Kate was recently featured in an issue of the Philadelphia Daily News' Yo! Food section. Below is a link to the article.

"Kate Rapine, whose pocket-sized Pepper's Café in Ardmore serves fresh and seasonal Mediterranean-tinged dishes to a wide range of Main Line clientele, started gardening in earnest a few years ago. "My mom always grew flowers in our yard in Merion, and I did that too. But as the kids were getting older, I realized, I'm a chef, I need to be growing veggies!"

Rapine has experimented with heirloom tomatoes, colorful varieties of chard and stately stalks of Brussels sprouts in the past few years. "They are the coolest looking things, big stalks with a sprout at every leaf junction. I watch them get bigger all summer and cut the stalks to the ground at first frost. Then I caramelized them in olive oil, pancetta and chicken stock with a touch of balsamic vinegar, reduced down until the liquid evaporates. Yum."

Rapine makes a tasty and easy appetizer with hot cherry peppers, stuffing them with prosciutto and sharp Italian cheese and baking them until they literally bubble with flavor.

Pesto is ever present in her King of Prussia kitchen, made with different varieties of basil, as well as other herbs, including mint, which doubles as an excellent ingredient for mint juleps. "I wish I could grow bourbon . . . but haven't figured that one out yet," she joked."

... "As sweet as it is to savor summer fruits and veggies, the satisfaction of eating food the way it's meant to be eaten - ripe and freshly picked - is positively addicting. "There's something about walking through your own garden and picking a zucchini the size of your head, or dashing out in the pouring rain to pick herbs, that is just great," said Rapine. "It doesn't get better than that."

"The Ripe Stuff" from the Philadelphia Daily News

Kate was also featured in December of 2006 in the article "Front Burner Resolutions"

"When she couldn't buy spinach a few months back because of the E.coli scare, Kate Rapine, chef/owner of Pepper's Café in Ardmore, substituted broccoli rabe. "I love it – it's good for you, and has that wonderful slightly bitter taste," she said. "I promise to keep using it in the New Year. It's so great with pasta – I think I'd just gotten lazy, using spinach all the time." She also wants to start marrying more beans with pasta as a way to spike up the protein and add some texture to the dish. "I want to get away from eating as much meat," she said, "and cook more fish for my customers and for my family."