LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A young Louisville chef is using her recipe for success to help Jefferson County Public Schools students find their own.
Nikkia Rhodes, 23, grew up cooking with her mother in the Smoketown neighborhood.
“My mom managed the Volunteers of America homeless shelter kitchens for 13 years with my grandmother," Rhodes said.
At 18, she was accepted into the prestigious Lee Initiative program co-founded by famous Louisville chef, Edward Lee. The program’s goal is to create diversity in the culinary field by offering mentorship programs to women and young chefs. One program under the Lee Initiative umbrella, The Women Chefs Program, started as a direct response to the “Me Too” movement.
“I did my externship with Annie Quatrano in Atlanta,” Rhodes said. “She has six restaurants, and I got to work at all of them and see how she runs all of them.”
Quatrano, a James Beard Award-winning chef and restaurateur, is known as the "queen of Atlanta fine dining." She started restaurants like Star Prvisions Market and Café and Bacchanalia.
Rhodes has made her own name in the Louisville food scene, but even with all the success, she said she still struggles to accept she is worthy of her opportunities.
“I don't feel like ... there is no way I'm ready for this,” Rhodes said. “There is no way that this is what I'm supposed to be doing.
Chef Nikkia Rhodes teaches students during Iroquois High School culinary arts class
“Growing up in Smoketown ... you grow up and you see prostitutes walking around your neighborhood and drug addiction and ... I'm coming from a place like this? Why are these great opportunities being afforded to me? Like, you aren't good enough.”
But Rhodes said that’s when her mentors step up and remind her she is good enough. Now, Rhodes wants to be that kind of mentor to young students in similar situations. She started the culinary program for Iroquois High School’s Create Academy pathway.
“I'm one of the youngest teachers in the building, if not the youngest,” she said. “This room had molded carpet and rotting ceiling tiles, and they gave me 100 kids and said ‘teach them.’”
Now, in her second year of teaching the program, she said she’s formed special bonds with the students.
“Well, I got one kids that calls me ‘mom,’” Rhodes said. “That hunger for more — for wanting more, for myself, for my students — that's what keeps me going.“
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