By Gina Horan
Chef Sowing Seeds of Success
Chef Keith Keogh
Chef Keith Keogh fondly remembers having access to fresh food at a very young age while growing up in Lake Mary.
“My grandfather ran the general store and did all of the butchery,” he says. “My brother and I sat on the meat grinder and ate raw hamburger for breakfast on many occasions.”
Chef Keith would go on to attend Seminole State College on a track scholarship, but that endowment and 75 cents per hour at Burger Chef wasn’t enough to pay the bills so he took a chance on a company that was hiring locally.
“Disney advertised for job openings and since I was in the food business, they hired me as a culinary helper at $1.85 an hour back in 1971.”
Soon after, Chef Keith embarked on a “Forrest Gump” style odyssey through the culinary world that gave him a more impressive résumé than most high-profile celebrity chefs.
To give it some perspective, he worked at the Polynesian Hotel while Julia Child was still cooking coq au vin on PBS. He cooked for EPCOT before and after it opened, spent years training in multiple countries under internationally respected chefs then worked in R & D at Disney for 25 years.
“I was lucky to have trained from the ground up all over the world,” he says.
He went on to work with Levy Restaurants for the PGA and NASCAR, Paul Prudhomme Enterprises in New Orleans and Pinnacle Entertainment in Las Vegas, where he opened 16 casinos. He was also president of The American Culinary Federation and World Association of Chefs Societies. Somehow, he found time to be head of the California Culinary Academy.
With a lifetime of accolades, it seems like a quiet life on his Groveland Farm “Olive Isle” would be preferable now that he is retired. Not so. He is currently on a mission to educate the public about food production and its sustainability.
“It’s about going back to a more heritage style farming, and there is a new generation of farmers and chefs who appreciate that,” he says.
He says that planting great seeds from the past and growing food to develop and enhance flavor can and should be done so we don’t have to put convenience over taste.
“When you let nature take its course through fundamental growing, you inevitably develop the healthiest and most delicious product which can absolutely be done locally.”
Gina moved to central Florida in August of 2021 from the San Francisco Bay Area. She has a bachelor’s degree in Linguistics and spent 10 years as a fashion editor, columnist and food writer for The Knight Ridder Newspaper group. She was also a photo stylist and covered concerts, fashion shows and festivals all over Northern California. In 2000, she joined KSAN radio as a morning show co-host and produced the news and sports content there for 4 years. She also covered travel, events and the restaurant scene for KRON-Bay TV. She is a veteran bartender and has worked in hospitality on and off since high school. Her passions include travel, road trips, history books, baseball, tasting menus and most of all, landing in a new city with no map or guidebook. Gina lives in Oxford with her mom, cats and baby hamster.
