Creamy Kimchi-Bacon Orecchiette

The daughter of an African American serviceman and a Korean mother, Chef LaMara Davidson melds soul and Korean food with ease; it's what she grew up eating. One of Davidson's earliest food memories is sitting on the kitchen floor of her family's Quad Cities home peeling garlic as she watched her mother salt and wash napa cabbage for kimchi. Growing up, she'd help her mother make mandu (Korean dumplings) and fondly remembers the sound and smell of kalbi sizzling on the grill. She learned traditional southern techniques simply by observing her paternal grandmother, a native Alabamian, who showed her how to make turnips and mustard greens. Davidson delved into both cuisines more deeply after her family moved to Atlanta, where there was both a burgeoning Korean community and a large black middle class. The abundance of Asian flavors and Southern foods helped Davidson develop her palate for a future in food. In 1999, Davidson moved to New York, where she enrolled at The New School's Culinary Arts training program after a stint managing talent at Sony Music. She leveraged the skills she learned at the New School to start her own catering business serving connections in the music and entertainment industries, which included Chris Rock, Talib Kweli, and Citizen Cope. Almost a decade later, she returned to Atlanta and enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu, where she received a Les Dames Escoffier scholarship and graduated at the top of her class. For the majority of her career, Davidson worked almost exclusively for the Marriott Corporation, including at prestigious properties like The Ritz Carlton Atlanta, JW Marriott Austin, and the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine, Texas. During her time as executive chef at the Gaylord Texan, Davidson was selected as one of twelve chefs nationally to be featured in Marriott International's Diary of the Craft Artisan video series, an initiative highlighting Marriott's food and beverage talent across the globe. She traveled the U.S. as part of an international team of corporate chefs supporting all brands under the company, which included The Autograph Collection Lido House Newport Beach, The Westin Pittsburgh, and Sheraton San Diego. In 2020 she left the corporate world and launched her own product line Cornbread and Kimchi, creating special blends of flours, bread crumbs, and seasonings showcasing her signature "Seoul food" style. It's a true love letter to her heritage and upbringing complete with merchandise swag. Today, Davidson's presence in the industry moves beyond the line with appearances at Charleston Wine + Food, print and online features in People Magazine, Food Network Magazine, Apartment Therapy, Food & Wine, Forbes.com, HuffPost, Saveur, Essence, and more.

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