Claire Thomas of The Kitchy Kitchen blog talks about all things culinary

Claire Thomas is a self-taught chef who runs a blog called The Kitchy Kitchen. She also works as a commercial director, food photographer, writer, and is a cook book author. As a food enthusiast, Claire knows that when it comes to food, flexibility is important. Having a variety on hand helps to prepare exciting new dishes at home. But what about your cat? Claire joins the Hype magazine with her cat Mochi to discuss the story behind the creation of The Kitchy Kitchen and shares tips to inspire you at mealtime. She also shows off her cat Mochi and how mealtime has changed for her since Claire has become a new mother.

Claire, how and when did you decide to start The Kitchy Kitchen?

I started The Kitschy Kitchen about ten years ago because I just was so inspired by simple delicious food. I wanted to create things that were easy to make, beautiful to look at because food you eat with your eyes first the, cliché is true, but then most importantly had to be delicious. So, now that I’m a working mom, that is more important than ever. All of my content is really centered on that.

We often get stuck in a rut going about our daily lives – how can we easily up our game at home to turn the “every day” into something a bit more elegant or unexpected?

I think Mochi is actually kind of showing this off right now. I get inspiration from the world around me including my cat and with Mochis diet I noticed that similar to me which we kind of were eating the same thing every day and I wanted to find a way to just really up it like how we can add new flavors, how can we make this interesting, how can we elevate our palate. I fell in love with this new product that I discovered. It’s the purely Fancy Feast filets. Mochi is loving her chicken filet right now! Oh, my goodness, usually it’s the salmon that she goes for, so this is kind of fun, but the idea is you can just break off a little bit of this fillet on top of any of your cat’s favorite food. It’s a great complement to a meal, it can be a snack, she can eat it whole. So, for me I kind of adopted the same line of thinking with my food I started looking at classic recipes and then how can I add simple ingredients to make this different and new and fresh.

Given your profession and your self-proclaimed “unabashed” enthusiasm for food, you spend a lot of time planning for and preparing meals. How do you maintain your creativity?

Well my joke is that you can’t really be a good cook without being a good eater. So, for me I go out and eat. If I’m in a rut I’m like, okay I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know what I want to try. I go out and I go to the farmers market and I just try to find produce I haven’t had before. I go to a local restaurant to try a new food waiver, because a lot of times you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, you don’t have to rewrite all of your favorite recipes, you can just adopt ideas and new ingredients to those recipes and really create something new. That happens a lot with my content on the blog. I’ll have for instance my base recipe for like a delicious mac and cheese, but then I’ll add new ingredients to make it different and make it really fun.

Where can we go for more information?

Absolutely! So, for new recipes DIY ideas and family-centered content, you can definitely check out my blog thekitchykitchen.com and to find out more about the filet that Mochi is loving, go to Fancyfeast.com/filetyourway.

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About the Author

David Morales is the Executive Editor of The Hype magazine. A graduate of Eastern Michigan University, David has a background as an artist manager, writer, blogger, drummer, and in the human services industry. He is passionate about helping others, learning and has a deep empathy for the creative process. You can follow his social media @dcypherstudios