Angie Riff describes herself as the “chief cook and bottle washer” of Periple (PAIR-e-plah) Wines, whose French name translates as “odessey”.

While Angie’s journey may not be as labyrinthine as her winery’s label suggests, it certainly has been an interesting one.  Born in Boise, Angie learned the craft of wine making in Caliifornia, primarily in the Golden State’s Russian River AVA.  When she and her family decided to return to Idaho, she set up a winery in Garden City and brought her Russian River pinot and chardonnay grapes with her.

In this Idaho Vines episode, we’ll learn more about the odessey of a winemaking daughter of the Gem State, and her plans to begin producing Snake River AVA vintages from a small winery that sells primarily through a mailing list; but if you’re planning to attend Savor Idaho on June 13, you’re already an insider when it comes to sampling what Angie Riff came back to Idaho to accomplish.

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

While the term “locavore” may be a new one, the concept is merely an extension of Peter’s training and inclinations.  “A cuisine sprouts from what is locally available to a chef, and those available proteins will be the determining factor as to what and how you cook.”

There are some restaurants that so define our local culinary scene that you can’t seem to think of a time that they weren’t a part of it.  Which is why it’s hard to believe that 2009 marked the 10th anniversary of the opening of Boise’s Cottonwood Grille.  Only ten years?  Really?  It was, in fact, 1999 when Chef Peter Blatz and his sommelier spouse, Hilary, moved to Boise from Denver.

Peter’s journey to the City of Trees was an even longer one than his move from Denver suggests.  He grew up on the East Coast, where his life in the restaurant business began during his last two years in high school.  Seven years, and many mentors later, Peter enrolled in culinary school in New York to study classical French cuisine.

“I aspired to be a world class chef in the classical French tradition,” Peter recalls, “but I gradually realized that the techniques I was learning – the core principles of efficiency in motion and preservation of flavor that you learn in a more traditional program – could be applied to whatever you have at hand locally.”

Presented with the opportunity to open a restaurant in partnership with Boise’s Hormaechea Family, Peter and Hilary did their research on the City of Trees…and fell in love (an experience so many of us can relate to).  Peter’s aim from the very beginning was to make his earlier culinary realization the starting point for the Cottonwood Grille’s mission.  “We called what we were doing ‘contemporary American’ because we were taking my classical French background, with techniques that had been repeated for a millennia, and applying them to whatever we could get indigenously – and that is how the Cottonwood Grille menu has evolved.”

Peter is at pains to point out that nurturing local relationships is more than a feel good policy.  For someone who truly loves food, especially a classically trained chef, knowing where your food comes from and how it was raised has a direct impact on what you do with it before it reaches the customer’s plate.

While the term “locavore” may be a new one, the concept is merely an extension of Peter’s training and inclinations.  “A cuisine sprouts from what is locally available to a chef, and those available proteins will be the determining factor as to what and how you cook.  I’ve simply drawn from my own resources – from things I’ve seen other chefs do or from my own experiences – and tried to apply attributes such as acid levels or mouth feel that have worked in past dishes to the different ingredients I find locally.”

As the Cottonwood Grille’s reputation grew, Peter spent less effort seeking out local producers; they began coming to him.  “Folks would show up at our back door and say, ‘I’ve got locally grown lamb’, or elk, or tomatoes, or strawberries…fresh herbs, you name it.  These local foods became the inspiration for what we would put on our menu,” Peter recounts.

Fortunately for the Cottonwood Grille menu, as Peter soon realized, there was a lot of local inspiration to be had.  “There are very few things that we need to procure from very far away, with the exception of our escargot, which I still get from France.  Even the black sturgeon caviar that we get from the Hagerman Valley is something that I would put up against any other source in the world.  It’s out there if we just look.”

Peter is at pains to point out that nurturing local relationships is more than a feel good policy.  For someone who truly loves food, especially a classically trained chef, knowing where your food comes from and how it was raised has a direct impact on what you do with it before it reaches the customer’s plate.  “We want to talk to the elk rancher about how his animals are raised, what they eat and when they eat it.  When you understand these things, you’ll understand where the flavors come from, how they should influence what you write on your menu, what your dishes should be paired with, and how you should prepare them.”

Peter’s culinary mission is most in evidence with his seafood and meat entrees.  The Cottonwood Grille buys fresh salmon and sturgeon from the Columbia River, and its pheasant and all-natural chicken are from local sources.  And when it comes to beef, Peter takes an almost fanatical approach to its preparation and use.

Partly because of Peter’s culinary upbringing, and partly because of his insistence on locally available products, simplicity is the operative concept underlying his menu.  “When you track down really good product, and handle it really carefully, you don’t need to do a lot to it to make it shine.  My training has gone full circle to an essential and very simple way of cooking, and trying to maximize the natural flavors of what I have to start with.”

Peter’s culinary mission is most in evidence with his seafood and meat entrees.  The Cottonwood Grille buys fresh salmon and sturgeon from the Columbia River, and its pheasant and all-natural chicken are from local sources.  And when it comes to beef, Peter takes an almost fanatical approach to its preparation and use.  “All of our beef comes from grass-fed sources, and all of it is prime, so any cut is basically the highest grade you can buy and aged in house.  Our steaks are seasoned with salt and pepper…that’s it.  Anything more isn’t fair to the beef.”

Peter oversees the butchering of the Cottonwood Grilles meats, with the goal of 100 percent utilization.  Take a delivery of elk from supplier Black Canyon Elk Ranch, for example:  “We end up with five different cuts, down to the creation of a stew meat that we use in our elk stroganoff.  We prepare it with onions and mushrooms, lightly dusting the meat with flour when we roast the garlic, then add fresh stock that we make here.  It slow cooks until you have the wonderful, savory, tender elk in this naturally thickened broth that is served over locally produced pasta from Ferranti Fresh Pasta.  We grind up what’s left of the meat, mix it with eggs, and make a type of schnitzel with onions, garlic, and capers that we roll with bread crumbs to create an entrée for under $10 dollars.”

While it would be forgivable to think of the Cottonwood as a “high end dining/special occasion” restaurant, to do so would completely miss the point of the experience that Peter and Hilary Blatz have created over the past decade.  Peter approaches that experience from the same perspective that he hopes his customers do: as a person who loves to eat and loves the dining experience.  “I want the person who comes in for light fare to have as satisfying an experience as the person who comes here to propose to their girlfriend – so we try to offer a menu that ranges from meatballs made with fresh elk and Oregon mushrooms that you can enjoy at the bar with a glass of wine, right up to a full course dinner.”

Asking any chef or restaurant owner to pick an exemplary dinner experience from their menu is a bit like asking a parent to pick their favorite child, but Peter has some basic suggestions when it comes to the Cottonwood Grille’s signature dishes.  “I have a bias toward seafood as a light appetizer,” Peter begins.  “I’d start off with a fresh Dungeness crab or oysters.  The Pacific Northwest has the best of both, and I’m confident that Hilary could pair a nice wine with either of those.  Our entrees typically include soup and salad, and we make a mean clam chowder if you’re looking for something creamy, while our broth soups change daily.  In the summer we could even go with a chilled gazpacho.”

Assuming you have room for dessert, Peter recommends his peanut butter chocolate torte, the staff favorite raspberry crème brulee, the red velvet cake, or for something a bit lighter, the chiffon-based coconut cake.  Like its breads, all Cottonwood dessert items are baked in-house.

With the preliminaries lovingly dispensed with, Peter warms to his subject.  “While it’s still cold outside, I’d lean toward something richer for our entree: the Tomahawk Chop, which we get from our local supplier, Double R Ranch.  I really like cooking on the bone for what it adds to the beef, and we treat this product like a great prime rib.  We age if for three weeks, cut it into portions, then let it sit for a day or two in a marinade of fresh thyme, a little rosemary, some sage, raw garlic, black peppercorns, and bay leaves under a canola and olive oil blend.”

“The Tomahawk Chop is a really tender beef, nicely marbled, and we sear it on a broiler with a 1,000 degree temperature, like the ones you’d see at a the really high- end steak houses, in order to get a good searing on the outside to lock in those flavors, and I’d recommend ordering it medium rare with a simple wild mushroom and cabernet sauce that we reduce from the bones to make a demi glace.  We offer six different sides to go with it: garlic mashed potatoes, Japanese snap peas, Minnesota wild rice pilaf, vegetable medley, and potatoes au gratin.  For a favorite like this, you can vary the sauce and the side to keep the experience fresh.”

Assuming you have room for dessert, Peter recommends his peanut butter chocolate torte, the staff favorite raspberry crème brulee, the red velvet cake, or for something a bit lighter, the chiffon-based coconut cake.  Like its breads, all Cottonwood dessert items are baked in-house.

Ten years…seven days a week…two meals a day.  Peter and Hilary Blatz continue to evolve a menu that honors Peter’s culinary heritage and the local relationships they’ve forged.  And while times have changed since 1999, their love for Boise remains undiminished.  “Ten years ago this was a very different town,” says Peter.  “It was small in scale but with massive potential.  Ten years later, if I think about how many things have changed and how much the area has grown, I still believe it has tremendous potential from a standard of living point of view.  There is something very special about this area.”

For the past decade, the Cottonwood Grille has made its own unique culinary contribution to what makes this town so special.  Here’s to at least another ten years of great food.

The Cottonwood Grille is located at 913 W. River St. in Boise.  For reservations, call (208) 333-9800, or go to the Cottonwood Grille website at www.cottonwoodgrille.com.  Click here to listen to the podcast interview with Peter Blatz that was the basis for this Behind the Menu story.

For what might arguably be the Treasure Valley’s oldest continuously operated restaurant, food serves a higher cause than simply satisfying a hard-earned appetite: think of it as the culinary embodiment of a larger brand experience.

On a clear, moonlit winter’s evening, the upper level of Bogus Basin’s Pioneer Lodge offers one of the most enchanting vistas of any local restaurant. And if you’ve worked up a killer appetite on the slopes, a tall cold one with anything short of a deep fried gym sock would probably fill the bill.

But if you’re the food and beverage director at Bogus Basin, you’re not content with the resort equivalent of convenience store grub. After all, for what might arguably be the Treasure Valley’s oldest continuously operated restaurant, food serves a higher cause than simply satisfying a hard-earned appetite: think of it as the culinary embodiment of a larger brand experience.

It stands to reason that food is an essential part of the Treasure Valley’s much loved ski hill. After all, says food and beverage director Ryan (call him “Mo”) Morrison, “skiing is a social activity, and like any social activity, food is involved.”

Ryan "Mo" Morrison

Like so many restaurateurs, Mo cut his teeth in the food biz while in college. A native of Salem, Oregon, he went to school on the East Coast and found a job as a dishwasher at a little family-owned Greek restaurant. “I was the only non-Greek in the place,” Mo remembers, “but I did such a great job as a dishwasher that I was given some janitorial responsibilities as well.” In a reverse of the “Peter Principle” so typical of culinary businesses, Mo’s meteoric rise through the culinary ranks propelled him into prep cooking, and eventually line cooking. One can only wonder why moussaka has not yet appeared on the Bogus Basin menu.

Being from the Northwest, Mo looked for restaurant opportunities closer to hearth and home over the years, and eventually wound up as a seasonal employee of Bogus Basin before joining the organization as one of only thirty full-time staff just three years ago. As its food and beverage director, Mo quickly learned that he was assuming much more than the responsibility for running the resort’s culinary activities. He was taking on nearly seven decades of history, and the “brand equity” that goes with any cherished community fixture.

