Kisses and crêpes

Kaiti Kimzey has always loved cooking. Five years ago, she bought a food cart with the hopes of starting a crêpe stand, but it didn't get off the ground right away. She was a single mother of two small children and wanted to go back to school, so she reluctantly put her food cart dream on hold. But an opportunity arose this past May, when Kimzey graduated from Chico State with a degree in communication sciences and disorders. One of her classmates, who worked at Argus Bar + Patio, gave Kimzey's phone number to the owner, who in turn offered Kimzey and her cart a regular spot on the bar's patio. Having finished school and with her kids a little older, Kimzey felt it was the right time to get her dream back on track. She dusted off her cart and now BisouBisou Crêpes is at Argus every Thursday and Friday night offering three savory and three sweet crêpes. For more information, find BisouBisou Crêpes on Facebook.

Why start a crêpe cart?

I have two culinary degrees and I've always loved food. I started baking and cooking at 5 years old. I would have these little bricks of sweet bread that were not delicious at all but my parents were really sweet and were like, “This is so great.” The second culinary school I went to was right outside of Paris in a town called Chantilly, where whipped cream was invented. I would go into the city every weekend and I would go to the Louvre or the Musée d'Orsay, and every single time I'd go I would get a crêpe and every time I'd leave I would get a crêpe.

What kind of crêpes do you offer?

I like to keep two savory and two sweet that are consistent so people … know that if they like them they can always come back for them. Then I do one rotating savory and one rotating sweet. Last week I had a white chocolate mousse with lemon curd for my sweet and this week I'm doing like a s'mores crêpe with an Italian meringue with chocolate melted into it and a graham cracker crumble. For the rotating savory last week, it was a chorizo, Comanche Creek [Farms] tomatoes and a cilantro avocado sour cream.

What do you love most about cooking?

I like creating something or having an idea, walking through a grocery store or the farmers' market and thinking, “Oh, apricots are really beautiful right now, I can do something with that” or “That would go really good with this.” I really like those aspects, like crossing sweet and savory or using what is local.

Where did you come up with the name?

When you meet somebody in France, you kiss them on the side of their cheek—that's what that [“bisou bisou”] means. I had 20 of my close friends come over like five years ago and I told them I wanted to do this. They came over, I made crêpes for everybody and we wrote down all kinds of names and everybody voted on it and that was the one that got the most votes.