Porterhouse follows a retail model that hearkens back to the days of the neighborhood butcher shop – with one singularly modern difference: besides offering carefully selected cuts of meat and seafood, Porterhouse offers an array of complimentary food products – from regional wines to condiments and desserts – designed to heighten the experience of a great meat or seafood dish.

There comes a time in every relationship when a man must face the hard truth that raw virility, lavish gifts, and romantic getaways may no longer fuel the fires of passion he once kindled in the object of his affection.

I speak from experience when it comes to this epiphany. But I also know what it means to be a Kitchen God. Imagine the look of rapture on my wife’s face not long ago when she came home to find, arrayed upon a carefully set table, the following repast: pan seared sea scallops with a drizzle of lemon, garlic and butter (served on a bed of seaweed salad), a perfectly grilled filet mignon slathered in a blueberry chutney, and steamed, fresh asparagus. Complimenting this vision was a luscious Syrah from Cinder Wines, capped with a chocolate confection that defies even my legendary powers of description. Go ahead, mere mortals, just try making a similar impression with a dozen long stem red roses.

Sure…I know what you’re thinking. “Easy for you to pull off a culinary hat trick, Mike – you’re like a trained chef or something.” But therein lays the secret I will now share with you: I’m just an average schmuck when it comes to cooking. Fortunately, however, I had a secret weapon behind the meal I pulled off in just under an hour: Dave Faulk and Porterhouse.

Dave is a man who, from long experience, knows his way around a prime cut of meat – an experience going back to a part time job he held at a local packinghouse while attending Boise State University.

Porterhouse follows a retail model that hearkens back to the days of the neighborhood butcher shop – with one singularly modern difference: besides offering carefully selected cuts of meat and seafood, Porterhouse offers an array of complimentary food products – from regional wines to condiments and desserts – designed to heighten the experience of a great meat or seafood dish.

“While meat has always been our focus,” Dave explains, “we’re not a meat market per se, or a deli…or a seafood market; we’re just a small-scale specialty market with a focus on the upper end of choice cuts. We work with people one-on-one, not just to educate them on cuts of meat, but more importantly on what to do with them, and with the broad set of culinary options they have in preparing a really amazing meal.”

Dave is a man who, from long experience, knows his way around a prime cut of meat – an experience going back to a part time job he held at a local packinghouse while attending Boise State University. Far from wanting to become a butcher, Dave entertained some wooly notions about pursuing a degree in computer science – a lukewarm ambition that was interrupted when he took some time off of his studies to work as a commercial fisherman out of Kodiak Island, Alaska.

At the tender age of 25, Dave was back in Boise, sinking the earnings from his life in the frozen north into his own custom meat processing business. To his surprise, he began getting phone calls from people who simply wanted to know where they could find “good meat”. While conventional wisdom might have suggested that the local supermarket would be a good place to start their search, Dave realized that what discriminating consumers were really hungering for was the bygone days of the neighborhood butcher shop.

More than anything, the Porterhouse functions as a retail venue designed to reconnect people with the prerogatives that are theirs as occupiers of the uppermost rung of the food chain.

“The local butcher shop is a thing of the past, and our generation has lost that connection,” bemoans Dave. “Most chain supermarkets don’t really know what they are selling; they’re just bringing in meats that they aren’t cutting or grinding themselves. They’re just another commodity. People have been forced to walk up and down the grocery aisle and pick up something wrapped in plastic, based on price point, without really knowing what to do with it.”

Believing he could change this sorry state of affairs, Dave established Porterhouse in 2000, originally locating it on Chinden and Eagle at the City Market shopping center. The experience of walking into the present incarnation of Porterhouse is a bit like entering a theme park for carnivores. The store showcases beautiful cuts of meat and fresh choices of seafood ranging from seasonal standards such as halibut and salmon to sushi-grade Ahi tuna.