Back in “the day”, almost as many people made the journey up Bogus Basin road to watch the skiers as they did to actually ski, and the Bogus Burger was no small part of the draw for both the recreationally and voyeuristically inclined.

“For the past 70 years, our food operation has been run at various times by concessions, and at other times it’s been managed internally,” Mo relates. “Originally, the Chandler Family used to do all the food and beverage, and on Mondays they would make pies for the coming weekend – 60 pies from scratch! They were also known for the Bogus Burger, which was a handmade half-pound patty.” Back in “the day”, almost as many people made the journey up Bogus Basin road to watch the skiers as they did to actually ski, and the Bogus Burger was no small part of the draw for both the recreationally and voyeuristically inclined.

Meeting the Chandlers, and learning the history of the resort, “mo”tivated Mr. Morrison to look for ways to revitalize the relationship between his cuisine and its historical context – an effort that led him to a couple of key local producer partnerships. As Mo learned more about the origins of the Bogus Burger, he began working with AB Foods (Agri Beef) to create a signature hamburger blend of American Kobe beef and ground beef pressed in an oval patty. Mo then engaged a local bread maker, Alpicella Bakery, to create an oval bun with a double-B monogram on the top. Says Mo, “I told them, if you stamp a BB on the bun, you’ve got the business.”

In serving the Bogus Basin brand, Mo Morrison’s first priority is “to focus our purchasing power toward giving back to the community.”

Mo credits the ability to work with local suppliers with “making the impossible possible” in offering a menu that serves the higher cause of the Bogus Basin brand: providing a memorable recreation experience at a price that families can afford. At the same time, Mo and his menu are pushed to deliver that experience on a scale that would overwhelm even a fast food venue. “We can run through 1,200 to 2,000 burgers during the week, and that many again on a typical weekend,” he notes. “People ski hard all day and anything tastes good, but we have top of the line ingredients, and we want everything about the Bogus Basin experience to be affordable and accessible, and that extends to food and beverage.”

As a restaurant venue, Bogus Basin has three distinct personalities. At the lower Simplot Lodge, the menu and service is geared toward families in a hurry to fuel up and get back on the slopes. The less frenetic Pioneer Lodge caters to small families, married couples and singles. On the second floor of the Pioneer Lodge, the Firewater Saloon offers a selection of “pub grub” including smoked Gouda and mushroom sausages and the “Korizo”, and Kobe beef chorizo sandwich.

In serving the Bogus Basin brand, Mo Morrison’s first priority is “to focus our purchasing power toward giving back to the community.” On the slopes, Bogus Basin does this through underwriting the costs of ski education nights. In the kitchen, Mo serves the resort’s brand by making the food experience equally accessible, and memorable.

To create an affordable alternative to the “brown bag lunch”, Mo and his staff came up with the Mogul Burger, priced at one for $3.00 or two for $5.50. Another recent menu addition is what Mo proudly boasts as “Idaho’s longest hot dog.” At two feet long, the Colossal Dog could be the longest dog in the U.S. – but for Mo, it represents more than a culinary novelty act. “We need to be adaptive to our community during difficult economic times,” he observes, “so we wanted to be able to feed a family of four for $8.50.” As with the Bogus Basin Burger, the Colossal Dog owes its existence to Bogus Basin’s relationship with Alpicella Bakery and AB Foods.

As a signature dish, there’s simply no escaping the Bogus Burger as the culinary essence of a day on the slopes. “We’re talking a custom made, one-third pound patty, flame broiled with just a little seasoning salt to let the taste of the beef shine through, “ waxes Mo. “Add some bacon, cheese, your choice of condiments, and of course, a side of Simplot fries.” Now that, my friends, is what we’re talking about.

Today’s podcast interview features Chef Vern Hickman, who heads up the culinary arts program that is just one component of Meridian’s Joint School District 2 vocational/technology program. Chef Hickman shares the vision of his program, the story behind the state-of-the art kitchen facilities where his high school students train, and the lure of a culinary career that has been created by the popular media in cable shows like Iron Chef. You’ll also discover that another local culinary celeb played a major role in Chef Hickman’s kitchen — but we’re not going to give that away. You’ll just have to listen.

If you want proof that Parrilla Grill has won plenty of converts to its iconoclastic belief in the limitless possibilities of what a tortilla can be wrapped around, just consider this: in March of this year, Parrilla Grill will celebrate its 10th anniversary as a fixture of the Treasure Valley culinary scene.

If two slices of bread can be the substrate for whatever ones culinary imagination can conjure – and still be called a “sandwich” – then why can’t one take that same creative approach with the humble tortilla?

The answer to that question, according to Scott Graves, owner of Parrilla Grill in Boise’s Hyde Park, is a resounding “Claro que si!” Of course you can! Nothing against Tex-Mex, mind you, but why limit ones definition of the classic burrito or wrap to a particular geography?

If you want proof that Parrilla Grill has won plenty of converts to its iconoclastic belief in the limitless possibilities of what a tortilla can be wrapped around, just consider this: in March of this year, Parrilla Grill will celebrate its 10th anniversary as a fixture of the Treasure Valley culinary scene.

Scott Graves got his start in the culinary in much the same way as many of our local restaurateurs: paying his way through college.  In Scott’s case, it was a gig at Applebee’s while attending Montana State.  This led to a move to California and a bar tending stint while living on the floor of his sister’s pad.

It was during this memorable time in Scott’s life that a buddy he knew from their work together on the Special Olympics called to ask if he’d ever heard of La Parrilla, a concept that was the brainchild of Montana chef Jeff Winslow.  Scott was intrigued by the opportunity to expand the restaurant beyond Bozeman…and his sister was more than intrigued by the opportunity to get Scott off her living room floor.  After a year of training back in Montana, Scott was ready to open the Parrilla Grill’s first Boise location near the mall.  It didn’t begin well.

“It was a horrible disaster,” Scott remembers.  “We opened the restaurant in 1999, and closed it in January 2000.  We began remodeling a former laundromat in Hyde Park, our current location, and on March 1, 2000 we opened our doors.”  Needless to say, this second effort was a success.  In 2004, Scott’s partners decided to sell Parrilla Grill, but rather than return to Bozeman, Scott bought out their interest, purchased a liquor license, and set about expanding the bar and patio side of the restaurant.

One look at the Parrilla Grill menu and you quickly understand just how Scott pays off his restaurant’s “Fusion Grill” tagline.  To get the full range of the Parrilla Grill experience, you might want to start with breakfast.  Just don’t expect to play it safe with eggs, bacon, and hash browns in a tortilla.

Given the Parrilla Grill’s history, Scott acknowledges that some have viewed it as a chain.  “It’s really one of four independent restaurants owned by a bunch of buddies that followed a similar concept – a hodge-podge of influences that range from Thai to Cajun, Indian, and Italian.”

One look at the Parrilla Grill menu and you quickly understand just how Scott pays off his restaurant’s “Fusion Grill” tagline.  Sure, you’ll find classic South of the Border items like the Chancho, a braised and shredded Kurabota pork loin in a chili verde sauce, but further down the list of “featured wraps” you’ll also find the Wrap of Khan, a spicy chili bean smear with cilantro lime rice, bamboo shoots, purple cabbage and a “fiery Thai peanut sauce” with your choice of chicken, steak, shrimp, salmon, or veggie.  And then there’s the Jumbalaya, a mix of shrimp, chicken, and sausage with peppers in a “fiery Louisiana Cajun sauce” also served with cilantro lime rice.  Or how about the Blackened Salmon Wrap…or the Bombay Bomburitto?

To get the full range of the Parrilla Grill experience, you might want to start with breakfast.  Don’t expect to play it safe with eggs, bacon, and hash browns in a tortilla.  No sir/ma’am…go for a Carne Borrachos with an American Wagyu sirloin steak and frijoles borrachos (drunk beans), scrambled huevos (eggs, as you gringos say), “burrito browns”, salsa Americano and cheese.  Of course, if you’re feeling a bit more decadent, you could always opt for “Plan B”, a somewhat more conventional breakfast burrito approach with one notable exception: it’s served with a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.

If you’re looking for a lunch or dinner departure from tacos, burritos, and wraps, you might instead consider one of Parrilla Grill’s salad selections, which include Wasabi Salmon Salad, Curry Glazed Chicken, or the Buffalo Gypsy Salad (Asian style marinated bison, fresh spinach, gorgonzola cheese, fresh tomatoes, purple cabbage, and toasted almonds).

As Parrilla Grills enters its second decade as a culinary fixture of Boise’s North End, Scott Graves continues to shape his menu around local relationships: most notably with Double R Ranch and Snake River Farms, which are current sources for the Kurabota pork, American Kobe beef, and even a version of chorizo featured on the Parrilla Grill menu as “korizo”.

These local relationships are also a source of inspiration for what makes it on the Parrilla Grill menu.  “A former beer distributor used to come to the restaurant with his parents on Cinco de Mayo, and his mom and dad would go into the kitchen and fix up a carne asada using a traditional recipe with tequila.  That became the basis for our ‘carne borrachos’ with drunk beans.”

Looking back at his restaurant’s success after such an inauspicious beginning at the turn of the 21st century, Scott Graves concedes that his Hyde Park location has certainly been a plus.  More than anything, however, Parrilla Grill’s eclectic approach to the burrito has been a culinary compliment to the eclectic culture of Boise’s North End, and to a growing American appetite for “fusion” concepts that pay homage to the traditional while pushing the culinary envelope.

 

Parrilla Grill is located at 1512 N. 13th Street in Boise’s historic Hyde Park; (208) 323-4688

 

“I was in a restaurant in Washington, D.C. and was frustrated because the type of french fry I wanted wasn’t on the menu,” Blake recalls. “I remember being in Belgium and going to places that just served fries and being able to choose from different types of fries and sauces.”

“Fries with burgers on the side.” It’s a clever little marketing tag that begs a larger question: why would anyone create a restaurant concept that makes a leading man out of America’s favorite culinary sidekick, the humble french fry? For Blake Lingle, co-founder of Boise Fry Co., the answer is simple. He just wanted a great fry.

“I was in a restaurant in Washington, D.C. and was frustrated because the type of french fry I wanted wasn’t on the menu,” Blake recalls. “I remember being in Belgium and going to places that just served fries and being able to choose from different types of fries and sauces.”

For a guy born in the heart of Idaho potato country (Burley, Idaho), it seemed a shame to Blake that with all the choices of burgers one could find, there were so few choices in America’s ubiquitous side dish. Coupled with a growing fascination for the hospitality industry, he returned to the Gem State from years of school and career spent elsewhere, and decided to pursue his vision of a new kind of casual dining experience centered around the beloved french fry.

While Blake freely admits that Boise Fry Co. is a “slight spin on a classic burger joint”, there are a number of attributes that set it apart from your average fast food restaurant – starting, most obviously, with the french fries. At Boise Fry Co., the fries are cut fresh daily, and the majority come from potatoes that are organically grown.

The person Blake most wanted to pitch his restaurant concept to was a guy who was more than a little familiar with the culinary industry. Riley Huddleston had received his culinary training at the prestigious New England Culinary School, then went on to gigs that included working as a chef at the famous Gramercy Tavern in New York City, pastry chef at a hotel in Seattle, and stints as head chef at Mortimer’s and Café de Paris in Boise.

With Riley’s chops, you might think that opening a “burger joint” would be come down, but Blake’s pitch fell on receptive ears. Riley’s culinary experience had taught him that while every community has its fine dining staples, fine dining concepts could have a limited shelf life. “We wanted something that would be casual but different, and ultimately more ‘franchisable’,” says Blake.

