We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kitura Smith a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kitura, appreciate you joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

I love this question! Like any other company, you want a name that encompasses your product and that has a catchy name. I solicited ideas from family and friends and they provided some interesting names but those names were not “IT”! Soooo, I started thinking about things that I liked, movies with catchy titles and I thought, “Ah-ha….All About the Benjamins” and there birthed All About the Mini’s! Bite size flavor on the go.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

This is such an awesome question, Here is what I would like for the readers to know about me.

I grew up in the Midwest, Waukegan, IL, to be exact about 40 miles north of Chicago. I moved to California during my high school years and after graduation, I pursued a career in Electrical Engineering, graduating from Hamilton Technical College in Iowa, before relocating to the Atlanta area.

In 2006, I encountered a unique opportunity and landed a position with a Fortune 500 Company as an Events Coordinator, which catapulted me into a new career in the Hospitality industry. It started with the Meetings and Events sector organizing Corporate level events, planning Sales and User Conferences, Awards Conferences and Meetings.

During this time I noticed that I had another gift that I wanted to tap into and I starting planning events for local radio stations and Celebrities of National Reality TV Shows. Then came the Food & Beverage sector of the Hospitality Industry. BAAM!!! I was reminded of my love and passion for cooking from my childhood years and fell in love with the culinary industry all over again. Learning, studying, embracing this passion and absorbing the knowledge of this industry became my fulltime focus.

When asked where does my love for cooking come from, that’s an easy answer, it comes from the two main women from my childhood and that would be my Mother, Sandi and the matriarch of the family, my Grandmother Geneva. I can remember growing up and the aroma of good food cooked with love as the main ingredient filled the air! Fast forward to today, the love of cooking and several years of catering, led me to follow my passion and start my own business, KE’ (KEY) Catering which in turn birthed, “All About the Mini’s”, bite-size flavor on the go!

Being the CEO of my business takes a lot of discipline, focus, dedication and consistency! Not only am I the Chef, I’m the marketing department, the social media department, the photography/videography department, the finance department, the inventory management department and the quality control department…hahaha! I’ve gotten to the place where I need to fire myself from a few of these departments but that requires a team of which I’m in the process of building.

Being a Celebrity Chef and food stylist in the metro Atlanta area, I discovered a niche for tapas-style dishes that provide bite-size flavor on the go and my clients are able to indulge in these mouthwatering items from my Salmon Sliders and Philly Cheesesteak Sliders to my Chicken ‘n Waffle Minis to my famous Mac ‘n Cheese Muffins all while practicing portion control due to the size of the Mini’s which is what makes my business different from others. But, that’s just one of the services that I offer, I also provide the ultimate Private Chef Experience, and my clients love me for it! The PCF (Private Chef Experience) is where I come to your home or whatever setting that has been presented to me and I prepare 3, 4, or 5 course meals live and in living color for you and your guests. I limit the number of guests to 10 people because I want to ensure that my clients have that intimate experience from me and my team. You see, I consider food as one of the major love languages and I’m so proud to fall into that arena with my food. We all enjoy eating good, flavorful food and I so enjoy being a part of that. The look on my clients faces when they taste my food is priceless. Their smile tells me that I’ve made them happy by sharing my love of cooking with them.

Earlier I mentioned where my love for cooking came from and I wanted to pay homage to those two women and I did so by writing a book called Grandma’s Handz! This was a huge accomplishment for me and something that I’m very proud of! You see, in this book I share short stories from my childhood along with recipes of 3 generations of grandmothers, my grandmother, my mom, and myself. This book could have been written in about 30 days because I already knew what I wanted to say, I knew the stories I wanted to share and I knew what recipes I wanted to include. However, it took about 3 months and that was due to me having to create each dish. Typically when we’re cooking, we don’t measure our ingredients, we just eyeball them, BUT since the measurements had to be exact, I had to create each one along with taking pictures of the final product to share all while continuing to running my business, so it took me a little longer. I do plan to continue writing and sharing more stories and recipes in the near future.

I was also a host of an internet based radio/talk show called “The Chef’s Zone” where we highlighted chef’s world wide that typically wouldn’t get highlighted. Due to schedule conflicts and relocation of some of the team, we had to put it on the back burner (pun intended :-) ) but I’m looking forward to the relaunch in 2023.

My motivation behind my business pursuits are my two son’s David and Daniel along with my Grandchildren. I am working on leaving a legacy and focusing on Generational Wealth for my family.

You can visit my website at: www.allaboutheminis.com and on
IG: @chefkitura as well as @allabouttheminis_
My book can be purchased at: linktr.ee/chefkitura

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

PIVOT: To turn or “shift”. Most of my adult life I’ve worked in a corporate sector with my last position being an executive assistant. In 2018 my position was eliminated as the company was sold in an acquisition and the new owners brought in some of their own team members. I soon landed a job with another company, here again supporting C-Suite executives and then the great COVID-19 reared it’s little head in 2020 and my employment was affected again. I took this as a sign that I needed to pull the trigger on something that I’d been wanting to do anyway and that was work for myself, dive into the entrepreneur arena and be in control of my life, my livelihood, and my destiny. So I did just that, I’d been working on my tapas style menu items for months and this was the perfect time to launch my product line and launch my business.

This “pivot” took faith like you wouldn’t believe! It also took courage, strength and support from my family! My business is still in it’s “freshman” season but making that decision and doing the work to get me where I am today is so worth it! I get to select the clients that I work with, I make my own hours and believe it or not, I work more than I did in corporate but I’m working for myself and that is pure bliss! When I want to take off, I do and I don’t have to get approval from anyone, well….maybe from the finance department, oh wait…that’s me too! (Wink..wink)

Life is good!

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson that I had to unlearn was my mindset! Growing up we’re taught to go to school, go to college (acquire debt), get a job and live happily ever after but that’s not how life works. Most people are working a job that they don’t like just to collect a paycheck and they’re miserable.

With the change in my career and with having to learn how to run a business, I needed to change my mindset. I had to get uncomfortable with being comfortable. I had to invest in myself the way that I’d invested in other people and other businesses! This took building my confidence up and knowing that I was built for this and so much more and I had to learn to stop putting myself into a box and reminding myself that there are no limits as long as I stay focused, consistent and do the work.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.allabouttheminis.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chefkitura
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chef-kitura
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZoGQyq7af994jLNS4zJFVg