Growing up in Midtown, Corinne Knight’s family would host 50 to 60 people for holiday gatherings.

“We would always have a ton of people at our house and in our neighborhood … it was just chaos,” she said.

“Grandparents would bring their friends, and my aunt and uncles would bring their friends, and then my parents' friends. But it was just always a lot of people.”

When she was seven years old, Knight was “roped in” to start helping prepare the baklava because her hands were small enough to prepare the layers of filo and lemon-honey syrup.

From here, she grew up learning to prepare the huge dishes for family gatherings like spanakopita, pastitsio, dolmathes and moussaka.

“All of our recipes that are our big batches for the (Grecian Gourmet) come from our recipes at home,” she said.

This is the beginning of her story — and the story of the family company she now owns — she shared with me on a recent episode of The Daily Memphian’s Sound Bites food podcast.

From making baklava by hand as a child, to running a busy lunch restaurant Downtown to pivoting the business to catering and wholesale in the aftermath of the pandemic and “the exodus of Downtown,” Knight and I discuss the story of the Grecian Gourmet brand.

Don’t miss her recipe for kotopita, a Greek style chicken pot pie, in our Recipe Exchange section, either. 

Listen to the full episode below. 

Grecian Gourmet Kitchen is located at 2965 N Germantown Rd Suite 115.