While Blake freely admits that Boise Fry Co. is a “slight spin on a classic burger joint”, there are a number of attributes that set it apart from your average fast food restaurant – starting, most obviously, with the french fries. At Boise Fry Co., the fries are cut fresh daily, and the majority come from potatoes that are organically grown. “We don’t use frozen fries, although they’re a much more consistent product to deal with,” notes Blake. “Using fresh cut potatoes poses more of a challenge, and we had to develop some unique ways of preparing them.”

Despite its tongue-in-cheek description of “burgers on the side”, Boise Fry Co. takes just as much care with burger side of its menu board as it does with the fry side. The restaurant’s bison burger is a good example.

To begin with, Boise Fry Co. uses the Belgium technique of “twice frying” their potatoes. A more innovative example of Boise Fry Co.’s cooking methods are its yam fries. Like most pre-packaged fries, yam fries typically have a coating of preservative that keeps them firm when cooked and retains heat longer. “We’ve found a way to cook the yams without any preservatives at all,” Blake discloses. “We think it may be unique to us.”

With anywhere from 10 to 12 french fry selections based on type of potato and fry cut, ones first encounter with the Boise Fry Co. menu board can be a bit overwhelming. “The first time someone comes in, we like to walk them through the menu and explain the different types of potatoes and styles we’re featuring that day,” says Blake. “After that first experience, it’s a lot less daunting.” From the fry selection, customers move on to their of burgers (bison, beef, and vegan) and daily specials. From there, it’s on to the seasoning station, where they can customize their fries with a variety of house made sauces and seasonings.

Despite its tongue-in-cheek description of “burgers on the side”, Boise Fry Co. takes just as much care with burger side of its menu board as it does with the fry side. The restaurant’s bison burger is a good example. “Bison is healthy, lean, and tasty,” Blake notes. “Our bison is grass fed and comes from organic sources. We know the people who raise it, and how it is raised.” Boise Fry Co. burgers are served on a custom bun with caramelized onions, fresh tomatoes and lettuce, and a garlic aioli sauce. “We could cut a lot of corners to get a cheaper burger, but there is a high cost to cheap food,” says Blake. “We wanted something that wouldn’t cause the degradation of your gut, the environment…or your wallet.”

A larger goal of the Boise Fry Co. is to achieve a 100 percent organic menu from local producers, and the restaurant is well on its way toward that end. In the meantime, in a culinary landscape dotted with plenty of burger concepts, it’s nice to know that there’s a little place on Broadway and Main that, in the course of renewing our love affair with America’s favorite side dish, is also treating the beloved hamburger as anything but an afterthought.

So, just how serious is Boise Fry Company about their mission?  This quote from their website leaves no doubt as to their seriousness: Because for too long restaurants have persecuted fries, treated them like second-class citizens, stuffed them with preservatives and MSG, and forced them to share fryers with drumsticks and jalapeño poppers. And why? Have not these beautiful, slender pieces of fried potato graciously accompanied entrées without condition or prejudice? Have not fries comforted, satiated, and delighted us? Are fries not entrée worthy? These are the questions that we have asked. And these are our answers: fries should be cooked with natural and healthy peanut oil, fries should not share fryers with other foods, and fries are indeed entrée worthy.

Boise Fry Company is located at 111 Broadway Avenue in Boise.  For more information, call (208) 495-3858 or click here to visit their website.

Bella Aquila’s take on Italian cuisine is, from a regional perspective, what Bill describes as “pretty much universal”, and is based not only on recipes he introduced in California but on travels in Italy from Lake Como in the north down to Sorrento in the south. Bella Aquila benefits as well from the presence of head chef Mark Wilkerson, formerly with Asiago’s, whose culinary specialty has long been Italian.

We all know the old adage about the three things it takes for a restaurant to be successful, right? Location, location, location. The reality, of course, is just a bit more complicated than that. There are those pesky little details such as culinary vision, quality food, a great wait staff, and more than a dollop of plain old business savvy. And, of course, there’s that intangible known as the “customer experience” that is the culmination of all of the above.

Reality aside, Bella Aquila certainly didn’t draw the short straw when it came to location. Even on a winter’s day in Eagle, Idaho, it’s not hard to conjure up the perfect late spring/early summer dining experience with that special someone. In fact, you might want to just close your eyes and indulge me in a little visualization exercise.

It’s early evening in late May, and you’re sitting on the patio of Bella Aquila Ristorante Romantico. Just repeat the name to yourself and it might as well be the setting sun in Tuscany warming your face. As it is, the fragrance of cottonwood trees and the sonorous voice of a nearby river remind you that where you are is every bit as romantic as any fantasy you could entertain. The tenor of a waterfall forms an audio canvas for Old Blue Eyes’ rendition of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”.

Your waiter arrives with your salad: formaggio di capra, a mix of spring greens, pecans, herbed chevre, and apple chutney with in a delicate vinaigrette. You’ve just ordered the halibut puttanesca and your date has decided on a house favorite, the smoked salmon ravioli. You have plenty of time to savor those martinis and peruse the wine list one more time before ordering the Granee DOCG “Gavi” that the wine steward has recommended. For some reason, Frank Sinatra has never sounded so good. There’s nothing more to do now than drink it all in. Soon enough you’ll have to make that stressful dessert decision between the tiramisu and the cannoli.

Bella Aquila’s menu leaves no doubt of the debt it owes to sunny Italy, but there is a continental influence at work as well, which shows up in dishes such as the Black & Blue, a blackened ribeye with gorgonzola, or the Porco, a grilled chop with a fine herb glace over polenta and served with fried spinach.

If this sounds like the ultimate date night experience, whether the love of your life arrived 30 days or 30 years ago, then congratulations: you’ve just stumbled onto a key component of the culinary mission behind Bill Cooper’s latest restaurant venture.

Bella Aquila’s owner began his culinary career at a restaurant down the street from the auction house where he worked during the summer while in high school. Born in Louisiana, Bill grew up in Roseburg, Oregon and attended the University of Portland, where he rose to the vaunted position of assistant potato peeler. From there the sky was the limit, and Bill eventually put down his peeler and became a student manager for the school’s catering service. It was this role that launched his professional career in the food service industry.

At the tender and impressionable age of 50, Bill decided to put his industry insight to personal practice and open his own restaurant in the tony South San Francisco Bay community of Saratoga, which he named (appropriately enough) Bella Saratoga. Bill ran the restaurant, which emphasized Italian cuisine, for twelve years before deciding to sell it and work his culinary magic in Idaho. It didn’t require a highly paid marketing consultant to convince him that while he wanted some continuity between the menus of his old and new establishments, “Bella Eagle” was simply not going to conjure up the magic he wanted to inspire as a name for his new venture. The solution was to use the Italian name for eagle, and Bella Aquila was born.

Bella Aquila’s take on Italian cuisine is, from a regional perspective, what Bill describes as “pretty much universal”, and is based not only on recipes he introduced in California but on travels in Italy from Lake Como in the north down to Sorrento in the south. Bella Aquila benefits as well from the presence of head chef Mark Wilkerson, formerly with Asiago’s, whose culinary specialty has long been Italian. “Our menu is a blend of some things I brought with me from Bella Saratoga and some things Mark wanted to do. We wanted a nice, rounded experience, and I think that what we’ve ended up with is something for everyone.”

For the Bella Aquila dinner experience, Bill is especially hard pressed to play favorites. For an appetizer, check out the Suppli, fontina-stuffed risotto cakes served with marinara and basil oil. For the main course, consider the Trout Rolade, fresh Idaho trout stuffed with spinach and bay shrimp and served atop a potato crab cake with lemon dill.

Bella Aquila’s menu leaves no doubt of the debt it owes to sunny Italy, but there is a continental influence at work as well, which shows up in dishes such as the Black & Blue, a blackened ribeye with gorgonzola, or the Porco, a grilled chop with a fine herb glace over polenta and served with fried spinach. “Our menu also features a lot of seafood, both as stand alone entrees and incorporated into pasta dishes or our shellfish salad,” says Bill.

For the lunch introduction to Bella Aquila, Bill recommends the sandwich version of his Black & Bleu, made with smoked sirloin of beef and served on homemade foccacia bread with a blend of blue cheese and caramelized onions and a side of sweet potato fries. If you’re really feeling peckish, you might want to start off with an appetizer of Calamari Fritti. “I’ve always been a ‘tubes and tentacles’ guy,” Bill confesses, “but we use breaded calamari steak strips with a red pepper aioli for this dish, and the result is just outstanding.”

For the Bella Aquila dinner experience, Bill is especially hard pressed to play favorites. For an appetizer, check out the Suppli, fontina-stuffed risotto cakes served with marinara and basil oil. For the main course, consider the Trout Rolade, fresh Idaho trout stuffed with spinach and bay shrimp and served atop a potato crab cake with lemon dill. Then, of course, there’s the Melanzane, chicken breast stuffed with feta, eggplant and tomatoes. On the turf side of the menu there’s the Lamb Shank, which is slow braised and served over white beans with root vegetables and gremolata. Or you can kick it old school with a New York steak with Bernaise sauce and garlic mashed potatoes.

To truly commune with the ghosts of the Rat Pack, let Bill’s son Chad, who recently moved to Idaho from California’s Napa Valley, suggest a wine from an inventory that is about 30 percent Italian. But whatever you do, just be sure to pace yourself – the dessert menu includes tiramisu, chocolate decadence, cheesecake, and cannoli. Bella Aquila also makes it’s own gelato, which it uses to top another of its dessert offerings, a warm berry sundae. And while we are on the subject of homemade, I would be remiss in not pointing out that the restaurant bakes its own bread, which it serves fresh every few minutes, accompanied by a spicy cheese.

If the setting and menu of Bella Aquila has so far failed to top your romance threshold, consider counseling. But in the meantime, Bill Cooper is taking no chances. His plans for the future include roving opera singers and even an opera night for those of you who are passionate about a thinking persons soap opera set to music. Which begs the question, what dish goes best with La Boheme? In short, while dinner at Bella Aquila may not be reason enough to fall in love, I suspect that dining there alone will make you want to. Just be sure to invite Bill Cooper to your wedding.

Bella Aquila Ristorante Romantico is located at 775 S. Riverside Lane in Eagle.  For reservations call (208) 938-1900.

Twenty-five miles south of Marsing, on the way to the Jordan Valley, Ed and his wife Debby run several hundred “mother cows” on 11,000 acres – much of which has been turned into grass pasture.  As sixth-generation cattle ranchers, they carry on a long tradition, with one important exception – the Wilseys have gone back to raising cattle the way Ed’s granddad did: exclusively grass fed, with no hormones or antibiotics.

Ed Wilsey remembers the day that his granddad’s way of ranching seemingly changed forever.  “We’d been raising cattle on grass since we first started ranching, but one day some buyers came out to where me and my granddaddy were shipping two and three year-old steers off to market and said, ‘boys, you don’t have to do this anymore.  We can take ‘em out to feedlots and finish ‘em on corn.’”

Twenty-five miles south of Marsing, on the way to the Jordan Valley, Ed and his wife Debby run several hundred “mother cows” on 11,000 acres – much of which has been turned into grass pasture.  As sixth-generation cattle ranchers, they carry on a long tradition, with one important exception – the Wilseys have gone back to raising cattle the way Ed’s granddad did: exclusively grass fed, with no hormones or antibiotics.

