Kitchen Minute with Caitlin Cullen

Caitlin Cullen w/ Lulu, Milwaukee WI

“Every Saturday morning at the food center, we serve a banana bread that is the recipe passed down from my great grandmother. Not everyone in my family is known for their cooking skills, but Great Grandma Palkowski’s Banana Bread is undefeated in any banana bread recipe fight I’ve ever brought it to.“

Caitlin Cullen is an educator, chef, entrepreneur, and activist who uses food to help dismantle wealth and health disparities in Milwaukee. She is currently Food Center Director for the Riverwest Food Pantry. From 2016-2021 she ran the lauded Tandem restaurant, providing on-the-job culinary and hospitality training for over 150 young, nontraditional workforce candidates in Milwaukee’s central city. In response to Covid-19, Cullen shifted her restaurant’s focus to an emergency hunger response organization, serving over 115,000 meals to Milwaukeeans and fundraising over $1 million to support local small food businesses. Notable quote: I get a lot of inspiration from the produce we grow at the Kinship farm, in the summer months have been known to do a shift on the farm and drive off with some great organic produce to inspire me in my home kitchen!

When asked what she would be having for dinner tonight, Caitlin responded “shrimp fajitas.” Yum! 

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