May 19, 2021

Having a big outdoor party this summer but don’t want to be stuck behind the grill?

A Sioux Falls chef is promoting his services for hire.

Kevin Turner of Cookin With Ghost will show off his skills with a pop-up barbecue at 2 p.m. Saturday in the upper level of Terrace Park, near the basketball courts.

He’ll be selling ribs, chicken, hot links, hot dogs and brats, along with homemade sides that are family recipes, until all of the food is gone.

“I don’t make anything out of the box at all,” Turner said.

“My passion for cooking started when I was a kid. I was in the kitchen a lot with my mom and grandparents,” who moved from Mississippi to Detroit.

He grew up in Michigan and trained in the culinary arts through Job Corps, and “that’s when I knew want I wanted to do.” That’s where he picked up the nickname “Chef Ghost,” a spin on his music handle of “Dboighost,” which is his passion in his spare time.

Turner has lived on and off in Sioux Falls for the past 13 years, also spending time in Georgia with family.

As a single dad, he moved back to the city a year ago so his two boys could be closer to their mom.

Since then, he has been selling prepared meals but wanted to create an actual business.

“With the pandemic, with the extra money they were sending, I decided to do something with it.”
He started Cooking With Ghost and did his first event earlier this month as part of Amy Stockberger Real Estate’s May Day Market, serving chicken and dumplings.

“After Amy’s event, a lot of people were saying you need to do something else. Someone gave me the idea, and I got a permit to go to the park and set up a barbecue there.”

People will get a chance to see him behind the grill and buy his food.

His side dishes of mac and cheese, baked beans and potato salad come from those years of cooking with family. The menu also will include deviled eggs, German chocolate cake and fresh lemonade.

He also sells his custom seasoning mixes, describing one as all-purpose and the other for barbecue.

Up next is bottling his barbecue sauce. “It’s my grandfather’s recipe,” Turner said. “He has been doing it since I was a kid.”

It’s a honey and brown sugar-based sauce, “a sweeter-style barbecue. I don’t do anything spicy.”

In addition to his barbecue services, Turner said he also does catering and can go into people’s kitchens and cook meals that they then can reheat throughout the week.

His goal is to have a commercial kitchen soon and to keep growing his business.

“I also have been looking at trailers and food trucks. By this time next year, I hope to have one.”