Far from being a radical, Wilsey views himself as a “traditionalist”.  After all, he represents only the second generation of ranchers in his family to have been lured away from raising grass-fed beef.  “Back in granddad’s day, they’d sell big three year-old steers straight off the grass for slaughter.  When the industry went to grain feedlots, we were pretty much forced into going along to remain competitive.  We eventually even had to switch to the kind of cows that the industry wanted – ones that did better on corn and grain.”

If you are what you eat, Ed notes, the same is true for cattle.  “You don’t just get the cow, you get what they ate – including the omega-6 fats that come with a grain fed diet.  These are the kinds of fats that are more closely linked with obesity, diabetes, cancer, and immune system disorders such as arthritis and asthma.”

Economic imperatives notwithstanding, the nutritional implications of the feedlot industry troubled the Wilseys.  As a growing number of American consumers were similarly troubled by the consequences of consuming red meat infused with hormones and antibiotics, Ed and Debby decided that the time had come to turn back the clock.

“We got started in the natural grass-fed beef business five years ago”, says Ed.  “We didn’t know much about it, but we come from a background of people who were self-sufficient in everything, and we’re trying to get back to cattle that finish good on grass – back to real beef.”

If you are what you eat, Ed notes, the same is true for cattle.  “You don’t just get the cow, you get what they ate – including the omega-6 fats that come with a grain fed diet.  These are the kinds of fats that are more closely linked with obesity, diabetes, cancer, and immune system disorders such as arthritis and asthma.”

The Wilseys were not the only ranching family who came to the same conclusion about the health consequences of factory feedlots.  During the summer of 2009, they were joined by other grass-fed beef operations, including Bill and Carol Gate’s Mesquite Cattle Company in Middleton, Idaho, Keith and Sharon Huettig’s K-Bar-H Ranch in Jerome, and Mike and Joanie Fluit of Fluit Family Farms in Joseph, Oregon to form Homestead Natural Foods.  Also joining the group was organic poultry farmer Dennis Mason of New Generation Ranch.  Their collective efforts currently serve a number of highly regarded Treasure Valley restaurants that include the Red Feather Lounge, Bittercreek Alehouse, Café d’Paris, and the Cottonwood Grille.

“People appreciate that wild salmon raised on a natural diet taste better than farm salmon, which is raised on a diet of soybeans and corn, but it’s better for you as well,” says Bill Gale.  “It’s the same difference between grass-fed and CAFO beef, which are raised on the feed equivalent of soft drinks and candy bars.  If they weren’t slaughtered when they were, they’d probably die of a heart attack within a few months.”

Today, only one percent of cattle are raised organically – the other 99 percent start off on open ranges, but are transferred to “concentrated animal feeding operations” (CAFOs) to be fattened up as quickly as possible.  Because of the crowded conditions of feedlots, CAFOs typically add antibiotics to their feeds to prevent the spread of infection, and they also add growth hormones.

“People appreciate that wild salmon raised on a natural diet taste better than farm salmon, which is raised on a diet of soybeans and corn, but it’s better for you as well,” says Bill Gale.  “It’s the same difference between grass-fed and CAFO beef, which are raised on the feed equivalent of soft drinks and candy bars.  If they weren’t slaughtered when they were, they’d probably die of a heart attack within a few months.”

By contrast, Homestead Natural Food’s “beeves” are free of the antibiotics, hormones, and herbicide or pesticide residues associated with grain.  What they have is a higher concentration of omega-3 fats, more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA is credited with cancer fighting properties), more beta-carotene, more vitamin E, and less total fat and calories than conventional beef.  Grass-fed beef, like wild salmon, also tastes better than its factory farm alternative.  “Our steers look like they came right off the feed lot, with good marbling in the fat,” Ed points out, “but the fat tastes more like a fine olive oil, and the meat has an excellent flavor and tenderness.”

Ultimately, the not-so-free lunch of corporate farming practices rests on heavily subsidized corn – a fact that rankles organic farming advocates in a political climate that constantly lauds the virtues of the “free market”.  In the past decade, the Federal Government has pumped more than $50 billion into the corn industry to keep prices artificially low.

American agriculture has produced unlimited quantities of meat and grains at incredibly cheap prices.  Today, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), we spend less than 10 percent of our incomes on food, compared with 18 percent in 1966.  But the hidden costs of this miracle of productivity are paid for by our environment, the animals raised…and ultimately by those of us who consume them.

In the words of a senior scientist with the Food and Environment Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists, Doug Gurian-Sherman, “the way we farm now is destructive of the soil, the environment, and us.”  Homestead’s Dennis Mason, a former government food inspector, agrees with this assessment.  “Corporate farming isn’t sustainable anymore.  It’s utilizing a tremendous amount of natural resource to produce what they’re presenting to the public, and too much of what is being produced isn’t good for us.”

Ultimately, the not-so-free lunch of corporate farming practices rests on heavily subsidized corn – a fact that rankles organic farming advocates in a political climate that constantly lauds the virtues of the “free market”.  In the past decade, the Federal Government has pumped more than $50 billion into the corn industry to keep prices artificially low.  Notes Gurian-Sherman, “taxpayer subsidies basically underwrite cheap grain, and that’s what the factory farming system for meat is entirely dependent on.”

Homestead Natural Food’s approach to a more sustainable and healthy food supply is to begin with the soil itself.  “We’re all of us grass farmers first, and beef is the by-product,” says Ed Wilsey.  “My granddad always said, “take care of the land and it will take care of you.  We’ve cut our soil erosion down to practically nothing – the cows don’t take anything out that they don’t put back in.”

To raise livestock that thrive on natural pasture, the farmers of Homestead Natural Foods are also going back to genetic stocks in cattle and poultry that are to livestock as “heirloom seeds” are to organic produce.

Bill Gale, who got out of dairy farming just before consolidation and other market forces made small operations like his all but impossible, agrees wholeheartedly with Ed.  “We want to build our soil through natural manure and worm action.  Healthier soil means healthier plants, which means healthier animals…and healthier food.  I can take care of a huge number of acres without the need for fossil fuels.  It’s a very green approach that can be sustained for a very long time.”

To raise livestock that thrive on natural pasture, the farmers of Homestead Natural Foods are also going back to genetic stocks in cattle and poultry that are to livestock as “heirloom seeds” are to organic produce.  “Cattle have been bred to accomplish a particular mission,” says Gale.  “That mission is to consume large amounts of grain for four to six months to hit a marketing window and make a profit.  We’re going back to genetics that produce cattle that will fatten at an earlier age on grass.”

Like his cattle ranching counterparts, Dennis Mason has also been going back to older genetic stocks.  “I use modern genetics to raise heritage poultry breeds that don’t need hormones or tons of commercial feed.  They are pre-disposed to growth, flavor, and tenderness on natural pasture.”

For the Homestead ranchers, getting closer to consumers has been an unexpected benefit of their enterprise.  “When I was in the dairy business, the closest I got to the people who consumed our products was the tanker truck,” says Bill Gale.  “We are networking now with people in the organic and sustainability movements and getting more input from consumers…and we’re having fun.  We feel more connected.”

While beef and poultry from Homestead Natural Foods costs more than factory farm products, Homestead’s founders believe that consumers will be willing, in the words of noted food author Michael Pollan, to “eat less, but eat better”.  Treasure Valley restaurateurs like Dave Krick of the Red Feather Lounge and Bittercreek Alehouse have been buying from Homestead not only because of their commitment to local organic food producers, but because they believe the superior flavor of Homestead’s products are preferred by their customers.

For the Homestead ranchers, getting closer to consumers has been an unexpected benefit of their enterprise.  “When I was in the dairy business, the closest I got to the people who consumed our products was the tanker truck,” says Bill Gale.  “We are networking now with people in the organic and sustainability movements and getting more input from consumers…and we’re having fun.  We feel more connected.”

Looking ahead, Homestead Natural Foods hopes to bring other organic and natural pasture ranchers into their fold, and to expand their reach beyond Southwest Idaho, while maintaining a network of producers who remain within a short radius of the communities they serve.  Most of all, however, Homestead wants to extend its control over its products from pasture to plate – a goal that is especially dear to the heart of Dennis Mason.

“Ultimately, the way we can ensure the highest quality for the consumer, both from the standpoints of healthiness and flavor, is to control the process from the time an animal is born through the growth stage, to the processing and final presentation to the consumer,” says Mason.  “When I first began my research into organic foods, I realized this isn’t ‘natural’, this is the way I grew up!”  And Mason speaks for the rest of his Homestead colleagues when he adds, “we want to leave a legacy to our kids and grandkids.  We don’t want to relinquish what we have for subdivisions – we want to keep our properties intact and produce food that the public doesn’t just want, but needs.”

Hawaiian cuisine was “fusion” before fusion was hip.  Michael Mohica, the owner of Ono’s Hawaiian Café and Kanak Attack Catering, learned that truth a long, long time ago from his grandmother.

I spent a part of my youth in San Jose, and during those years my favorite neighbors were the Ragasas, a family of Filipino origins who came to California from Hawaii.  It was “Uncle Al” and “Auntie Liz” who first introduced me to the cuisine of their laid back, hang loose, multicultural island heritage.  At their annual backyard luaus, which included a whole pig slow-cooked in a covered pit, I learned a truth that I’ve only now been able to express: Hawaiian cuisine was “fusion” before fusion was hip.  Michael Mohica, the owner of Ono’s Hawaiian Café and Kanak Attack Catering, learned that truth a long, long time ago from his grandmother.

Michael came to Boise from Oahu in fall 1998 at the tail end of a cross-country trip to check out the strange ways of the mainland, and to find a culinary school to his liking.  It just so happened that his brother worked at Micron, and as if the fates had planned his itinerary, he had the good fortune of seeing Boise in all its fall splendor.  Goodbye Waikiki, hello City of Trees.  It also didn’t hurt that Michael was impressed with Boise State’s Culinary Arts program.

After graduation, Michael set about his mission of bringing the wonders of Island Fare to the benighted “haoles” (Hawaiian slang for us mainland “crackers”) of Idaho.  In 2001 he started his catering enterprise, Kanak Attack (another slang term meaning “eating so much that you want to take a nap” – think Thanksgiving and you get the idea), and it wasn’t too many special event gigs before throngs of believers were lined up at his catering rig and asking him where his restaurant was located…and expressing disappointment over his answer that they were standing in front of it.

All that changed seven years later when Michael opened Ono’s Hawaiian Café on Broadway, in what had previously been Berryhill’s (we used to joke about Berryhill’s being located in Rubber Alley – behind a Firestone tire dealer and a condom shop – get it?  Man, I love that pun!).

Michael firmly believes that Hawaiian food goes beyond an eclectic mash up of culinary cultures.  It’s a genre.  “I’m drawing on a tradition of what we call ‘plate lunches’ in Hawaii – a mix of different ethnic foods that includes Asian, Spanish, Filipino, Japanese, and Korean, as well as Polynesian.

While you might expect most chefs to tell you that they were born to cook, Michael is the only one I’ve talked to in years who has actually said just that.  “I was raised in a kitchen cooking with my grandmother, who taught me everything I know about cooking.”  And what he learned, he brings to Ono’s.  “It’s the things I remember seeing, the flavors I remember, the things I grew up with.  It’s in my heart, in everything I do.”

Michael firmly believes that Hawaiian food goes beyond an eclectic mash up of culinary cultures.  It’s a genre.  “I’m drawing on a tradition of what we call ‘plate lunches’ in Hawaii – a mix of different ethnic foods that includes Asian, Spanish, Filipino, Japanese, and Korean, as well as Polynesian.”  That mix shows up in a number of Ono’s signature dishes.

