Meet Paige.

This gal is the mastermind behind one of Louisville’s tastiest blogs, My Modern Cookery. Not only is her site full of delicious recipes but the photography is crisp, clear and straight up delicious. It’s like scrolling through page after Pinterest page of irresistible food.

If you do one thing today, follow Paige on Instagram. Her recipes are a feast for the eyes and after hearing about her brownies (and seeing the pics), I’m making time this weekend to do my best impression.

Although we’ve never met in person, it didn’t take long to find out that Paige is a true treat (cheesy pun intended) and a huge asset to the Louisville blog community. Now we just need to make time to get to know each other more, over treats preferably.

Read all about Paige’s Louisville favorites and then clear your schedule because you’re going to want to dive into her site, get your pin on and plan out your next meal.

GENERAL 

* Name: Paige Rhodes

* Company: My Modern Cookery – a food and recipe blog

* Title: Recipe developer, writer, and photographer for My Modern Cookery 

*  How did you get started in your field? I’ve always had a love of writing and found myself intrigued by cooking at a very early age.  I decide to take a leap and signed up for culinary classes at Sullivan University to broaden my food knowledge, and felt like a food blog was the best way to share what I learned!

*  What inspires you? Success.  I am huge believer in the idea that you emulate the 5 people you surround yourself with most.  I try to constantly be learning from successful entrepreneurs, whether it be from podcasts, YouTube videos, or books. My thinking is, if I surround myself with the content of those that have made a successful living out of their creative ventures, I am then more inspired to be successful myself.   

*  What three words best describe your work: mouthwatering, visual, relatable

*  What three words best describe you: passionate, loving, innovative

*  One thing about you that might surprise people:  I’m no stranger to a frozen meal.  Most people are surprised to find out that when I’m home alone, I don’t typically cook for myself.  Unless I have a blog post planned, it’s Trader Joe’s frozen Thai shrimp fried rice for me!   

LOUISVILLE 

*  Why Louisville? So many people end up leaving Louisville, what helped keep you in the 502?  I absolutely LOVE Louisville, I really can’t imagine living anywhere else.  All of the great local restaurants, coffee, and  events makes it so hard to leave!  Plus, I love that in a short drive you can be absolutely anywhere in the city, and there is a great mix of urban and rural living. 

*  Favorite Louisville Neighborhood: If you asked me this a year ago I would have said hands down The Highlands. However, as of late,  NULU has really stolen my heart and pulled slightly ahead of the pack. 

*  Favorite Spot for a Drink: The Silver Dollar

* Favorite Lunch Spot: I’m going to cheat and say Gralehaus for Saturday brunch.   

* Favorite Dinner Spot:  Dragon Kings Daughter.  The amount of times we have been there greatly out numbers all others… It’s embarrassing. 

* You’ve got to try: 8up Louisville.  Especially if you’re out of town and want a great view of Louisville from the rooftop.   

* Favorite Festival:  Can I count the Flea off Market as a festival?  I patiently await every 2nd weekend of the month.  Mostly so I can get Louisville Cream ice cream.  

* Favorite Pizza Spot: Boombozz

*  If someone is visiting from out of town and only has time to go to three places, where do you send them? Nords Bakery for a maple bacon donut, Sunergos Coffee for the best damn latte you’ll ever have, and Hammerheads for an elk burger on a pretzel bun. 

JUST PAIGE 

* What inspired you to start My Modern Cookery?  After I started culinary school, everyone was constantly asking me for recipes.  Recipe development was my goal all along, and I figured that there was no better way to do it, than to share them on my own personal food blog!  

* How has your life changed since starting your blog? Busy, busy, busy!  It takes more time then one would think to develop a recipe, write the blog post, prepare a dish (often a couple times), style the food, set up lighting…backgrounds…etc, and photograph the final product.  The good thing is that it doesn’t feel like work, because I love it!

* What has been the most exciting/fun experience you’ve had as a result of blogging? Meeting fellow bloggers, for sure!  The creative community has been such a welcoming place from the very beginning and I have met some people that will be lifelong friends.  Being named one of Louisville.com‘s top 10 bloggers was pretty cool too! 

* If you could spend the day cooking with one person, who would it be?  My great-grandma, Antoinette Burch!  She was the first person that really sparked my love for cooking with her big Sunday dinners.  She was a retired lunch lady and the hardest working woman I’ve ever met.  She passed away in 2006, but I think she would be really proud of me!

* What’s your dream dinner party meal and who would attend? Okay… my guests would be: Oprah, Julia Child, Alton Brown, Jennifer Lawrence, Chrissy Teigen, Taylor Swift, Anthony Bourdain, Olivia Munn, Andie Mitchell, and my fiance, Matt (because I couldn’t handle all of that by myself).

We would then gorge ourselves on an Italian feast, complete with a charcuterie board with cured meats, cheeses, olives, and a big loaf of crusty bread with olive oil.  My famous lasagna (which is on the blog, btw), a ceasar salad made tableside, lots and lots of wine, and a pile of tiramisu for dessert.  Now, who do I talk to about making this happen?

* 
What’s been your favorite recipe that you’ve ever posted to the blog? Browned butter espresso blondies.  I crave them all.the.time…. and now I have to go make some!  

* What recipe has surprised you with the amount of response it’s received? I think my most popular post to date was my honey and lavender soaked lemon cake.  At the time, I was thinking that lavender would turn some people off, but it got a huge response!  Mostly due to the fact the House Beautiful featured it in a lemon recipe article, but I was surprised nonetheless.

On Instagram, my most liked picture has 451 likes and it is a chipotle cheddar twice baked sweet potato, which is really surprising considering I never meant for it to be a blog post.  I just fixed it for dinner one night and loved it so much I couldn’t resist taking a few pics and posting it!

* Your pictures are so great and your food always looks so amazing, have you ever had any projects that just weren’t pretty enough to make it on the blog? Oh yeah!  It doesn’t happen a whole lot, but it definitely does happen.  I think the worst was a pureed soup experiment that went horribly wrong.  My goal was to make a creamy parsnip and walnut soup, but once everything was pureed together, it came out this weird grey color that was totally unappetizing.  Also, corn pudding isn’t very photogenic, who knew? 

* What three kitchen tools would you recommend that everyone have? There is no tool better than a good SHARP knife.  If I cook at a friends house, it always amazes me how dull their knives are…that’s dangerous people!

Definitely a dutch oven, I anxiously await the arrival of fall so that I can get my soup making and meat braising on.  Doesn’t everyone?

The last would have to be a good quality blender.  You can do without a food processor if you have a good blender, and you can make everything from pesto to meatballs…and smoothies of course.

* What’s next for My Modern Cookery?  Big picture? A cookbook.  Not that it’s in the works or anything, but that is definitely a goal I have my sights set on.

Immediately, I just want to continue learning more about how to grow my blog and get My Modern Cookery in the homes of everyone!

All images by Paige Rhodes
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Want to be featured on Creative Louisville? Know a great creative Louisvillian that would be perfect? Drop me a line with a quick introduction and photo samples of your work for consideration to danielle@louwhatwear.com