It’s true that Kathryn’s Cheese House is no more. As delicious as it was, we can no longer sit down to a meal that the Weaver family developed and prepared specifically for you. The restaurant closed in 1994 and Kathryn passed away in 2018. But in those intervening years something happened that might tempt your tastebuds, especially if you were a fan (and even if all this is new to you).
In her later years, Kathryn had the idea of publishing her recipes. She wanted to take all the dishes that delighted customers and make them available again, not prepared in her kitchen, but yours. When she got the idea and told her son Lorin, he did not know where those recipes were stashed, having been many years since the closing of the restaurant. They searched but just could not locate those instructions, anywhere.
Not until that is, Kathryn planned a move to an assisted living facility. The family was going through all the things she had accumulated over a lifetime. Then they stumbled across a tin that contained all the information they were looking for, a trove of recipes that included everything from a Port Wine Cheese Ball to a Hot Pastrami Sandwich. Some were written on the guest checks, others on index cards. Apparently, Kathryn wrote down her creations on anything that was handy, including odd slips of paper. But there they were, ready to be transcribed and shared with the world. In 2017, “From the Kitchen of Kathryn’s” was first 
published. If you want to experience Lorin’s Baklava, you can find it on page 46. Kathryn’s Famous Garden Spread is on page five, just before L.N.’s Pickled Eggs. The cookbook covers everything from appetizers to desserts, and even has a section called “This and That” for all those extras that do not fit into any other category. You don’t have to be an accomplished chef to make these items. The Au Jus Dip is five ingredients and two lines of instruction.
The cookbook is an extraordinary feat. It will take you back to the days when kids like Paul Pittman got what he wanted for his birthday. His mother bought him a cheesecake, just as he had asked. Barbara Pittman remembered that her son was so delighted, he would not share it with anyone. She remembered “he ate the whole thing in a day…and it didn’t make him sick.” The recipe is in the book, page 44.
Copies of the cookbook are again available, along with some excellent sauces Lorin has created with Hickory’s own Jon Reep. You can pick one up on the store side of the Hickory Station. In those pages, also read a bit about the history of Kathryn’s Cheese House and the story of the Weaver family’s work that has firmly established them as a restaurant/deli/wine shop/gift store worth remembering and a cuisine worth recreating.
Photo: The Cookbook and the collection of recipes in their original version.