Let’s start with Michael’s teriyaki steak (courtesy of our very own Snake River Farms), sliced thin and marinated in teriyaki (duh!), quickly grilled and served with coconut infused rice and macaroni salad (a traditional side dish in Hawaii).  Or how about Ono’s chicken katsu, a Hawaiian fusion take on a traditional Japanese dish of breaded chicken breast, deep fried and served with a fruit-based tonkatsu sauce.  And then there’s the kimchee shrimp: Hawaiian shrimp sautéed in Korean pickled cabbage.  Some like it hot.

And all this doesn’t even get into the presentation factor around Michael Mohica’s dishes.  Those aren’t tears of joy, brah.  That’s your eyeballs salivating!

Along with the star of the show, Kalua Pig, is a supporting cast of other traditional luau favorites: homemade sweet rolls, Filipino lumpia, kalbi (a sweet, spicy Korean fried chicken), seafood dishes with bold Korean sauces, beefsteak steamed in taro leaf, a house salad and tropical fruit salad.  Did I mention dessert?

If you really want to pick up on what Ono’s is putting down, island style, you need to show up on a Friday for a buffet lunch or dinner.  It’s the closest you’ll get to a luau, short of Uncle Al’s place in East San Jo, homs.  In fact, for Michael Mohica, it’s the next best thing to having you over to his backyard.  No surprise here, but the centerpiece is Ono’s kalua pig.  Close your eyes and listen to the gentle sounds of the surf in the background as Michael whispers in your ear, “it’s just as you would find it in someone’s backyard, cooked for 12 to18 hours, seasoned only with salt and pepper.  It’s the smokiness and steam that keeps it moist and flavorful; it falls off the bone.”  Michael, you had me at “slow cooked”.

Along with the star of the show is a supporting cast of other traditional luau favorites: homemade sweet rolls, Filipino lumpia, kalbi (a sweet, spicy Korean fried chicken), seafood dishes with bold Korean sauces, beefsteak steamed in taro leaf, a house salad and tropical fruit salad.  Did I mention dessert?  There’s halpia, a Hawaiian coconut pudding, and pineapple upside down cake, to mention just two (check out the display case at the counter as you walk into the restaurant).

On Friday nights, throw in Hawaiian dancing and the incomparable ukulele stylings of “Uncle Herbs”, and you get a bit of the island ambiance that Michael wants to deliver along with the food.  “I want to create a destination for people who have been to Hawaii and remember how great the flavors are,” says Michael.

In the Hollywood version of the Ono’s Hawaiian Cafe story, Michael Mohica brings his grandmother to Boise to join him once again in the kitchen.  His kitchen.  Reality, however, is less sentimental.  Michael’s grandmother passed away last year; but not before she’d seen photographs of her grandson’s dream come true.  I know she must have been proud.  Sadly, Uncle Al passed away last year as well, but I’m equally certain that if he’d ever made it to Boise, he’d have felt right at home in Michael Mohica’s backyard.

Ono Hawaiian Cafe is located at 2170 Broadway Ave., Boise.  Restaurant hours are Monday – Thursday, 11 am to 9 pm, and Fridays and Saturdays from 11 am to 10 pm.  You can contact Ono’s at 208-429-6800, or learn more about its menu and catering services by visiting www.onocafe.net

“Traditional French food isn’t flambé, fancy reductions, or rich sauces – it’s really about simplicity and bringing out the maximum flavor of food with minimum waste.”

A man whose last name, translated into English, means “cabbage” can probably be counted on to know something about food. And after seven years of treating the City of Trees to an appreciation of French cuisine gleaned from four generations of restaurateurs from the Burgundy region of France, it’s safe to say that Mathieu Choux (pronounced “shoe”), owner of Le Café de Paris, has lived up to not only his food-related name, but his family legacy as well.

Mathieu’s culinary mission since opening Le Café de Paris in 2002 can best be described as challenging his customers’ perceptions of French cuisine. “Traditional French food isn’t flambé, fancy reductions, or rich sauces – it’s really about simplicity and bringing out the maximum flavor of food with minimum waste.”

Based on this approach, Le Café de Paris follows the model of a French bistro rather than the more “hoity-toity” stereotype that Americans often have of a classic French restaurant. As Mathieu explains, “What I’m trying to do is casual French food. What I do at Café de Paris is mix three things to fit in the same place – a bakery, bar, and a restaurant. We try to do a nice presentation with our food, but it’s not overdone. Good food doesn’t have to be all fancied up.”

Spend a day at Le Café de Paris and you’ll understand what Mathieu means. We could start with a simple breakfast of espresso and a butter sugar crepe (served with fresh fruit and lemon) with a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice. For lunch we might indulge in a croque-monsieur, a sandwich consisting of ham, swiss cheese, and béchamel sauce on fresh-baked country bread. Or we could show a bit more restraint and have a Salade Nicoise: seared tuna with hard-boiled duck egg, avocado, and kalamata olives with a golden balsamic vinaigrette.

As for its legendary pastries and baked goods, let’s just save that for another Behind the Menu installment, shall we? I’ll simply leave you with three words: tarte aux pommes.

You’d be thankful for any restraint you mustered during lunch when you arrive back for dinner. I might suggest starting off with a hors-d’oeuvre of proscuitto-wrapped shrimp with a spinach salad, followed by creamy tomato basil soup (although it’s hard to pass on the classic French onion). I’d throw caution to the wind with my entrée and order the confit d’canard, a pan-fried duck leg with sautéed fingerling potatoes and pan-seared apples – then I’d linger over whatever wine selection Mathieu had suggested with my meal and one of a number of cheeses on the menu.

As for its legendary pastries and baked goods, let’s just save that for another Behind the Menu installment, shall we? I’ll simply leave you with three words: tarte aux pommes. Sure, you might know it as “apple pie”, but like everything else on the menu at Les Café de Paris, come prepared to redefine your perceptions about great food.

Café de Paris is located at 204 N. Capitol Blvd. in downtown Boise. For table reservations, call (208) 336-0889. You can drool over the breakfast, lunch, dinner, and weekend brunch menus by visiting www.lecafedeparis.com

While Bar Gernika’s succession may have seemed like a slam-dunk, the challenge facing Jeff and wife Stephanie was whether or not to look at new ownership as an opportunity to rethink Bar Gernika, or maintain the status quo.  Continuity carried the day.

It’s said that the only constant is change, but Jeff and Stephanie May are having none of it.  Nor should they.  On January 1, 2008, they became the owners of a restaurant that is equal parts pub, cultural icon, and historical landmark: Bar Gernika.  As its owners, Jeff and Stephanie have become the keepers of a flame that was kindled back in 1991, when Bar Gernika’s previous owner, Dan Ansotegui, first opened the restaurant in what would eventually become Boise’s Basque Block.

Jeff and Stephanie are no strangers to the restaurant business.  Stephanie earned her stripes at Boise’s venerable Stagecoach Inn, while Jeff boasts a slightly more illicit beginning: he lied about his age when he was 14 to get a job washing dishes at the Brick Oven Bistro (then known as the Beanery).  As a high school student he went to work for Lucky 13 in Hyde Park, where he spent the next 10 years.

“I found restaurant work challenging – each day is different,” Jeff recalls.  “But what fascinated me the most was the process of creating new food combinations.”  Case in point: Jeff’s nickname in high school was Manfred, and to this day you’ll find “The Manfred” pizza on the menu at Lucky 13.  Now, that’s a legacy.

The origins of Bar Gernika go back far longer than its status as a landmark of Boise’s Basque community.  Dan Ansoteguis’ choice for a restaurant location originally began its life as a Chinese laundry in what was then Boise’s Chinatown.

When one of Dan Ansotegui’s staff left Bar Gernika to go to culinary school, Jeff came to work for him, starting as a prep cook and then advancing up the chain of command.  Along the way, he learned Basque recipes from Dan, who had learned them from his mom, who had learned them from hers…going back through generations of Ansoteguis.

The origins of Bar Gernika go back far longer than its status as a landmark of Boise’s Basque community.  Dan Ansoteguis’ choice for a restaurant location originally began its life as a Chinese laundry in what was then Boise’s Chinatown.  A fire later swept through the area, and the town’s Chinese population relocated to an area subsequently known as “Chinese Gardens” – Chinden.  (A note to our city historians: please feel free to elaborate on this recounting for the benefit of Behind the Menu followers).

The next wave of immigrants who came to the neighborhood were the Basque, and the former Chinese laundry became a bar (The Cub) in 1948, which it remained until Dan purchased the building in 1991.  A bit of spit polish and elbow grease and The Cub was transformed into Bar Gernika.

When Dan opened his Basque Market, Jeff was ready to assume more responsibility.  And when Dan decided to retire, Jeff approached him about buying the restaurant.  While Bar Gernika’s succession may have seemed like a slam-dunk, the challenge facing Jeff and wife Stephanie was whether or not to look at new ownership as an opportunity to rethink Bar Gernika, or maintain the status quo.  Continuity carried the day.  “We like this food, and we eat it all the time,” says Jeff.  “These were the recipes from Dan’s mom, and we wanted to keep them alive.  In the end, we took a few things off the menu and changed up some of the beers, but the reason we wanted to buy Bar Gernika to begin with was to make sure that it stayed the same.  If someone came back here after being away for 10 years, our goal was that they wouldn’t notice a difference from the last time they’d eaten there,” says Jeff.

It’s no surprise that Basque dishes define the Bar Gernika experience.  Aside from croquetas, Jeff suggests starting off with any of the pub’s tortillas.

So just what is it that keeps the Bar Gernika faithful coming back for more? Perhaps the best place to start is with those deep fried, doughy balls of goodness known as croquetas, which the Bar Gernika website modestly describes as “a wonderful combination of butter, onion, chicken, flour and milk…coated with bread crumbs and fried.”  Bar Gernika fans simply describe them as “addictive”.

Jeff May in his element

It’s no surprise that Basque dishes define the Bar Gernika experience.  Aside from croquetas, Jeff suggests starting off with any of the pub’s tortillas.  Not to be confused with the corn or flour flatbreads of Mexico, the Spanish version more closely resembles a frittata of eggs, potato, and onion, with variations on the theme that include chorizo, mushrooms, pimentos, and cheese.

“A classic Bar Gernika entrée is our Spicy Lamb Grinder,” says Jeff.  “It’s our lamb dip with grilled onions, peppers, mushrooms, jalapenos, and pepper jack cheese. Another popular sandwich is the solomo, which is pork tenderloin in a pepper sauce marinade with a little salt and garlic, fried up and served with pimentos on a French roll.  It’s very simple, very traditional.”  Bar Gernika’s menu of Basque fare also includes paella, lamb kabobs, and lamb stew.

A hint to the uninitiated: for your first Bar Gernika experience, Jeff suggests sitting down to a plate of croquetas, the Spicy Lamb Grinder, and a Red Seal beer.  Have a seat and the bar and talk with Dan or one of the Bar Gernika cooks about what they’re up to, or if the weather allows, sit outside and soak in the vibe of Idaho’s beloved ethnic community, and the little pub that has come to define its flavor.  Either way, you’re in for a big side of local history with your meal.

As God is my witness, I hadn’t known that particular bit of culinary trivia until less than ten minutes earlier, after wrapping up a Behind the Menu interview with Stephanie Telesco and Jeff Nee, the Brick Oven’s owners.  During the interview I learned that Brennans was the source of Steph and Jeff’s bread pudding recipe, to which they’ve added their own little tweaks.

