“A lot of hard work and pride” are the key ingredients in the more than 100 products that come from Kathy’s Kitchen in Virginia, Ill. Kathy and Daryl Keylor own the business at their home on Menard Electric Cooperative lines, which includes several acres for growing and a commercial kitchen.
“Our grandmother always supplied us with jam, and I didn’t realize until I got away from home that purchased jams and jellies weren’t quite as good,” says Kathy.
When the Keylors married in 1962, Kathy’s mother-in-law showed her how to make pickles. “I don’t like pickles. I don’t eat pickles. I just love to make them,” she laughs. “You can tell a good pickle by the smell and the feel of it.”
Several of her mother-in-law’s recipes are still used today. “We haven’t changed them, because, like the bread and butter pickles and the pickled beets, those things I just didn’t want to change,” she says, adding that they remain some of her top sellers.
In the early 1960s, Kathy took her passion for preserves to the Illinois State Fair, where her pickled beets won the first of many blue ribbons. In fact, she won so many blue ribbons over the years that the judges asked her to refrain from participating.
Later, Kathy decided to turn her passion into a business. Through the years, she has tested more recipes and expanded her line of products. She recalls people asking her at a farmer’s market if she had any salsa available back in the ’60s.
“I had never heard of salsa,” she says. “I saw a recipe in the Springfield Journal one day, and it was called Mexican salsa. So, I thought, okay, we’ll try this.” That first batch was a little spicy because of the jalapenos in the recipe, which led Kathy to develop other recipes that were milder or spicier. She also offers fruit salsas, including pineapple, peach, cherry and raspberry.
When it comes to Kathy’s personal favorites, she admits she prefers the products on the sweeter side. “I don’t like pickles, and I don’t like salsa. So, it has to go back to the sweet stuff — black raspberry jelly.” It’s just one of three dozen varieties of her jams, jellies and preserves.
Kathy’s Kitchen products range from pickled foods and fruit butters to relishes, jams and sauces, and can be found in select grocery stores across Illinois and a few neighboring states. They can also be ordered from her website,
kathyskitchenstore.com.
Every product is prepared by hand to ensure the quality of the contents in each jar. All that hard work and attention to detail gives new meaning to the label “farm fresh.” For the Keylors, it’s more than a description — it’s their business plan.
Kathy’s Kitchen
To shop online or to find Kathy’s Kitchen products at a grocery store near you, go to kathyskitchenstore.com.
