I may have grown up in Beverly Hills, but my mother, Eartha Kitt, was born on a cotton plantation in South Carolina. You know what they say, “you can take the girl out of the south, but you can’t take the south out of the girl”. OK, I may be paraphrasing, but my mother was truly ‘of the earth’ and yes, Eartha was her given name. She grew her own vegetables throughout her life, always keeping a garden filled for the two of us many of her friends.

At our house in Beverly Hills, we even had chickens, which was not exactly the norm back in the 1960’s. My mother was ‘green’ long before it was chic. I was eating kale way before it got its own publicist and became hip. My mother would cook it simply, with onions, olive oil and lots of garlic (no vampires were ever coming to our house, that’s for sure). She believed that too many ingredients would mask the true flavor of ‘real’ food. And why would anyone want to do that? I was taught to always eat fresh, locally grown, in season, produce. As nature intended.

When your name is Eartha, you pay attention to what comes out of the ground, as well as what goes in. My mother kept a compost pail at the ready, never wanting to ‘waste’ and always mindful of ‘giving back’, ‘re-purposing’ and ‘nurturing’ the earth.

Remember ~ Treasure ~ Love…    Kitt