“It’s nice to have a culinary heritage; you’re helping to preserve a tradition of food that people are comforted by.”

If you think that trading on the best recipes of renowned restaurants is culinary plagiarism, Stephanie Telesco beg to differ.  From her and Jeff’s perspective, when it comes to good food, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  But it actually goes deeper than that…and closer to the heart of what the Brick Oven Bistro is all about.  As Stephanie puts it, “It’s nice to have a culinary heritage; you’re helping to preserve a tradition of food that people are comforted by.”

It’s hard to believe, but 2009 marks the 25th year that the Brick Oven Bistro has upheld its comfort food traditions.  For its efforts, Boiseans have taken the restaurant into their hearts…as well as their tummies.  At its creation, the Brick Oven Bistro concept was simply to, in Jeff’s words, “take advantage of the fast food generation in terms of convenience and consistency, but with more eatable food.”  To this day, a hallmark of the Brick Oven has been its insistence on preparing its dishes “from scratch”.  Says Jeff, “we probably have the smallest freezers of any restaurant in Boise.”

Exhibit “A” in the Brick Oven’s case for “slow food served quickly” is its turkey dinner, a classic comfort food ensemble of turkey breast with hand mashed potatoes, sage nut dressing, country corn gravy, baby carrots, salad, and fresh baked bread (hungry yet?).  The Brick Oven’s way of cooking its turkey caught the attention of Foster Farms, who contracted with Jeff and Steph to provide what they now market as “Brick Oven Turkey”.  With a foundation of slow cooked turkey breast, it’s just a hop, skip and a jump to a hot open-faced turkey sandwich.  And with the slight addition of sausage to the gravy, you get that sandwich’s “country” cousin.

While the core of the Brick Oven’s concept has remained the same for a quarter of a century, the number of soups, stews and desserts it offers has “expanded exponentially”.  Says Stephanie, “we moved away from the simplicity of our earlier menu by taking on greater culinary challenges”.

It was, in fact, its turkey breast that led to another Brick Oven Bistro classic, and its most popular sandwich: the Brick Oven Turkey Club.  In its search for a thick, slab cut bacon, the Brick Oven contracted with a small meat packing company in Minnesota owned by Hormel – a collaboration that resulted in what today has been popularized as Applewood Smoked Bacon.  “We’ve done a lot of product development with producers,” Jeff observes.

While the core of the Brick Oven’s concept has remained the same for a quarter of a century, the number of soups, stews and desserts it offers has “expanded exponentially”.  Says Stephanie, “we moved away from the simplicity of our earlier menu by taking on greater culinary challenges”.  These challenges came naturally enough to Steph and Jeff, self-described “cookbook readers” who cook almost every night when they get home from the restaurant.  Following their culinary muse has led to menu additions such as sweet potato star anise soup.  I’ll bet mom never set a bowl of that in front of you.

I’ve come to think of the Brick Oven Bistro’s culinary mission as “new adventures in comfort food”.  Stephanie, however, thinks of it a bit differently.  “We do regional American food, which can encompass a lot of things.”  These things include a gumbo recipe (donated by another New Orleans restaurant icon, Dooky Chases’), Yankee pot roast, and, of course, the crawfish etouffe so dear to my heart.  Even the Brick Oven desserts have a culinary pedigree: the triple fudge nut brownie is based on a recipe from Denver food diva, Pat Miller.

In a restaurant market filled with “killer concepts”, the culinary mission of the Brick Oven Bistro has stayed the course for 25 years: prepare simple and wholesome meals that people once had time (if not the culinary skill or inclination) to prepare for their families…and to serve this food in an environment as unpretentious as the kitchen table.  “We used to say that we cooked food the way your mother did,” says Jeff, “but these days it probably more closely resembles your grandmother’s cooking.”  I’d have to agree — but then, I never recall my grandmother making a killer Hungarian goulash.

“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.

“The culture of food and wine is what Italy is all about, and I was in absolute shock and awe of the simplicity of Italian cuisine, and at the complexity it achieved by using the food for what it was meant to be, and not some grandiose production.  It was just really good, simple food – and I couldn’t get enough of it.”

What does great Italian food have in common with Michael Jordan?  Simple: both cause you to redefine the genre they represent.  And while I’d much rather eat good food than play basketball, I can appreciate anything that sets a new standard for how I look at what I thought I knew.

Back in the halcyon days of our youth, my wife and I spent three weeks bumming around Italy (considering how close we came to being busted for vagrancy in a campground in Milano, I’m being as literal as I am figurative when I use the expression “bumming around”).  Although I grew up in San Francisco, a city with a rich Italian heritage, my conception of the cuisine was pretty much limited to pizza and spaghetti.  A week living with an Italian family in a small mountain hamlet not far from the Austrian border, however, tore off my gastronomical blinkers.  I was reminded of that awakening the first time I set foot in Cucina di Paolo.

Paul put himself through Boise State University as the chef for The Flicks, where he worked from 1988 to 1983.  “Mary Jean was the floor show, and I was the back end guy,”

It turns out that Paul Wegner, chef and owner of Cucina diPaolo, had a similar culinary awakening when he went to northern Italy as a twenty-two year-old American serviceman.  He and his wife and restaurant co-owner, Mary Jean, continue to work through the consequences of Paul’s revelation, which is best expressed in the display cases that greet you when you walk through the door of their restaurant – if Mary Jean doesn’t grab your attention first.

Paul Wegner has been cooking since 1973, starting with his family’s restaurant, The Lantern Pizza, in southeast Idaho.  He worked his way through school as a short order cook, pantry cook, and line cook.  It was during his sojourn in Italy, however, where he was stationed about 30 km from Venice, that Paul realized that his perception of Italian cuisine as a boy from small town Idaho was a pale reflection of the genuine article.  “The culture of food and wine is what Italy is all about, and I was in absolute shock and awe of the simplicity of Italian cuisine, and at the complexity it achieved by using the food for what it was meant to be, and not some grandiose production.  It was just really good, simple food – and I couldn’t get enough of it.”

Returning to Idaho, Paul put himself through Boise State University as the chef for The Flicks, where he worked from 1988 to 1983.  “Mary Jean was the floor show, and I was the back end guy,” Paul remembers.  During this period, Paul began some serious kitchen R&D on the ultimate lasagna recipe – a Grail Search that would take him years to achieve.  Once completed, however, Paul and Mary Jean launched Cucina di Paolo as a catering business, and 17 years later, largely on the strength of the reputation their lasagna had built through downtown Boise’s Public Market, they opened their restaurant at its location on Vista, just below the iconic Maytag Washer Woman, near the intersection with Overland.

“The visual merchandising of the food is crucial to the success of our restaurant,” Paul is quick to point out.  “When people can see it, they want to engage you about it, and this adds to the experience of walking into Cucina di Paolo.”

My very first experience walking into Cucina di Paolo brought back memories of my time in Italy, and walking into little bistros and trattorias, where being able to point to something I thought looked good was a thankful alternative to trying to decipher a menu in a language I couldn’t understand – or subjecting the owners to my godawful Italian.  Staring at the displays of pasta, meat entrees, side dishes, and desserts, I found myself saying, “I don’t need no stinkin’ menu”, and instead pointed to an item and asked Paul, “So, what’s this all about.”  His answer was like culinary dial-a-porn: “This is our Chicken Fiori. It’s a local, free-range breast of chicken that we stuff with prosciutto, fresh spinach and mozzarella, roll in bread crumbs, sear then serve over fettuccini with our house ragu.”  Five minutes later I regained consciousness and ordered it.

“The visual merchandising of the food is crucial to the success of our restaurant,” Paul is quick to point out.  “When people can see it, they want to engage you about it, and this adds to the experience of walking into Cucina di Paolo.”  I often find myself struggling with how to describe the culinary mission of Cucina di Paolo whenever I recommend it to folks.  Turns out Paul has the same challenge, but being less of a “word nerd” than I, he takes a different approach: “I want people to understand my philosophy about cooking by letting them taste it.  I’ve tried to stay true to the simplicity of Italian cuisine and my relationship with it.”

“We are a market-to-table kind of business,” Paul explains.  “We work with as many local folks as we can — Hardball Farms, Meridian Meats, Black Canyon Elk Farm, and friends and affiliates at the public market.  This is true to the experience of Italy, with its open-air markets.  We are in a region that has wonderful access to fabulous foods, like Emmett for cherries, Marsing for peaches, and huckleberries from Coeur d’Alene.”

Part of the genre-busting beauty of Cucina di Paolo is, in fact, that Paul and Mary Jean borrow as much from the Pacific Northwest as they do from Northern Italy.  Mary Jean does all the baking, and credits the constant array of desserts to a “short attention span” – not necessarily a liability in a baker with a fascination for new recipe ideas.  Another important aspect of the restaurant is Cucina di Paolo’s relationship with local growers and food producers.

“We are a market-to-table kind of business,” Paul explains.  “We work with as many local folks as we can — Hardball Farms, Meridian Meats, Black Canyon Elk Farm, and friends and affiliates at the public market.  This is true to the experience of Italy, with its open-air markets.  We are in a region that has wonderful access to fabulous foods, like Emmett for cherries, Marsing for peaches, and huckleberries from Coeur d’Alene.”

For your first taste of Cucina di Paolo, Paul recommends the lasagna that he spent years perfecting, but you can’t go wrong with the Chicken Fiori.  Paul also recommends any of their soups, made from scratch, and their quiches and other comfort foods like mac and cheese and a hardy chipolte meatloaf.  Oh…and don’t forget side dishes of wild mushrooms and risotto…and of course, any of Mary Jean’s desserts.  Says Paul, “On any given week you’ll walk about with something good in your mouth, and a good feeling in your soul.”

In 2005, Paul Wegner decided to further his culinary chops and became a certified executive chef through the American Culinary Association.  “It lends credibility to my seriousness about my craft through affiliation with an association that recognizes what I do as a legitimate profession”.  All I can say, Paul, is you don’t need any credentials when your food does the talking.

Just look for the Maytag Washer Woman on Vista

Cucina di Paolo is located at 1504 Vista Avenue in Boise.  It’s open Tuesday through Saturday for lunch and dinner, but evening closing is at 7 pm, so get there early.  You can also get your meals to go, and you can call ahead at 208-345-7150.

A Behind the Menu inside tip: You can bring your own lasagna pan and get it custom filled with Paul and Mary Jean’s famous lasagna.  You can decide whether or not you fess up to its origins if you’re having company over.

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.”

The attitude that the owner of Mesa Taqueria and I have in common might understandably be looked upon as food snobbery, but it’s really more a reflection of where we come from, and not just our refined palates.  For both of us gringos, the industry standard for a great taco or burrito was set many years ago by our favorite Bay Area taquerias.  Scott’s turf was San Francisco and the East Bay.  Mine was San Jose.  More specifically, the intersection of 10^th and San Carlos – which is where you will still find Super Taqueria.

If you have any doubt about just how passionate a person can get when it comes to a great taqueria, let’s just say that to this day when one of our family or friends pays a visit to the old neighborhood, it is clearly understood that they can either bring back something from Super Taqueria or catch a cab from the Boise Airport.  Lest you think I’m exaggerating, consider the fact that Scott Blickenstaff’s gift to his business partner Scott Morrell, on the occasion of his 40^th birthday, was 40 burritos, packed in dry ice and flown from their favorite taco joint in the Mission District of San Francisco – which gives Mr. Blickenstaff and I yet another thing in common.  I spent the first formative years of my childhood in the Mission, homs.

