About Us

About Us

Our Story

Started in 2016, the Blossoming Kitchen came about to help individuals have the smoothest experience during all life stages. We’re working women knowing how hard it is to juggle work, life, grocery shopping, and preparing fresh meals every day for you and your family.

Our goal is to help you save time and energy to be able to spend more quality time with your family. We combine clean healthy eating with convenience for your demanding lives. We prepare fresh weekly menus for you to choose from with local, organic ingredients from local Charlotte farms.

Katrina Bearer

Owner & Executive Chef

Food is my passion, so is healthy living.

I was the Executive Chef of Nolen Kitchen in Charlotte for two years and prior to that, the Chef DeCuisine. My love of cooking began when I was four years old. I played sous chef to my grandma in the kitchen and watched her make everything from scratch. We would often enjoy our creations and watch the legendary Julia Childs on TV. I knew from a young age that I wanted to become a chef.

My career began when I started working for a catering company in Cleveland, OH, my hometown. After winning several cooking competitions, I received a scholarship from Johnson & Wales University. I moved to Charlotte after graduating high school to begin formal culinary training. After working in a five star restaurant in Florida as the Executive Chef, I returned to Charlotte. At the age of 24, I became the youngest Executive Chef ever at Nolen Kitchen. I loved creating menus, managing staff, and won awards for Best Appetizer from respected food critic Helen Schwab.

I left Nolen Kitchen to become a personal chef because I wanted to combine my passion for food with my desire to help others live healthier. I founded The Blossoming Kitchen with long time client and friend Adrienne Wei, L.Ac. FABORM, Fertility and Nutrition Coach. Our goal is to create a company promoting a healthy lifestyle to balance of the mind and body.

When I am not busy working in the kitchen, I love spending time with my fur baby “Nelli”, working out, and watching “Cut Throat Kitchen” on the Food Network.

Kara Markley

Owner & Marketing Guru

Helping simplify and ease stress is essential to me as a mom.

For me, with life changes came new life choices. After being in the marketing and technology corporate world for 10 years, I decided to start a family and find a career that was more meaningful and fit my busy family lifestyle.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I kept hearing about how wonderful Katrina’s food was and thought I totally need to hire her after my first child is born. I could immediately see the value once life got super crazy and finding time to feed myself and husband went to the back burner. I know I wanted to make sure to feed my family organic and healthy meals so together with Katrina we formed The Blossoming Kitchen.

When I’m not working on The Blossoming Kitchen, I’m running my two kids to what feels like their thousands of activities and play dates and trying to get my English Setter to snuggle with me.

Our Farms

We select in-season ingredients from local farms to provide you with meals that are healthful and fresh. We are proud to use available ingredients from these and other great local farms: