Meet the Chef Who Feeds Her Hometown NFL Team
MARK BITTMAN’S HEATED
Chef Kymberly Wilbon travels to Cincinnati’s Paul Brown Stadium every day to deliver lunch and dinner to private clients she lovingly refers to as her “players” — members of the Bengals, her hometown NFL team.
She lugs a hefty insulated duffle bag stuffed with extra-large pre-portioned meals sealed up in king-sized carry-out containers, each one brimming with vibrant roasted root vegetables, toasted grains, flashed greens, and braised proteins. “My food is seasonal, organic, unexpected, and local,” she declares, branding her healthful take on soul food.
“My players used to think that vegetables had to be bland and boring, like steamed broccoli,” Wilbon tells me. “I show up with broccolini sautéed in grapeseed oil, sprinkled with my Cajun spices, and they can’t get enough. It’s all about adding the right seasoning. That’s why they love me — and my broccoli.” Her meals are built around reimagined classics, the American comfort foods that everybody craves. One popular staple is her oven-fried chicken, made from buttermilk-soaked boneless thighs, baked in a quinoa crust and drizzled with local honey, served with saffron rice and peas. Dishes like this one have broadened the palates of her players and recalibrated their expectation of feeling full.
“These guys have a lot to think about when it comes to their food intake,” she says. “They’re worried about injuries, and longevity. Balanced nutrition, weight management, endurance, and flexibility are huge concerns. Because you know what they say about pro football: NFL stands for Not For Long! I’m helping them form healthy eating habits that will sustain them through retirement.”
For most athletes who make it to the NFL, diets high in sugar and animal protein are historically their go-to, sourced from easy, greasy fast food or high-fat/high-carb home cooking. Wilbon confesses to her own comfort crutches: “Just give me some of those black lady rolls, or the black lady pound cake we used to get in church. Who doesn’t love that?” Joking aside, Wilbon’s affinity for “black lady” recipes is in her blood. “It all started with my great-grandmother, Katy Williams. Everyone called her Big Mama.”
I encounter Big Mama in Wilbon’s downtown apartment, and am sorely underdressed for the occasion. Wilbon greets me in a body-con black wrap dress, black tights, tall leather boots, and oversized sunglasses propped on her slicked-back bob, side-bang deftly tucked behind her ear. “Hey, sweetie,” she says.
Past the hallway jammed with packed racks of collectible couture, I spy an enormous sepia-tone portrait of a large black lady from a bygone era, positioned like an idol on her shrine: Framed between two tall chrome shelves of pots, platters, chafing dishes, and utensil-stuffed crocks, I can’t ignore her resemblance to the discomfiting mammy caricatures of stage and screen, the icons of robust, dark-skinned women in cook’s garb that once graced grocery store shelves everywhere and have lately been corrected. In her aproned calico dress and head kerchief, Big Mama’s aura is both ancient and timeless.
“She’s my inspiration,” Wilbon says as she air-hugs the huge framed photo, playfully exaggerating her obvious admiration. Big Mama stares across the room with a stoicism that speaks of hardship. Katy Williams, an Alabama-born mother of five, picked cotton alongside her children and cooked daily for an affluent white family. Revered for her famously delicious pies and plum wine, she handed down her treasured recipes to the only daughter she trusted to enter her kitchen, Wilbon’s Great Aunt Hermie.
“Honestly, I barely remember Grandma Katy. Aunt Hermie was the one who let me help her in the kitchen. She saw how I loved to bake cakes for everyone when I was little, and she encouraged me to try other dishes. Those were Katy’s recipes. Hermie taught me the healing power of food. If there was ever a family quarrel, she would fix a huge meal, and after we all shared her food at the table together, then we could go outside and clear things up.”
Far from her great-grandmother’s Alabama kitchen, Wilbon runs her company, The Passion Plate, from a dedicated pod within Findlay Kitchen, the nonprofit business incubator inside Cincinnati’s bustling Findlay Market. Between peaks in the football calendar, The Passion Plate is solidly booked with private functions ranging from Chamber of Commerce luncheons to socialite bridal showers. Menus highlight the unexpected side of Wilbon’s repertoire, with signature bites like curry-infused Thai mac and cheese and red velvet cornbread. When we met, Wilbon was working her 12th straight day without a break.
Wilbon’s full-circle story has a 10-year layover in New York. “Back in the ’80s, I was Cincinnati’s first blue-haired black girl. I studied fashion at UC and got kicked out. So I left for New York! I had some fabulous jobs there. New York in the ’80s was so much fun!” Working in upscale real estate, fashion, and the music industry, Wilbon’s reputation for bringing amazing food to house parties led to paid catering gigs. “That’s when I realized how good it feels to make people happy with delicious food,” she says. She formally trained in New York, then returned to her Cincinnati roots, loaded with big city attitude and restaurant skills. Her first NFL connection was made while working the front of the house at Coco’s. A customer asked if she knew anyone who could cook for her football-player son, and Wilbon grabbed the opportunity. Teammate referrals quickly followed, prompting her move to Findlay Kitchen.
In the spring, Wilbon got an unexpected call to cook for baseball star Yasiel Puig, who had just joined the Cincinnati Reds. She tells me, “Yasiel fell in love with my food. He’s Cuban, so he needs big flavors. We got along great. Then he got traded to Cleveland. So now I’m planning to go up there and fill his fridge! Poor thing, he misses my food. And of course he misses me, too.”
Wilbon predicts that Puig will likely join the New York Yankees in the near future. I ask her if she could be tempted to follow him back to New York, if invited. But her loyalty is clear: “Honey, I have far too much going on in Cincinnati to leave it all behind. I have my family, my players; all of my clients depend on me. This is home.”