To plunge yourself headlong into a new business, open your life to the public, and give the majority of your hours and sweat to a virtual pinpoint of a goal that will be reached far down the road takes courage and initiative. To make sure that everyone knows about your new venture and how it will affect his or her life takes marketing, and that is the difficult part. Unfortunately, great ideas have fallen by the wayside because people have not known how or why to do the legwork necessary to make a dream become a reality.

For example, in the food industry it is easy to hide in the kitchen (there is plenty of work to do) and avoid contact with clients and potential clients - expecting the food to do the talking for you - but it doesn't work that way. It is a constant effort. Your face has to be seen and remembered and your name should be bounced around until, when dropped, it causes an appropriate exclamation of recognition. You must also work tirelessly not only at your business duties but at interacting with the public, learning more about your craft, writing press releases, and advertising. It's a delicate balancing act that you hope to achieve, unless you are Chris and Ouita Michel, owners of the historic Holly Hill Inn in Midway, KY, who have allowed another company to help with the balancing act. They have hired a public relations firm (FSA) for their marketing decisions.

I was surprised when I first heard about this, not for their resourcefulness but for my ignorance. I was not aware that smaller businesses such as restaurants would benefit so greatly from this idea. The firm handles all of their newsletters, direct mailings and press releases, and really pushes their name out there, both locally and nationally.

The process of turning over your marketing to a public relations firm begins with a long interview. This information creates the biographies, fact sheets, and press releases necessary to assemble a press kit, which is shopped around to the local press and then distributed more regionally to such magazines as Kentucky Living. Gradually, the geographical boundaries start spreading and leading towards magazines such as Southern Living. Look for Ouita and Holly Hill in an issue this spring. There is also a publicist's convention where marketers try to pitch their clients to food writers and publishers to give them more publicity in other areas of the country.

FSA Public Relations, in Louisville, specializes in "food and hospitality media relations." The names that they work with and represent are big (some adoring, some annoying), obscure, and familiar. It seems to be a nice mix that can come together for publicity events and reach various types of food interests.

With that said, I modestly submit that the Michels have to be one of the hardest working couples in the local food business.

Chris and Ouita met in New York at the Culinary Institute of America where they both graduated with honors, married, moved to Lexington, and began working immediately towards their goal of owning a restaurant. Both of them worked at several restaurants in different capacities and have, according to them, "learned from every job and every project, and every meal eaten in restaurants, and have applied those lessons to the Holly Hill Inn."

As well as attending to the front of the house (where the restaurant is housed), Chris is currently working on becoming a Master Sommelier, which will allow him to discuss wine tasting and how it enhances food, wine production methods and regions, and the proper decanting process and accouterments. This course is in three parts, each becoming increasingly difficult, and ends in a tasting exam in which a candidate must identity grape, country, and vintage of six wines in twenty-five minutes.

Ouita has involved herself in many projects other than the immense one of owning a restaurant where she is executive chef. She is former president of the local chapter of the American Culinary Federation, a non-profit, professional organization for chefs that expands opportunities to increase skills and knowledge and works philanthropically with the community. Also, as the leader of the "Days of Taste" for the Kentucky chapter of the American Institute of Wine & Food, she and other members have gone into elementary schools and worked with children to teach good nutrition and have visited farms and restaurants to learn more about the process of foods.

Next month she will be on stage in Louisville with three other chefs with esteemed bios, demonstrating her cooking skills and entertaining at a benefit for the International Association of Culinary Professionals Foundation. This is what lots of hard work and some great marketing will get you. The fame will arrive forthwith and soon we will be attaching her name to Lexington ("Oh, yes, she's from here."), and saying we knew her when...