chef of The French Laundry, a three-Michelin-star restaurant that Anthony Bourdain once called, “the best restaurant in the world, period.”) As expected, the meal was exquisite. My favorite moment came at the end of the meal when the waiter brought out a cheese flight for the guests to enjoy. The second I saw those cheeses, I did a double take. One taste confirmed my suspicion; Chef Keller was serving select ..read more

by Kira Rasmussen Baker and Proud Texas Woman A friend of mine asked me the secret to making a great Texas sheet cake. “Ask a Texas woman to make it,” I said. “Just kidding.” (I was not kidding.) I grew up in El Paso where my mom (also a Texas girl) taught us how to bake. Every Sunday afternoon we made cookies, brownies, pastries, or cakes, including one of my favorites, Texas sheet cake. When I took a job at Target Bakery, it was a huge step down from my mom’s kitchen; Target didn’t make anything fresh, and it was honestly pretty boring. I was glad to move to The Chocolate in Orem where I go ..read more

by Madison Oliveria Wedding and Sales Specialist; Kimball Terrace Venue Manager I’ve always had a huge sweet tooth. My parents love to tell the story of when I was five years old and our Basset hound, Elvis, stole my cookie. They heard a commotion in the backyard and came running to see what was wrong. Apparently, I had grabbed Elvis by one droopy ear and shoved my entire little arm down his throat (past my elbow), screaming, “GIVE ME BACK MY COOKIE!” Lucky for the poor dog, my parents came to the rescue. “It’s okay, sweetie! It’s okay!” they assured me. “We’ll get you a new cookie!!” Since t ..read more

by Tricia Garside Kitchen Manager When I was a little girl in Singapore, ong lai was the name of the delicious pineapple tarts that people would enjoy on Chinese New Year. In the Hokkien dialect, ong lai means “pineapple,” or it can also mean “fortune comes.” Pineapple tarts are still a very popular pastry during the festive season in Asia because they taste amazing and they are believed to be an omen of good luck and prosperity in the coming year. We would bake batches of these signature mouthwatering treats and give them as gifts to friends and neighbors…if we didn’t eat them all first! Ch ..read more