225BatonRouge.com

For veteran culinary entrepreneur Kathy Mangham, the plate is a canvas. Case in point: her goat gouda pimento hors d'oeuvres meld fresh thyme, roasted red peppers and homemade aioli into delicate choux pastry—a savory creampuff that goes down in one beautiful bite. It's among the line-up at Gourmet Girls, the boutique catering company Mangham launched earlier this year. Small, detailed pick-ups, hand-crafted sweets and ingredient-driven mains are Mangham's specialties. A former Fine Art major at LSU, her roots in the Baton Rouge food scene date back to college in the early nineties when she developed a gift basket company, which led to a tea room housed in the gift shop, Absolutely Genius. The venture outgrew the space's 12 tables and became the popular Silver Spoon around the corner in the Bocage Shopping Center.

After selling the restaurant two years ago, Mangham developed a new food venture that would channel her spontaneity, artistic flourish and passion for the back-of-the-house. "I'm blissfully happy when I'm in the kitchen," says Mangham, "and now I get to be really creative with what I'm making." Mangham's aim is to produce by-appointment customized menus and to use seasonal, farm-to-table ingredients as much as possible. When she's not cooking, Mangham is blogging about her latest recipes and kitchen passions at gourmetgirl1.blogspot.com, a venue that's helped her connect with more than a thousand followers.

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