When you meet Katie Throne and conclude her story is worthy of wider circulation, you really don’t know where to start. She is something of an entrepreneur and all-around good person with a penchant for reading, writing, and cooking.
Staying occupied has become Katie’s lifestyle. You would think she would be an aficionado of a double-time routine, but she maintains a measured, even-keeled pace to support her daily goals and objectives.
She has a real estate gig, bottles her own barbecue sauces, cooks for her friends, and can’t wait for the next food festival at exciting venues such as Asheville or Charleston.
You might think Katie lapses into one-armedpaper- hanger protocol when she is up in the morning managing her real estate portfolio before moving into her afternoon assignment: cooking, packaging, and shipping sauces destined for 40 stores in Georgia, two in Tennessee, and one in Stockholm, Sweden, making her an international businesswoman.
Her LLC business, Porky Goodness, represents Athens’ first female-owned barbecue sauce company.
“My sauce has no preservatives or high-fructose corn syrup, which appeals to a lot of customers,” she proudly states.
Katie doesn’t function with a high-end advertising budget, instead growing her business through word-of-mouth town criers. While they may be few, they are energetic and passionate. And she is getting favorable results.
A down-home type from Augusta, Katie majored in English at the University of Georgia, where she was a member of Phi Mu Sorority and very popular on campus with her ability to coach anyone flummoxed by the writing of themes.
When she finished at UGA, she worked for The Augusta Chronicle, finding the opportunity interesting, fulfilling, and challenging. In addition to writing, Katie is an avid reader, with Pat Conroy and Flannery O’Connor among her favorite authors.
“It was a very good experience for me with my time at The Chronicle, and I love Augusta, but I wanted to return to Athens where I have so many friends. Athens is such a special place.”
I’m sure you have heard that testimony before.
Her grandmother, who lived in Hazard, Kentucky, influenced Katie’s love for the kitchen. Porky Goodness began when her grandmother sent her some sauce in an old-time mason jar from her bluegrass pantry.
From that, Katie began to develop her own recipe, and after a lot of trial and error, it evolved into what she has on the market today. She gave her sauce to friends as gifts, and it became such a big hit she decided to find a way to bottle and sell it.
Following college, she began to spend more time in the kitchen and realized she enjoyed cooking to the fullest. Before long, neighbors would see her out by the grill and would hand platters of chicken and Boston butts over the backyard fence.
If Katie was going to cook for friends in the neighborhood, she wanted to “get it just right.” That meant she had to finetune her barbecue sauce.
Next, she decided to create a rub for the meats she was cooking for friends. A great fan of country music (Georgian Tricia Yearwood and Travis Tritt are her favorites), Katie now has specialty “rubs” for anyone with a penchant for grilling out.
For chicken, there is “Tanya Clucker;” For steak, she has “Flank Williams;” For pork, there is “Patsy Swine;” And for seafood, it is “Loretta Fin.”
Being an aficionado of Yearwood’s music, Katie is trying to come up with a rub for her favorite country artist but has not yet found anything she likes.
“The best I can do,” she says with a smile, “is Tricia Yardbird.”
