Some of us are lucky enough to learn how to cook from our moms or grandmas. Some of us, not so much. (My mom barely made tuna casserole.) Chef Carter Hach is in the first category. He grew up cooking with his grandmother and food luminary, Phila Hach, who was the closest thing to Julia Child we had in Middle Tennessee. She opened and ran two restaurants, an inn, developed the catering manual for the airline industry and penned numerous cookbooks. Phila passed away in 2015.
While Carter didn’t plan it, when his grandmother fell ill, his life detoured and he found himself the proprietor of Hachland Hill, the family’s wedding and event venue in Joelton, where he had spent many a summer playing in the creeks and in the kitchen with Phila. He loved it instinctively, and Phila knew it. Upon finding a recipe note he had scribbled in one of her cookbooks, “The 1982 Official World’s Fair Cookbook,” before he was even old enough to write, on the page she wrote back, “To Hachland Hill’s next Chef.” And so his fate was sealed.
Today you can find Carter cooking for weddings at Hachland Hills and consulting on projects around town and beyond. But you can savor his story and these recipes from his 2022 book, The Hachland Hill Cookbook: The Recipes & Legacy of Phila Hach (Blue Hills Press).
