By Robert Reynolds in The Kitchen — 20 Jul 2026

A Room Full of Plates

From scrambling eggs at three years old to Mega Meat Monday, cooking has always been how I say I love you — and where I've met God too.

A Room Full of Plates

I was three, maybe three and a half, standing in my grandma's kitchen, and I asked what was for breakfast. Somebody — I don't even remember who — told me I could make whatever I wanted. So I did. I got the stuff out, cracked some eggs, and started scrambling them right there on the floor.

I don't remember if they tasted good. I remember that I made them.

That's about as far back as the story goes, and honestly, not much has changed since. I've just always been drawn to a kitchen the way some kids are drawn to a baseball diamond or a garage full of tools. Nobody had to talk me into it.

It Runs in the Blood

Turns out I come by it honestly. My mom's dad made bread that people apparently still talk about. My biological dad, my grandfather Reynolds, most of my uncles on that side — cooks, all of them. My brother Freddy (he goes by Eugene now) cooked in the military. I didn't — the Navy and I never got that particular arrangement worked out — but somewhere in the family line, the gene got passed down anyway.

Some of my earliest actual cooking cooking happened after we moved to East Kentucky, where our place had a built-in microwave and an entire recipe book dedicated to what you could make in it — brownies included. Mom had a hard rule: no stove while she and Dad were gone. The microwave, though, was fair game, and I made the most of it.

College put a dent in things — dorm life doesn't leave much room for a stove of your own — but the '90s brought it back. I started cooking for other people, and that's when I figured out the actual thing I was chasing. It was never really about the food. It was about watching someone eat something I made and enjoy it. That still does something for me that I can't fully explain.

The Restaurant Years

After the Navy, I fell into restaurant management — Wendy's first, then Boston Market, Shoney's, Ryan's. I even did a summer at Skyline Chili back in college, mostly because all my friends were working there and it seemed easier to join them than sit it out. There was an internship at the Eat Wine Research Center in Lexington in there too, which is its own story for another day.

None of that was glamorous. But it was training, whether I recognized it as such at the time or not — learning to cook at volume, under pressure, for people who didn't know my name and didn't need to.

Eating Like a Man Who Likes to Eat

Anybody who's known me a while knows I'm not a small guy — 6'4", and there was a stretch growing up where I was skinny as a rail and could eat anything without consequence. I grew so fast once that my mom bought me a suit for a wedding, and by the time the wedding rolled around three weeks later, it didn't fit. There was a place in Michigan called the Sweden House — an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord — where I could stack a plate like it was a competitive sport.

I say all that to say: I like to eat. And because I like to eat, I care a great deal about what I'm eating. I'm not one of those people who eats for fuel and calls it a day — nutrients, macros, fiber, I know all that matters, and it does. But if it doesn't taste good, I don't see much point. Cooking my own food means I control that. The flavor, the ingredients, the whole experience — that's mine to shape.

That's taken me all over the map. Asian flavors are probably my favorite — pho, ramen, banh mi, stir-fries, bibimbap bowls, all of it. But I love pizza and lasagna and chicken fried steak and biscuits and gravy just as much. And bacon. Always bacon.

The Dishes People Ask For Again

I don't do a lot of cakes and pies, but the ones I make, I make well. My pistachio cheesecake has become something of a fan favorite lately. Strawberry rhubarb pie is right up there too.

But if you want to know what I'm actually known for, it's rumaki — bacon-wrapped water chestnuts — which people have requested by name more times than I can count. And my mac and cheese, which has its own small, loyal following. Grandson Palmer likes it. Pastor Trent's son Ethan likes it too, especially when I load it up with Korean fried chicken, which is exactly as good as it sounds.

Mega Meat Monday

Which brings me to CrossPath Church, and to Pastor Trent, and to one of the more unexpected gifts that church has given me. I've said before that it was through CrossPath — through sitting under Pastor Trent's teaching, week after week — that I ended up in the relationship with God I have now. That part isn't really the church's doing so much as God’s, but I wouldn't have gotten there without it, and I don't think that's something I should skip past quietly.

CrossPath has a bit of a reputation as a barbecue church, and Pastor Trent leans into that with something called Mega Meat Monday — a guys' night where he handles the main meats and anyone who wants to can bring a side. The only rule is that the side also has to contain meat.

I usually bring the rumaki. Sometimes I bring the mac and cheese, Korean fried chicken included, easier to eat that way. People seem to agree.

There's something about that night that I think about more than I probably let on. A room full of men, some of them still working out what it means to walk with God, sitting around plates of food somebody made for them on purpose. It's not a small thing, showing up with something you cooked for people. It's an old instinct — older than church potlucks, older than Mega Meat Monday. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer (Acts 2:42). Bread gets broken, plates get passed, and somewhere in the middle of all that eating, people actually talk to each other. I've come to believe that's not a coincidence.

I've catered a wedding — a full taco bar, which I'm still a little proud of. I've hosted more dinners than I can count, themed around whatever I was chasing that season: Korean bibimbap night, Italian with pasta carbonara and baked spaghetti, full barbecue spreads. Cooking, for me, has never really been separate from hospitality. It's the same instinct wearing a different apron.