A Boise native, Scott made his culinary hejira to the Bay Area after graduating from college with the ticket that any good restaurateur would envy: a degree in philosophy.  To help out a friend going through personal crises, Scott took over the management of several of the taquerias he owned.  For the next year and a half, Scott learned everything he could about not only running a restaurant business, but more important about cooking authentic tacos and burritos.  His teacher was a cook from one of San Francisco’s most beloved taco joints, La Taqueria on Mission and 25^th.

“La Taqueria and La Cumbre are generally written up in the San Francisco culinary scene as the ‘originals’ among taquerias.  My business partner and I always loved the food, and when we came back to Boise we always talked about creating a similar experience here,” Scott explains.  By the way, I should point out that according to Scott, La Taqueria also had a restaurant in San Jose.  I never had the honor of comparing La Taqueria with Super Taqueria, but I’ve just added that to my “bucket list” along with sampling haggis and lutefisk.  (A merger between the two could easily be branded as “La Super Taqueria” now that I think on it).

The two Scotts could probably have picked a more propitious time to open a restaurant in downtown Boise than the fall of 2007, but to paraphrase what Old Blue Eyes sings about New York, if you can make it now, you can make it anytime – and Boise’s downtown denizens have taken Mesa Taqueria to heart for the very same reason that the Scotts fell in love with their favorite taqueria in San Francisco.  “What we’re bringing to Boise is what we like to think of as an ‘archetypal taqueria’, an experience that is based on really fresh food prepared to order right in front of you in an open kitchen.  It’s simple food, with simple flavors in the right proportion.  If you get that combination just right, the result is pretty incredible.  We also wanted to capture the essential atmosphere of a great taqueria, which should be friendly, lively, and fun.”

Finding the balancing act that Mesa Taqueria sets out to deliver in its food is a subtle act of culinary alchemy.  “The problem with too many burritos is that they add too much flavor to the various components, and those components don’t always go well together,” Scott maintains.  “The other thing they do is add rice, which I suspect is a cost-cutting measure.  We’ll add rice if people really want it, but for me the pure stuff is just salsa, pinto beans, and meat.  We’ve followed the example of places like La Taqueria where you create flavor profiles in the food.  It’s a bit like eating from a plate, in that you decide on how you want to eat your dinner rather than having it all mixed up for you in a blender.  When each bite gives you a distinct profile, it’s a whole different experience.”  Another point of burrito purism for Scott is wrapping the contents in a steamed flour tortilla, which creates a very different texture than heating a tortilla on a griddle.

I’ve always thought that the greatest challenge in introducing a cuisine is to overcome expectations based on a fast food concept.  I’m not naming names, but if your definition of a taco was created as a result of eating at a place whose name started with Taco and ended with Bell, you’ve got some unlearning to do to pick up on what Mesa Taqueria is putting down.  Scott is pretty philosophical about the challenge his culinary mission faces.  “Sure, there might be some resistance to our value proposition, but we don’t want to dumb down our cuisine.  The people who do get it are fanatical.  As someone who used to ship frozen burritos from the Bay Area, I know the addictive power of a great taco or burrito, and the comment cards we’ve been getting have been over the top positive.”

For your initial Mesa Taqueria fix, Scott suggests getting a carnitas taco for what he describes as “the purest original experience and a signature dish.”  Another Mesa staple is the asada steak burrito.  A more surprising hit has been Mesa Taqueria’s chicken tortilla soup, which the restaurant makes from scratch.  “People order it for Christmas dinner and as the first course for special family meals.  We took it off the menu during our first summer because we didn’t see it as a summer dish, and there was a public outcry.”

While lunch draws Mesa Taqueria’s biggest crowd, the restaurant provides table service for dinner.  Combine the convenience of having a server save you schlepping your family’s order (not to mention the indulgence of having that ice cold cerveza placed into your eager hands), with a dinner menu that includes Pollo Poblano and Chile Verde, and you’ve got yourself another great “summer in the city” dining destination.  And by the way, if you need a lift home after that last Pacifico, there’d better be a carnitas burrito in it for this good Samaritan, unless you want to pay for a cab.

There have been only a handful of owners of the restaurant that since 1955 has served a cross section of downtown denizens ranging from sportsmen to legislators to skateboarders; but its most recent proprietors, Bob Dempsey and wife Lisa Kugel, are determined that even though their historic café has since changed its downtown address, its menu and place in the community will return to their former glory.

For Bob, a native of New Jersey whose background in construction and real estate included builds and tenant improvements for hundreds of restaurants, acquiring Moon’s Cafe represented an opportunity to be the consummate bon vivant, eagerly entertaining friends and delving into favorite recipes from the mother of all kitchens.  Lisa, whose family had been in the restaurant business for years, took a more hard-headed approach: “You have to be an idealist to be in this business,” she says, “but you also have to be stubborn enough to keep on top of it.”

Given the differences in their perspectives about the restaurant business, it should come as no surprise that when Bob approached his wife about fulfilling his long time fantasy of becoming a restaurant owner, she was less than bowled over by the idea.  Nevertheless, they began looking at available opportunities, and when Moon’s went on the market, they knew that their restaurant had found them.  “It fit our personas,” Lisa says.  “It was down-to-earth and a part of the history of this valley – and that’s what we were looking for.”

While taking over a going business avoids a lot of start up costs and attendant headaches, acquiring Moon’s was anything but a slam-dunk.  “We knew that the old location on Bannock wasn’t going to work for what we wanted to do,” says Lisa, “but moving from Moon’s 1961 location was scary.  A lot of people wanted Moon’s to stay the same, but we had to make a lot of changes to get the restaurant back to what it had once been: a place where the community could hang out and enjoy great comfort food.”

One of the first things Bob and Lisa did was to hire Derrick Meyer and his wife Tracy.  Like Bob, Derrick had also done time swinging a hammer.  But while he grew up a carpenter’s son, his first love was cooking.  That love led him to culinary school in San Francisco as well as restaurant and resort gigs in California and Lake Tahoe.  He eventually went back into construction, but when Bob and Lisa acquired Moon’s they convinced Derrick to come back to the kitchen…and to bring his wife (whom Derrick had met in a restaurant) along as general manager.

For Lisa Kugel, the lure of Moon’s Café was more than just its potential as a business opportunity.  “We looked at everything from a bar to a French restaurant, but we wanted a place that was more ‘blue collar’.  Moon’s has always been a part of the Boise tapestry, and if you grew up in this town you probably ate here at some point or another – and maybe bought your fishing supplies or ammo as well.  We just kept hearing people say ‘this is part of my childhood’, and the idea of serving so many different kinds of people really appealed to us.”

Originally, Moon’s just served breakfast to what was already a “captive audience” of hunters and fisher folk.  It was Martha Moon-Nelson, the daughter of founders Bernie and Cecelia Moon, who first installed the breakfast counter at the sporting goods store as a way of bringing in a little extra income for her and her family.  In time the café extended its hours to include lunch, and it soon became a favorite haunt of Idaho legislators, both because of its proximity to the Statehouse and the quality of its grub.

The first order of business for Bob and Lisa was to return the Moon’s menu back to its roots as a “comfort food headquarters” for breakfast and lunch – and this menu would have to be based on “home scratch cooking”.  “We go through sacks of flour in making our own pancake and biscuit batter,” says Bob.  “We roast our own meats and chop our own vegetables – hardly anything is pre-made.”

The current menu at Moon’s Café is a combination of breakfast and lunch traditions and “new stuff”.  Breakfast classics include “manhole size” pancakes, homemade buttermilk biscuits and gravy, and a wide variety of omelets – all of which redefine the term “large portions”.  Derrick Meyer takes particular pride in the quality of his hollandaise sauce, and recommends the spicy version that adorns his spicy chicken benedict (two strips of bacon, chicken breast, and a Siracha hot sauce-infused hollandaise).

And if you think you know from corned beef hash, think again.  There’s a reason Bob calls the Moon’s version a “signature dish”.  “It’s a steamy, cheesy, meaty, gooey pile of goodness – all natural and fresh.  It’s great stuff.”  Comfort food is also the order of the day on Moon’s lunch menu, which includes hot beef and hot turkey sandwiches with mashed potatoes and gravy.  Signature lunch dishes include the Colossal Rueben (imagine an extra layer of turkey breast) and a Mile High Club that Bob describes as “three sandwiches in one”.  And of course, there is the Moon Burger and the “world famous milkshakes” from Derrick’s boyhood.  Lisa wants to make sure that Moon’s does right by its vegetarian customers as well.  “We’re looking into more vegan dishes and we have a vegetarian menu that we’ll be introducing soon.”

As important as its menu is to Moon’s relationship with its hometown, Lisa wants this relationship to go beyond filling the tummies of workers, families, state senators, and local street bohemians.  “I want to redefine our relationship with Boise.  We felt that some of the spirit of Moon’s had been lost over the years, and we wanted to bring that spirit back,” says Lisa.  “But we knew that in 2009 it wouldn’t be based on guns and fishing tackle, so we are reaching out to musicians, songwriters and other artists to make local arts our community focal point.  I lean toward people who may not have an opportunity to show their work in other venues.”

On the day of my interview with Bob and Lisa, Moon’s culinary mission had just received an endorsement more meaningful than any four star review: the blessing of Martha Moon, who had just stopped by to take stock of the latest incarnation of the restaurant that still bears her name.  Lisa was pleased to report, “She was really happy to see that we had taken over the place and were doing what we were with the menu, which was back to what she had originally done.”

In the course of their conversation with Martha, she rectified a long-held myth concerning the origin of the café’s counter.  An earlier story was that it came from Woolworth’s, but Martha explained that it was actually from a grocery store that had gone out of the business.  The counter had originally been several check cashing stands that Martha had put together to create one long counter.  For Lisa, restoring the origins of her restaurant counter seems like an apt metaphor for her and her husband’s larger mission: restoring a local culinary icon to its rightful place in the hearts and tummies of the City of Trees.

Restaurants have been started for far worse reasons than friendship — and I suspect the restaurant biz has ended more than one.  In the case of Kris and Sherri, who had known each other since they were 17, opening a restaurant of their own seemed a natural enough evolution of a friendship that started in a restaurant, back when they worked as servers at a place owned by Sheri’s family.  From that time on, their friendship led them into a variety of entrepreneurial schemes – one of which was owning a drive-thru coffee shop, which they ran for eight years and expanded into an espresso machine sales and repair venture on the side.

Demanding though it was, the coffee kiosk was successful.  It did, however, have a singular disadvantage: if friends wanted to visit, they had to circle the shop in their cars.  The solution, of course, was to open a restaurant.  So when Cookies Famous Potato House on Sunnyslope Road in Caldwell went up for sale, Kris and Sherri did the only logical thing for two people who were used to “jumping in and committing, and then figuring it out”: they bought it.

The Orchard House — whose checkered past as an edifice includes ‘60s apartments (I’m seeing shag carpet and “harvest gold” appliances”, a winery, a boat shop, and a Mexican bar — opened on June 4, 2008.  While many restaurants start with a culinary concept and work forward through menu, ingredients, and décor considerations, Sherri and Kris essentially reverse engineered the process.  In a sense, the restaurant’s location has defined its culinary mission.

