ABOUT MILVERTON
Yes, I have a point.
Let me get there.
I’m Milverton Saint, a farm to table chef, private chef, author, father, artist, entrepreneur, and disabled U.S. Navy combat veteran. I was raised in an African American and Jamaican household in Metro Atlanta.
I’ve been cooking for more than 30 years. It started with Jell O on my mother’s kitchen counter and eventually took me into kitchens around the world. I’ve cooked in fine dining restaurants and little hole in the wall mom and pop spots where nobody cared about your résumé as long as you could cook. I’ve run kitchens, created menus, trained cooks and chefs, and consulted with restaurants. Sometimes I cooked because I wanted the experience. Sometimes I cooked because I needed to earn my keep. Either way, I paid attention.
Eventually, I left restaurant kitchens and built something of my own. I became a private chef and started my own catering business. Entrepreneurship was not some grand plan. I needed to make a living, take care of my daughter, and build a life that actually belonged to us. So I cooked.
And sometimes she came with me. Years after I stood on my mother’s kitchen counter learning to make Jell O, I sat my daughter on that same counter. When childcare was not an option, she became my little sous chef. We counted ingredients. We learned fractions by measuring recipes. She watched me cook for clients, and I watched food become part of her education the same way it had become part of mine.
Maybe that is why I have never been interested in food as just food. I want to know why bread rises, why one sauce breaks and another doesn’t, how a dish crossed an ocean, who carried it, what they changed, and what survived. Cooking lets me put science, history, culture, memory, and art on the same plate. I’ve cooked for millionaires and people without homes, for weddings and funerals, celebrations and ordinary Tuesdays. Feeding somebody is personal. Being trusted to do it is an honor.
Writing came from somewhere just as personal. I grew up with a stutter and a mind that often moved faster than my mouth. Writing gave me somewhere to slow everything down. Eventually I realized cooking and writing were doing the same thing for me. They gave me a way to understand people and a reason to bring them together.
That is what this place is. It is where I cook, write, research, experiment, tell stories, share what I know, admit what I am still figuring out, and occasionally argue about something that probably did not need a 2,000 word explanation.
There is serious work underneath the jokes. I just don’t think seriousness requires being dull.
So read something. Try a recipe. Pick up a book. Grab a seat at The Table when one opens. Hire me if you think I can help. Or just stick around long enough to find something worth talking about.
However you got here, I’m glad you found the place. Stay awhile. There’s room at the table.
