You’ve had the chance to meet some of the OG Kate’s Plate crew, so we thought we’d switch it up and introduce a newer member of the team–Corinne! With nearly 2 years at KP, she plays an important part in both the office and kitchen crews. Corinne is the mastermind behind ordering all the delicious ingredients that make up your meals each week, and her ROBO (heavy-duty food processor) skills are what saves you from chopping, slicing, or dicing your veggies at home.

Her organizational skills, knack for delegation, and reliability make our weeks smooth and efficient. But, what really makes her shine is her incredible kindness. Always ready to lend a listening ear or a helping hand, she helps strengthen the sense of friendship within our team. She is a truly wonderful person, and we know you’ll love getting to know her just as much as we have.

Get know know Corinne:

Tell us about yourself/your family:

“I have been married for 13 years. We have 3 children: twin girls who just turned 13 and a son who will be turning 11 this year in December. I am originally from New Mexico and my husband is originally from Florida. We met due to the military, and when he retired, it brought us out to Ohio. We have two dogs, Darwin and Murphy, and a cat named Leo.  

My mom is from Switzerland and my dad is from France. Oddly enough, they met in New Mexico. So my first language is French and I still speak French with my family but yeah, we don’t have a lot of family here in the States, but a lot of them are still in Europe.” 

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What did you do before you came to Kate’s Plate?

“I was a non-certified vet tech for 6 years. After that, I was a stay-at-home mom for 11 years, and then I came to work at Kate’s Plate. I did go to school for a B.S. in biology but didn’t quite finish due to having to move around with the military.”  

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How did you hear about Kate’s Plate? How did you join the team? 

“So, Kate’s son and my son are best friends, and when we met she told me that she owned Kate’s Plate. It was probably a year later that we ran into each other, and she said that she had some open positions and mentioned that if I was looking for some part-time work she was looking for somebody. I came to check it out and liked the atmosphere and the ladies that were working here, so I decided to take the job. It’ll be 2 years in January.”

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How did you learn to cook? 

“My dad is a chef by profession and my mom has always just loved cooking and baking as well, so from both of them came my love of cooking and baking. I love cooking for people, especially when they appreciate my food, haha. I love being in the kitchen and trying new recipes, that kind of thing.” 

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Did your dad being a chef have a big influence on how you cook/your type of cooking now? 

“Probably, yeah. I mean I’m not a picky eater, but I am picky about how food is made and things like that. So that is probably due to my father.”

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What is your favorite thing to cook or bake? 

“Oh goodness, that’s a hard one! I would say that I really enjoy making different types of pasta. Not the actual pasta itself, but just pasta meals. I enjoy trying different sauces and making pasta with chicken or with sausage. Those are probably my favorite to make, and it’s usually the ones that bring the most joy to my children, so it’s an easy win.”  

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From what I hear, your kids are not picky eaters. How have you helped them be open to eating different foods? 

“From the beginning, we just made sure that they kind of tried everything. I was not someone who cooked different meals for my kids versus my husband, so the kids just kind of had to try everything. If they absolutely didn’t like it, then they could get something else or not eat the whole thing. But I would say, for the most part, it was just introducing things from a young age. Most of the time they didn’t even know what something was but they would love it, so it didn’t matter. So, yeah, I would say it was from just introducing stuff at a young age and getting them used to different things.”  

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This is a staple question: what is your favorite Kate’s Plate meal? 

“Oh, I really like the Date Night Rigatoni. It’s one of my favorites with the fennel sauce, and it’s definitely one of the favorites in the house. It’s just different. I’ve had fennel in restaurants, where a dish might have it in the recipe, but I’ve never cooked with it per se. It’s really tasty. 

The Pumpkin Risotto is really good too, and the Coffee Rubbed Pork Tenderloin is also really tasty. I do love the Reubens as well–the Turkey Reuben or the Deconstructed Reuben Salad ready-to-eat is really good too. I’m actually having that for lunch today.” 

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What are some things you have both enjoyed and not enjoyed so much about working at Kate’s Plate? 

“Honestly, my favorite thing about working at Kate’s Plate is everybody that I work with. It’s just a good group of people, and we have fun together. Even on the work weeks that we are just slammed, we still have fun, and we still make each other laugh. We care about each other, check in on each other, and know what’s going on in each other’s lives for the most part. That’s just really nice coming from being a stay-at-home mom and not having adult interaction every day to then having this has just been a really nice transition. So, I would say it’s the people that I work with really that have really been a joy.

The negative? It’s probably smelling like food when you get home, especially on Fridays when you want to go out to dinner or something. You have to cover yourself with perfume or dry shampoo. Either that or when we have either a ton of kale that needs to be washed and trimmed or a ton of mushrooms. Wiping all the mushrooms down and making sure that they are ready to be cut or sliced is quite the task sometimes.”  

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One of your key roles at KP is ordering all of our groceries. It’s one of the most important roles in our weekly operations and is one of the more challenging tasks at the shop. You are great at it. How do you tackle that task? 

“I will say, in the beginning, it was really nerve-wracking just because I didn’t want to come up short because it affects the whole team when we end up being short on something. Someone has to run out to the grocery store or things have to be put on pause. It’s really nice when you have that perfect week when you don’t have to run out, which is pretty rare because you just never know what/how produce is going to come in. But, I just feel like after a while, practice makes perfect. You hear that all the time, but it is true. 

I’ve been doing it for over a year now as far as the food ordering, so it’s just kind of become second nature. Before I had other tasks I was taking care of, and those were also nerve-wracking at first. But after a while, it was like, ‘Okay, I know this’. If I had to go back to those tasks now, I would be like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing’ so it’s really just getting your flow of things. I started with lots of lists in the beginning just so that I wouldn’t forget anything, and that helped too. It’s just taken a lot of practice and notes. You eventually memorize things and get used to knowing all the things, like which vendors provide what for us and who we will go to depending on what we need. It also helps that I am the one doing a lot of the veggie prep for when we use the ROBO, and I see like, ‘Okay, usually we have this much waste,’ and that helps with how much I order.”

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Is there anything else you would like to add? 

“Just that Kate’s Plate is a really fun place to work. We have a good group of ladies (and Aidan and Jackson), and it’s nice to know that you can rely on the people that you are working with because that’s not always the case at every job. It’s a fun place and we have a good team!”