Arkansas Food

Kat Robinson is Arkansas's food historian and most enthusiastic road warrior. The Little Rock-based author is the host of the Emmy-nominated documentary Make Room For Pie; A Delicious Slice of The Natural State and the Arkansas PBS show Home Cooking with Kat and Friends. She is a member of the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame committee, a co-chair of the Arkansas Pie Festival, and the Arkansas fellow to the National Food and Beverage Museum. She has written nine books on food, most notably Arkansas Food: The A to Z of Eating in The Natural State, an alphabetic guide to the dishes, delights and food traditions that define her home state. Her two most recent travel guides, 101 Things to Eat in Arkansas Before You Die and 102 More Things to Eat in Arkansas Before You Die define the state's most iconic and trusted eateries. Robinson's Another Slice of Arkansas Pie: A Guide to the Best Restaurants, Bakeries, Truck Stops and Food Trucks for Delectable Bites in The Natural State outlines more than 400 places to find the dessert, an extraordinary accomplishment that took thousands of miles, hundreds of hours and so many bites to properly document and catalogue. In this book, Robinson shares recipes from her own kitchen, alongside stories from her lifelong adventures in Arkansas. The book is her first state-specific cookbook. In 2020, she edited and contribut- ed to 43 Tables: An Internet Community Cooks During Quarantine, a Kat Robinson collection of recipes from social media connected friends who turned to their kitchens to experiment and to feed their families during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic response. Her previous books include the popular Arkansas Pie: A Delicious Slice of the Natural State (2012), Classic Eateries of the Ozarks and Arkansas River Valley (2013), and Classic Eateries of the Arkansas Delta (2014). Robinson has also served as guest editor for the University of Arkansas publication Arkansauce: The Journal of Arkansas Foodways, and was recognized as the 2011 Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism Henry Award winner for Media Support. Her work has appeared in regional and national publications including Food Network, Forbes Travel Guide, Serious Eats, and AAA Magazines, among others. Her expertise in food research and Arkansas restaurants has been cited by Saveur, Eater, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Outline, and the Southern Foodways Alliance's Gravy podcast, and her skills and talents have been celebrated in articles by Arkansas Good Roads, Arkansas Business and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. She has served as the keynote speaker for the South Arkansas Literary Festival and has spoken before the Arkansas Library Association and at the Six Bridges Literary Festival, Eureka Springs Books in Bloom and the Fayetteville True Lit Festival. While she writes on food and travel subjects throughout the United States, she is best known for her ever-expanding knowledge of Arkansas food history and restaurant culture, all of which she explores on her 1200+ article website, TieDyeTravels.com. She is also the host of the podcast Kat Robinson's Arkansas. Robinson's journeys across Arkansas have earned her the title "road warrior," "traveling pie lady," and probably some minor epithets. Few have spent as much time exploring The Natural State, or researching its cuisine. "The Girl in the Hat" has been sighted in every one of Arkansas's 75 counties, oftentimes sliding behind a menu or peeking into a kitchen. Before entering full time into the world of food and travel writing, Kat was a television producer at Little Rock CBS affiliate THV and Jonesboro ABC affiliate KAIT, as well as a radio producer and personality for KARN Newsradio. Kat lives with daughter Hunter and partner Grav Weldon in Little Rock.