In a bucolic setting of rolling vineyards just above the Snake River, The Orchard House’s Sunnyslope Road location is nestled amidst wineries and orchards in what is arguably southwest Idaho’s less shi-shi version of the California Napa Valley.  Sherri and Kris began developing their culinary chops with what they defined as “a basic all-American menu” and a refusal to simply go through the motions.  “Our onion rings have been a huge deal, but we use real onions, and we fry them in rice oil, which is more expensive but has zero trans-fat.”  They take the same approach with another diner classic, finger steaks, which starts with hand-cut flat iron steak that is certified Angus beef from local supplier Tri-Cities.

In fact, it is an almost fastidious refusal to accept conventional wisdom about what constitutes a well-known menu item that characterizes The Orchard House approach.  Before Kris and Sherri added eggs benedict to their breakfast line up, they ate at a lot of other restaurants and researched the Internet.  Then they challenged their young kitchen staff to keep tweaking the ingredients and preparation until they’d achieved what their taste buds remembered as being the best of the best.  “We’re even picky about our coffee, since we used to be in that business.  We went to a very old coffee roaster in Portland, K&F, and settled on their Asante blend.  We don’t serve Folger’s.”

Another hallmark of The Orchard House menu is its focus on local produce.  With plenty of vineyards and orchards nearby, it didn’t take long for local wineries to suggest pairing wines and foods that could be highlighted in wine dinner events.  “Wineries would suggest foods that went well with their wines, and we would do research on recipes that would feature those foods.”  In following the logic of these local connections, The Orchard House culinary mission emerged as “fresh, local, seasonally inspired cuisine”.

Today, The Orchard House leads an almost double life.  By weekday, it’s a cozy little diner where friends and neighbors meet for meals that are comfortingly familiar, but entirely local and uncompromising in their preparation.  On Friday and Saturday nights, however, it is an aspiring Idaho wine country dinner destination with a menu that includes prime rib, honey glazed salmon, and chicken piccata.  And beginning this month, the restaurant will inaugurate the first of its wine dinner series.

While Kris and Sherri might blush at so lofty a mission, the unstated goal of The Orchard House is to be the culinary embodiment of what Sunnyslope is all about.  “We want people to come here and see how beautiful it is.  We have an acre of land, and you can sit and enjoy the scenery, have breakfast on the patio in the morning and a prime rib dinner in the evening.  Most people who come here aren’t in a hurry to go anywhere, so the atmosphere is very relaxing.”

Sure, it may seem like a long drive from Boise to Sunnyslope, but there is an enchantment about this part of the Snake River plain that makes it a great little getaway.  And at the end of that drive is a great little place to hang out, eat an honest meal, jawbone with wine and fruit growers, and just relax.  And just think, one of these days you’ll be able to say, “The Orchard House?  Sure, I knew it back when it was just a local secret.”

I encourage you to read Brad’s story, since it will save me the effort of having to rehash the history of Bueno Cheapo Vino…and we can cut right to the chase of what the store is all about in this blog.

Suffice it to say, by way of prologue, that when one door closes, another opens.  In the case of Pat Brubaker, the closing door was his gig as Director of Operations at local ad agency Oliver Russell.  The door that opened was his and Heidi’s dream of having a wine shop with a concept similar to one they frequented in the San Francisco Bay Area, where they met and married.

While the name of Pat and Heidi’s shop leaves little doubt as to its “value proposition”, don’t make the mistake of dismissing Bueno Cheapo Vino as a “discount” wine store.  Pat and Heidi’s mission, and the business model on which it rests, is much more than that.  It’s about giving an American market enthralled with the elitist trappings of viticulture a more accessible, everyman experience of the pleasures of good wine.  Small wonder that the shop’s website tagline is “the people’s wine”.

So let’s take a look at the Bueno Cheapo Vino concept by breaking the name down to its component parts.

The Bueno

The operative word in the store’s name speaks to the selection of wines it stocks, which Pat and Heidi carefully select from a number of different distributors, both large and small.  What they look for is lesser-known gems from domestic and foreign vineyards, along with better-known vintages from less familiar sources.  Alongside the cabs and chards, you’ll find red wines from the Basque Country, crisply acidic chenin blancs from South Africa, and those most under appreciated of varietals (in Pat’s opinion), roses.

But “bueno” also applies to the kind of experience that Heidi and Pat are trying to create for their customers.  “We want to strip away the sense of luxuriousness that is wrapped around wine, and have people see it as the Europeans do – more of a commodity beverage than a luxury item,” says Pat.  “We want people to feel comfortable asking us questions about wine without feeling ‘dumb’.”  Essential to creating this experience is limiting the selection – not only to avoid “overwhelming” people with choice, but in order for Pat and Heidi to be able to speak to every wine on their floor from their own personal experience with it.  “If you can tell me a wine that you remember having liked,” says Pat, “I can probably identify one that we have with a similar flavor profile.  But we can tell you about all of them.”

The Cheapo

Another obvious attribute of the Bueno Cheapo Vino brand is price.  “If you are going to have a unique selection of wines, you want people to feel that they can step outside their comfort zone without spending too much,” Pat observes.  Pat and Heidi’s goal at the outset was to keep all their selections below $12 a bottle, with most of the wines falling between $6 and $12.  Pat notes that Bueno Cheapo Vino doesn’t draw a hard and fast line on price, since the objective is as much about value as it is about cost.  “We just didn’t think that in this market there was a place to get good to great quality wine at the prices we offer.”  As of this writing, the most expensive wine on the premises was $19.

The Vino

“OK,” you are probably asking, “I like the concept – but how do Pat and Heidi pull it off?”  Darn glad you asked.  The answer, in a nutshell, is that it’s all about timing.  Pat and Heidi work out deals with a variety of distributors who are clearing out their inventory.  In some cases, this may be due to a wine portfolio changing over from one distributor to another, or simply as a result of the old auto lot gambit of “clearing out last year’s models to make way for this year’s.”  You get the idea.  The distributors tip Pat and Heidi off on where the deals are, Pat and Heidi sample the ones they are most interested in, and those that pass their discriminating palettes wind up on the floor of Bueno Cheapo Vino – and hopefully in your glass.

This arrangement points to another aspect of the Bueno Cheapo Vino experience: an ever-changing inventory.  According to Pat, “about 30 percent of our inventory will stay around on a regular basis, while the rest will rotate.  One of our business goals was to always have something new for people to see, talk about, and experience.”

Is it just me, or are you feeling a bit thirsty right about now?

For John Berryhill, founder of Berryhill & Co., what started out as a passion for food has, over the years, become a passion for relationships – and for the role great food plays in their sustainance.

People open restaurants for a lot of reasons. They like to cook. They enjoy the “buzz” of putting on a show. They take satisfaction in creating a memorable evening for their guests. They love the creative license and challenge of coming up with new tastes, textures, and food combinations. And while some measure of financial success is imperative if the show is to go on, the best restaurants, like the best art, are always a labor of love. Just as form follows function, so we’re told, success follows passion.

For John Berryhill, founder of Berryhill & Co., what started out as a passion for food has, over the years, become a passion for relationships – and for the role great food plays in their sustainance.

John Berryhill began his culinary career in his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas, when in his early twenties he apprenticed as a baker with local chef, Andre Simone. Under Simone’s tutelage, John recalls, “I learned to pay attention to detail, simplicity, and consistency. He had a huge, huge heart, but he had a mouth to match – and he made sure you knew the right way to do things. I use those lessons today in my business: simplicity and consistency…especially in the kitchen.”

John came out to Los Angeles, where he continued his career as a pastry chef, but also managed to get some time on the “hot side” and front end of the restaurant business. He eventually wound up in Sun Valley, and following his marriage to a local gal, John and his wife opened up a catering business in the City of Trees in 1995. Three years and three kitchen expansions later, John opened his first restaurant as a “tasting room” – an extension of his kitchen in the 8th Street Marketplace.

“We had four or five tables for folks to try whatever we were currently making for our catering gigs,” says John. “More than anything, our 8th Street Marketplace cafe served as a ‘culinary billboard’ to promote our catering company.” Success, however, has a way of changing ones business model, and the popularity of what became known as the Berryhill & Co. Café and Wine Bar convinced John that he needed a bigger venue for his culinary act – and after several years of operation at a Broadway location, Berryhill & Co. moved into it’s current home on 9th Street.

Known for his exceptional culinary combinations and impeccable style, John’s work has been written up in several national publications, including the Wall Street Journal and America West Magazine.

In the intervening years between the launch of his catering business and eventual restaurant expansions, John became one of the most sought after and entertaining chefs in the Northwest. Known for his exceptional culinary combinations and impeccable style, his work has been written up in several national publications, including the Wall Street Journal and America West Magazine. His constant high energy is displayed as well in his cooking classes, as well as in public appearances and televised chef segments.

As befits the showcase and playground for John’s culinary muse, Berryhill & Co. has a simple elegance that serves as an unpretentious backdrop for an exquisite menu. “We’re considered fine dining – but I want us to feel casual. We’re in an upscale setting – but we want to be comfortable. I like seeing someone in a tux on their way to the opera sitting next to a table with a guy in shorts and tube socks,” John wryly observes.

True to Berryhill’s culinary convictions, most meals feature meats and produce that is local and organic. Even the catch of the day is shipped fresh, as are the free-range chickens and locally raised elk and buffalo. Every recipe is carefully designed to showcase and extract the full potential of the foods that comprise it. The menu touts hors d-oeuvres such as Sizzled Shrimp and Pear Gorgonzola Pizza, while entrées like Organic New York Steak, Grilled Rack of Lamb, Mediterranean Three Olive Chicken and the Baked Macaroni and Cheese are in constant demand. Complimenting each dish is a finely tuned, extensive, and well cultured wine list that emphasizes value as well as taste.

The heart of the Berryhill & Co. experience, however, goes beyond the vision of its owner and the skills of his kitchen staff. In many ways, John Berryhill didn’t just open up restaurants – his restaurants opened him up.

“Simplicity and consistency remain the key ingredients at Berryhill,” says John. “A customer can expect the same great taste and presentation of their soup and salad, and yet not feel slighted sitting across from their partner’s kobe beef steak.” Guests should always leave room for dessert though, which is prepared by the restaurant’s pastry chef under the critical eye of an owner whose culinary career began with a baking apprenticeship. Some of the temptations include the Chili and Chocolate Ganache Soufflé, the Dark Chocolate Almond Mousse Torte, the Wild Berry Cobbler, and the House Special Cheesecake.

The heart of the Berryhill & Co. experience, however, goes beyond the vision of its owner and the skills of his kitchen staff. In many ways, John Berryhill didn’t just open up restaurants – his restaurants opened him up.

“I didn’t really begin to mature as a chef until I became a restaurant owner and realized that it’s not just about me or the food – it’s about relationships. It starts with your relationship with your staff and extends not only to your customers but also to your vendors…and even to your competitors. But the most important relationships are the ones that are taking place among your customers. If people are going to have a successful experience at your restaurant, that experience has to be happening at the table. This is what I feel is important to our customers…that they can come in here and have their own experience, not just the ‘John Berryhill experience’.”

Nearly fifteen years have passed since John Berryhill set up his first catering kitchen, and the changes that have taken place in Boise’s restaurant scene have not gone unnoticed by John. “I’m baffled sometimes why I’m still here. I’ve had friends who were phenomenal chefs who have left this market, but I think it all goes back to the relationships you build. If someone decides they want to open a restaurant and simply do whatever they want to do, they’ll end up wondering why it didn’t succeed.”

For those of us who have dined at Berryhill & Co., “baffled” is probably the last word we’d use to describe our feelings toward Berryhill & Co. The word that springs more quickly to mind is “grateful”.