Dave also stocks an array of deli items designed to compliment the meat and seafood dishes its customers choose, and a selection of desserts that will leave you almost bilious. Displayed throughout the store are fine oils, dressings, condiments, bakery items, and gourmet delights like the blueberry ketchup I used on the filet mignon I prepared for my wife. The Porterhouse wine selection focuses on smaller, Northwest wineries, including offerings from our own Snake River AVA.

More than anything, the Porterhouse functions as a retail venue designed to reconnect people with the prerogatives that are theirs as occupiers of the uppermost rung of the food chain. “We’ve lost a lot of our cooking skills as people buy more pre-packaged, pre-made foods,” Dave notes. “As someone who loves to interact with people, there is a lot of satisfaction when a customer comes back the day after they’ve shopped here to tell us about how great their dinner was. It’s gratifying to know how much faith they place in us.”

Perhaps the best way to appreciate that faith is to simply walk into Porterhouse, walk up to Dave Faulk, and ask the question that will change your love life forever. “What can I do tonight to be a Kitchen God?”

To listen to Dave Faulk’s response to my “Kitchen God” question, as well as his first-hand account of the Porterhouse story, click here for a Behind the Menu companion podcast. As always, listening while hungry is not advised, unless you’re willing to hop into your car and head over to Eagle and State.

Porterhouse Market is located at 600 S. Riverside Lane in Eagle, Idaho
Ph: 938-1441

www.PorterhouseMarket.com

“The sign says ‘wine shop’, but it really depends on what you’re hungry for,” Giuseppe explains.  “ If you have an interest in food, I have an extensive knowledge about the food I grew up with.  If you have a question about wine, I have an extensive knowledge of Italian wine as well.  La Cantina Sociale is not just a specialty market, but a place where you can learn about original Italian dishes and the kinds of wine they should be paired with.”

Born and raised in Sicily, Giuseppe’s culinary passion has roots that run deep in the vineyards around Mt. Etna.  His family owned nearly 30 acres of vines whose origins stretched back to antiquity.  “My grandfather, according to custom, gave me my first glass of wine at the age of three, and my mom taught me to cook before I learned to walk.”

Sicily made a great culinary classroom.  As a region with some 50 dialects, it is also home to a wide variety of food traditions, and as Giuseppe describes it, “it’s a culture that loves to communicate with food.”  Giuseppe set about becoming fluent in that language by working in a restaurant in Sicily under a master chef, eventually running the restaurant himself.

It is, in fact, his “take no prisoners” attitude toward the food he grew up with that strikes you about Giuseppe within the first few minutes of chatting him up about food and wine.  And Giuseppe admits to being a bit defensive where Italian cooking is concerned.

Guiseppe came to Idaho in 1993 as the result of “chasing a skirt.”  This particular skirt happened to belong to his wife of 16 years, whom he met in 1986 when she was stationed in Italy while serving in the U.S. Navy.  They married in 1992 and settled in her hometown of Boise a year later.  He opened his first Italian market on Cole and Ustick in 2005, but soon decided that downtown Boise would make a better environment for his culinary mission: introducing the City of Trees to traditional Italian cooking without modification or compromise.

It is, in fact, his “take no prisoners” attitude toward the food he grew up with that strikes you about Giuseppe within the first few minutes of chatting him up about food and wine.  And he admits to being a bit defensive where Italian cooking isconcerned.  “This country tries to improve everything, but my attitude is ‘if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.’  Being a traditional, a native, and a chef, I refuse to compromise on home recipes that have been carried on for generations.”

But one man’s “prickly” is another man’s “passion” – and the fastest way to connect with Giuseppe’s passion for Italian cuisine is to ask him a question about wine.

With an estimated 150-200 cases of wine in his shop (95 percent of these being of Italian origin), one might wonder just where to begin the conversation.  Notsurprisingly, Giuseppe has an opinion on this as well: “Tell me about a wine you considered a knock-out and I’ll pull something that I think will equal or surpass it.”  Noticing that he carried some wines from a favorite winery, I threw down the gauntlet on the Napa Cellars cabernet sauvignon.  Without hesitation, Giuseppe pulled out a couple of bottles of old country vino that he staunchly maintained could  “outrun Napa Cellars for taste, longevity, fruits, and finish.”

