MK Hennigan

I’m MK Hennigan, and welcome to my kitchen! 

I’m a Kentucky native who’s always loved learning about food—I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t reading cookbooks and magazines in search of new recipes. My mom always had a stack of Southern Living, Martha Stewart Living, and Better Homes and Gardens set out in my childhood home, and I always looked forward to tearing through these issues. To this day, my kitchen shelves are filled with cookbooks and my bedside table is littered with a number of print magazines. Stories about food make me happy. 

I have strong Southern roots and spent summers growing up visiting family in North and South Carolina. I greatly enjoyed staying with my grandmother in Winston-Salem. She loved to host and always had two pitchers of tea (one sweet, one regular!) prepared for visitors. She also made biscuits three times a day, never measuring but instead drawing from memory. 

My grandmother never cut back on her cooking endeavors during my visits, so that meant I spent a great deal of time with her in the kitchen. She’s the one who taught me how to make the pimento cheese that I now sell, and we also whipped up fried apple pies, pound cake, and chocolate cookies. During my time in college, she  would send me a tin of cookies along with some note cards and stamps so that I would be sure to keep in touch with her. A single mother for a large portion of her children’s lives, she raised my dad and his five brothers on his own while working as a nurse. She was always happy and generous.

I’m also inspired by my own mother, who liked to host others for a warm meal (and great conversation). Most of our meals came from the pages of Southern Living. A beloved Christmas dinner came from a Reynolds Wrap ad: It was shrimp with spinach, something that we still make today. My mother’s mother relied mostly on prepared meals from the local grocery store. A true entertainer, she always welcomed friends into her home, serving them bourbon and wine alongside cheese and crackers. 

My grandmothers were opposites, but they, along with my mom, shaped my love of food and entertaining.

After earning my degree in interior design, I worked in visual merchandising and then in management then for a regional department store chain, where I oversaw the china, crystal, and housewares departments. This allowed me to play out my love for entertaining every day! I left the retail world and went to work for Waterford Crystal, Mariposa, and then Larson Juhl, a picture frame molding company.

In 2020,, I left the corporate world to start In the Curious Kitchen. I love everything about food and entertaining. Welcome, I am glad you are here,