Kyia Williams: personal chef and culinary consultant
Kyia Williams moved from Baltimore to New York City in July 2014. “I just needed something different,” she said. “I needed a fresh perspective. Baltimore, my hometown, is lovely but it’s very slow, and I wanted to be able to put myself out there and see what would stick. I felt like there was no other place to do that other than New York.”
Williams first began her New York sojourn working as a teacher. She assisted other educators at places like the Montessori Educational Play Space and at the Brooklyn-based Little Sun People Childcare Daycare center in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Those were interesting gigs, but ultimately Williams progressed toward her calling. Since childhood, she’s loved cooking. Her grandmother, Alice Holland, taught her how to cook and by age nine, Williams was preparing dishes with her—pot roasts, pound cakes, fried fish, fried potatoes, oxtail soup, roasted cabbage, fried cabbage, steamed cabbage, collard greens, pig’s feet, black-eyed peas, potato salad.
Her grandmother taught Williams how to cook the kind of food that satisfied the community the family grew up in. Her family lived in the historically Black Baltimore neighborhood of Turner Station, an area that had been created just after the Civil War and one of the few places in Baltimore where African Americans could build and live in homes without facing discrimination. It was where all the musicians and politicians would come to eat, relax, and take part in local Black culture, and, incidentally, where Henrietta Lacks – whose cancer cells were stolen by John Hopkins University doctors and formed into scientifically important HeLa cells – once lived. From 2007 to around 2010, Williams attended culinary school at the now-defunct Baltimore International College, but she did not walk away with her degree. “I didn’t finish. I ended up helping my mom take care of my grandmother,” she explained. Her extended family still resides in Turner Station, but Williams, her sister, mother, and their half-brother moved out of state.
Once Williams moved to New York, she was able to start cooking professionally. “I knew my passion was cooking, but New York was such a different space for me,” she said. “It’s so fast. And there were so many people [and] there were all these things. I was like, I don’t even know if I’m going to be good at this; it seems like there’s a lot you have to put in. But I had a lot of support in the community.”
Williams set up her company, Wildflower Kitchen, and became a personal chef and culinary consultant. Through advertising assistance from her sister, Khalilah Beavers, and word-of-mouth among those she has worked with, she began getting jobs advising local restaurants about the best practices for managing their businesses. “Most times they’re already doing well. But some businesses, they’re just starting out. One business I’m currently working with, they’re doing well, but they’re expanding. I think they’re looking for a team of individuals who can help with their special services and special events.”
As a personal chef, Williams has catered private events for the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the Richard Beavers Gallery, Third Crown Jewelry, and the Farragut Stakeholders Group. She’s cooked for contemporary recording artists, visual artists, even celebrities like former NBA player Carmelo Anthony, the photographer Brittani Sensabaugh, NYC Council Member Chi Ossé, and the celebrated fashion stylist Mobolaji Dawodu.
Williams is currently developing a new updated website, KyiaW.com, so that restaurant spaces and cafes that need consultation and individuals who want to contact her for dining and catering experiences can do so.
“That’s really where I come in, especially when it comes to reading menus, giving advice, and trying to figure out a better system—or just an easier system so that everybody can follow it,” she said.
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