“To exceed a big cab, I can offer you a varietal that needs a knife to cut through it, but with spices and a finish that is far longer than any cab,” Giuseppe says.  “Take a sip of this and you’ll be tasting it for hours.”  He goes on to suggest pairing it with a grilled steak or a bolito – a steak or a roast simmered in wine, then sliced and prepared on the grill like a prime rib.  Giuseppe then briefly introduced me to some of the wines from his hometown of Motta San Anastasia, adding “if you haven’t acquainted yourself with some of these Sicilian wines, you really should let me give you a tour.”

The most immediate way to connect with the culinary possibilities that line the shelves of La Cantina Sociale is to simply come in with a dinner dilemma.

Giuseppe gets down to business

Culinary tours are also available through private events that Giuseppe hosts once ortwice a month at La Cantina Sociale.  These events are designed to “introduce people to original recipes” by special invitation.  “I make sure that everyone who comes in tastes something original.”  At a recent culinary soiree, 14 of Giuseppe’s guests devoured 20 pounds of lasagna bolognese from an old family recipe.

The most immediate way to connect with the culinary possibilities that line the shelves of La Cantina Sociale is to simply come in with a dinner dilemma.  In my case, it was to put on a meal that would resemble something Mama Veneziano might have set in front of me in Motta San Anastasia – in under 20 minutes!  Under Giuseppe’s guidance, my shopping basket was full in a matter of minutes, and I had my marching orders.

“Put some water on to boil and start with a little bruschetta with some of the capponata (eggplant appetizer) that we carry.  Take this bottle of white clam sauce and add it to a basic tomato and garlic sauce.  All of our sauces are natural, with no preservatives beyond pure olive oil and sea salt, and all use fresh Sicilian tomatoes – then be sure you use one of our fresh semolina pastas.  I’d pair the dish with a Berbera wine, or something else on the soft side but with a huge flavor.  For dessert I’d go with one of several dessert wines and one of our Italian cookies with just a little marscapone spread on it.”

Heading out the door with visions of culinary glory, I reflected on my original question about the retail mission of La Cantina Sociale.  The answer should by now be clear: walk in an Italian cuisine neophyte, walk out a kitchen cognoscenti that would make Mama Veneziano proud.  If that isn’t a worthy goal, tell me what is.

The story of The Chocolat Bar is truly a love story.  After all, even if you don’t believe in romance, you sure as heck can believe in chocolate.  And as it turns out, the story of how The Chocolat Bar came to be is the story of two people who fell in love.

You don’t really need directions to The Chocolat Bar.  If you are anywhere on Bannock between 8^th and 9th, just follow your nose.  For the olfactory-challenged, you’ll find The Chocolat Bar at their new location at 805 W. Banncok – which is also where you’ll meet its owners, Chris Preston and Kristi Echols-Preston.

The story of The Chocolat Bar is truly a love story.  After all, even if you don’t believe in romance, you sure as heck can believe in chocolate.  And as it turns out, the story of how The Chocolat Bar came to be is the story of two people who fell in love (queue the theme from Love Story, dim the lights, and pass me a truffle, please).

Chris and Kristi met through the Nature Conservancy in New Mexico, where Chris was on the Board of Directors and Kristi was a biologist.  Chris recalls his wife-to-be with this anecdote: “You know how in every office there is always someone who has chocolate on his or her desk?  That was Kristi.”  Considering that Chris grew up in a non-chocolate eating family and never ate chocolate, one can only assume that there were other attributes of Kristi’s that led to a marriage proposal.

Kristi lost her job due to downsizing, and with few opportunities in New Mexico for a biologist, she did what any unemployed science major would do: she apprenticed with a chocolate shop in Santa Fe.  “They liked her so much that they let her start doing product development,” Chris recalls.  “And I started eating chocolate.”  Good move, Chris.  Kristi also trained at the Culinary Arts Institute and began teaching her husband at the place where she had apprenticed.

