Katie Powers Catering

Hi. My name is Katie Powers. I live and cook — I raise my family and serve food to my clients — in Marin County, one of the most majestic locales in all of California. But I was born and raised in Newport Beach. Then as now, cooking for family and food as an enterprise were closely intertwined. My dad sold peppers. No kidding. The house was filled with them. It was also filled with people. My parents were both big-time entertainers, and they were always hosting events for family and friends, and food was always the focus of the gatherings. I got my formal education at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, but my learning really began in the kitchen at Newport Beach's Aubergine under Tim Goodell. Later, back in San Francisco, I continued at Acquerello and, eventually, at Woodward’s Garden, which is where I really found myself as a chef. It's there that I came to appreciate how local goods make for local meals, how raw foodstuffs from the region don't merely serve as ingredients — they inform recipes and techniques at the most fundamental level. The more I learned about — the more I learned to love — the broad and diverse region we call Northern California, the more I yearned to leave city life behind. This brought me, in turn, to the Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin. For three years I fed the center's inspiring collection of artists and staff. I learned a lot, in the process, about the concept of a mess hall, about the idea of food as a feast without a fixed beginning or end. I had been taught to think of the meal as the core of a dining experience, but I learned at the Headlands how dining is itself the foundation for something else — for conversation, for community, for life. That's when I set up shop as the Headlands' exclusive caterer. Having focused on the food of daily life, I wanted to apply my experience to life's special events — to your special events, from weddings to family reunions.

We live in a remarkable region for cooking. The raw goods that are available to us, the sheer abundance of produce and meats, of wines and grains, is without peer. I purchase almost everything that I serve from regional farmers, direct from their farms and at the casual pageants we call farmers markets, which I scour weekly for new discoveries — as well as depend upon for staple favorites. (And what the Bay Area cannot grow it imports with gusto.) As a chef, I understand it’s my job to make food the center of your event — and I do this by making local ingredients the center of the food. I firmly believe that a meal, no matter the scale of the occasion, should be intimate. The basis of intimacy is proximity, and what could be more intimate than eating food on the same terrain in which it was cultivated?

The majority of my food is cooked and served in a very specific place: a wonderful kitchen and dining room nestled into a lovely swath of the Northern California coast. This place is the Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin County, just across the bay from San Francisco. The room is on the base level of a storied building on what was, for much of the 20th century, a U.S. military site. The hall is rustic and historic, its walls a rich patina, its kitchen fully exposed. As you take the opportunity to wander the expansive park area, there are views of the ocean and the hillside. Inside the Headlands buildings, some of the finest artists — from California and elsewhere — are at work on painting, sculpture, printing, and all manner of creative activities, their studios often open for view. Their artistry and the surrounding landscape inform the lively conversation that occurs within the dining area of the Headlands Center. Certainly, for special occasions, I am available to work offsite, but the Headlands is truly my kitchen, and for the duration of your event, it’s yours as well.

I’m a caterer — in the traditional sense of the word, and more importantly the literal one. In the traditional sense, I am contracted to provide food for events, to make certain the spices are just right, the chicken is succulent, the salads fresh and surprising. But it’s the literal sense that fuels me: I cater to the tastes and needs of hosts who entrust their events with me. I work with my clients — with you — to develop menus that fulfill your aspirations: dishes, recipes, ingredients that resonate with your interests, tastes, ambitions. We live in a remarkable moment for food; everyday dishes — from seared fish to crab cakes, from roast chicken to French fries — are being rightly honored for the flavors they’re capable of, for the comforts they offer. Refined to its essentials, a catered meal should be a wonderful experience. As raw materials are transformed into simple pleasures, it can even be a magical one. That is my goal.