Kristi and Chris had been coming to Idaho for years to fly fish and vacation, and they fell in love with Boise.  In 2003, Chris made the fateful decision to leave a career in finance to open a chocolate store with his wife in the City of Trees.  “Try explaining to an 86 year-old mother that you are leaving a good job to start a business you’ve never done in a place you’ve never lived.”

The Chocolat Bar’s success flows from Chris and Kristi’s love of cooking.  Says Chris, “we both love to cook, and we feel that the best food lets its ingredients shine.  Our goal is to not do anything in the cooking process to overshadow the quality of the ingredients.

As audacious as their decision may seem, The Chocolat Bar opened its doors in January 2004 – and Boise has been the better for it.  The Chocolat Bar’s success flows from Chris and Kristi’s love of cooking.  Says Chris, “we both love to cook, and we feel that the best food lets its ingredients shine.  Our goal is to not do anything in the cooking process to overshadow the quality of the ingredients.  We use organic dried cherries and blueberries…the best ingredients from the same wholesaler who supplies Whole Foods.”  They also buy their cocoa from Guitards, a century-old chocolate maker in California.

Chris and Kristi’s culinary mission can best be described has bringing the true experience of chocolate to its grateful customers.  “Chocolate makes people happy, and when you have a high quality chocolate, you enjoy the experience even more.  We use 100 percent chocolate with high cocoa content and all the cocoa butter that should be there to create a quality experience,” says Chris.  Sadly, he notes that the opposite trend is taking place among the large commercial chocolate producers.  “The big companies are lobbying the FDA to reduce the amount of chocolate you need to put into a product to call it chocolate.”

Beyond the quality of the ingredients it uses, what makes The Chocolat Bar such a delight is the creativity of its products.  “Kristi will wake up in the middle of the night with new ideas for ingredient combinations,” says Chris.  “Rather than letting me mow down the lavender in our garden with the weed whacker, she used it to make our Lemon and Lavender white chocolate – one of our most popular creations.”

So, how has the experience of being downtown Boise’s artisan chocolate manufacturer been?  Chris just smiles.  “Boise is such a friendly city, and we really feel the community has embraced us.  We’ve become friends with many of our customers, and that’s just not something you think of happening in most businesses.  I really think this is the best city in America to start this kind of business.”

We love you guys as well!  Maybe too much.

In the case of Donya Maries Beyond Chocolate, serendipity carried the day.  It was a few weeks before Christmas and my wife and I found ourselves cruising a holiday craft fair at (where else) the Fairgrounds.  Not being craft fair aficionados, our game plan was to find the booth where my sister-in-law was displaying her “craftiness”, pay our respects, then head home for a cup of hot tea.  We like to live life on the edge.

Heading down one of the aisles, a corner booth attracted our attention.  It was manned, and “womaned”, by a smiling, attractive couple offering samples of chocolate sauces and condiments for cooking.  “A chocolate vinaigrette,” I thought, “that’s a cute novelty concept.”  Dipping a piece of bread into a sample of said novelty, my next thought was “Wow…I was NOT expecting THAT!”

The “that” that my wife and I experienced should hardly have come as a culinary epiphany.  After all, anyone who has ever had a good Mexican mole should know that chocolate has a complexity that goes far beyond satisfying our sweet tooth.  But even this realization seems to fly in the face of the conventional wisdom that chocolate is dessert, not entree.  Donya Marie Schweizer, founder and Chief Technology Officer for Donya Maries Beyond Chocolate wants to change this perception…one palate at a time.

Donya Marie is an unlikely evangelist for changing our perceptions of chocolate in the kitchen.  Growing up in the Southwest, her professional life was spent in the public service sector, initially in the court and prison systems and eventually in the State Contracting Department for Arizona.  Cooking was, at best, a necessary evil.  Finding herself the victim of state budget cuts, however, Donya began cooking out of boredom; which when you think about it beats the hell out of taking up booze and daytime soaps.

Such was Donya’s boredom that she began her foray into the world of chocolate by making her own truffles – which had the immediate effect of causing friends and family to secretly hope that she would not find meaningful employment any time soon.  It also occurred to Donya that making truffles could, in fact, be her new occupation.  Chocolate in hand, she showed up for her very first public market.  “At the end of the day I had only made $63, and I was convinced my husband and I would be hungry and homeless.  I was so depressed.”  I suspect that at some point Mrs. Fields felt like chucking her cookie batter as well and going into real estate.  And thank God Paul McCartney’s parents never convinced him to become an accountant.

Undaunted, Donya returned to the test kitchen, which just happened to belong to the University of Idaho.  While laboring over her handcrafted delicacies, she couldn’t help but envy what she saw going on at the other side of the kitchen.  “People were making sauces in 150 gallon kettles, and I thought ‘I should be over there doing that’.”  Donya Marie needed no other lesson in “economies of scale”, and the idea for chocolate-based cooking sauces was born that day.

There was, however, a technology hurdle that Donya had to overcome.  Determined that her chocolate would NOT use corn syrup, she found that the cooking process required a high degree of quality control.  “In developing my original ‘decadence’ chocolate sauce, I found that anytime you have a heavy sugar content you have to carefully test for the water activity.  If it is too high, there is a risk that the sauce will mold in the jar, which is why so many people use corn syrup to improve shelf life.”  But even as Donya continued to make her truffles, her success in refining the recipes and cooking techniques for her sauces began to bring in more revenue.

Donya Maries Beyond Chocolate was officially started in 2005, but it was in 2007 that Donya introduced the product that established her culinary mission.  “My husband Jason and I love bread, and we like to dip our bread in oil, so I decided to create a dipping oil using chocolate and spices.  I was amazed at the results, but not surprised.  There is no reason that you can’t put chocolate in foods.  It is so complex that it brings out flavors that you otherwise wouldn’t taste.”  It took only a few experiments to perfect Donya Maries’ Dark Chocolate Bread Dipping Oil – and to make Jason a believer.

The success of her chocolate dipping oil and a subsequent chocolate vinaigrette was all Donya Marie needed to guide her product development efforts along the path that, as her website proudly proclaims, turns “ordinary foods into extra-ordinary using dark chocolate.”  “We’ve taken our sauce concept from sweet to savory,” says Donya Marie.  “I like spicy food, but Jason doesn’t, so I have two flavors of everything, the ‘Donya Marie’ and the ‘Jason’.  I’ve developed spicy and sweet versions of our meat rub, for example, that really enhance the flavor of a good red meat.  I like to put them on roasts or ribs.  The spicy chocolate meat rub is not hot, but it uses the same signature spice blend that goes into our other products.”

Jason was convinced that his wife had gone over the deep end when she suggested a chocolate Bloody Mary mix.  Guess again.  This year, in fact, Donya Marie will introduce her chocolate margarita mix to round out a product line of pancake mixes and syrups, dipping oils, vinaigrettes, BBQ sauces, salsas, jellies, meat rubs, and more.

“Most of what I have done is by trial and error,” Donya admits.  But I’ve realized that growing up in the Southwest really influenced my palate.  There is a tradition of using chocolate in Mexican food that influences Southwest cuisine.”  But would something that plays in Santa Fe find an audience in Sandpoint?  Donya’s experience thus far is “yes” – but not without overcoming some stereotypes about chocolate’s place in the kitchen.  “At first I was offended because people would say things like ‘chocolate in BBQ sauce – are you nuts?  But 95 percent of the people who taste our products walk away with them.  The challenge is getting people to try cooking more with chocolate, which is why I like to prepare recipes with our products and then share them with customers through our website.  And this puts me back in the test kitchen, which is my favorite place to be.”

So much for the woman who not so many years ago found Hamburger Helper a culinary challenge.

If you want to get to know Donya a bit better, add her blog to your reading list and discover why her credo is “a balanced diet is chocolate in everything.”