Moroccan Couscous

Testing recipes at home rather than the kitchen at Mother’s Bistro has its advantages. Though a professional kitchen is outfitted with anything and everything you would need, sometimes those niceties have to be sacrificed for a little peace and quiet. It’s difficult to focus on precise measurements and keen observations while organized chaos is surrounding you!  Plus, my readers will be cooking out of their home kitchens so I feel I should do the same.

Pictured is my Moroccan Couscous dish which features a braise of lamb, chicken, root vegetables and chickpeas. You’ll be able to find this in my upcoming book which I am feverishly trying to finish!

There is never a typical day at one of my restaurants, Mama Mia Trattoria. Friday was no exception, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi graced us with her presence. I couldn’t pass up the Mother/Daughter photo op!

With these last few days of summer, we need to take in as much as we can. So, this morning, I picked some perfectly ripe heirloom tomatoes from my garden and placed them on a hollowed out toasted “everything” bagel topped with cream cheese, red onion, a sprinkle of kosher salt and a dash of freshly ground black pepper.  Boy, was I in heaven.

Autumn is almost upon us, and that season has it’s own charm and bounty. However, there’s nothing like taking a moment to remember this amazing (albeit short!!!) summer and enjoy the last tasty tomato from my garden.

Mother’s had the good fortune to feed another celeb  — this time Joe Pantoliano from the “Sopranos” and such movies as Memento, The Matrix, The Goonies and Risky Business. He came in for a late lunch and we had a chance to kibbitz a little.  He loved our rugelach and asked if I’d ship them to him in Connecticut.  I told him he was crazy and said there were plenty of places in New York to find rugelach equally as good.  He continued to disagree, but finally dropped the subject.  He enjoyed us so much he came back the next day, but it was after we closed on a Sunday and all our chairs were up for our deep cleaning day.  Michelle, our bartender, took good care of him and gave him what nourishment she could put together.

Sundays at Mother’s Bistro are always a little astounding, but this Sunday was the most remarkable yet. President Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea dropped by to meet the Mother’s staff and schmooze with our guests while campaigning in Oregon for Hillary!

They arrived at 12:15 after the scene was secured by local police and secret service agents (Hmmm…do you think they ran a background check on us?). They first visited with guests waiting outside and then came in to chat with more folks. Bill (yes, we’re on a first-name basis now) loved the concept of our restaurant. He told me that Hillary and Chelsea were in the small town of Grafton, West Virginia – the birthplace of Mother’s Day – to celebrate the holiday last weekend. Chelsea said it was “cool” to be in Grafton on Mother’s Day to celebrate with her mother and that she was excited to eat at Mother’s Bistro.

Bill is still looking trim these days and he had a cheddar omelet with lots of vegetables – but no mushrooms (we were told “he hates mushrooms”). Chelsea ordered an egg-white portabella mushroom scramble without cheese, but with extra crispy potatoes, and a salad with dressing on the side.

The former President and first daughter happily complied with our request for photos. We snapped a shot of Bill with my family and a couple of other candid shots as well.

As they headed into the main dining room, Bill popped into the kitchen to greet everyone in the back of the house. Needless to say, we were all very excited. We’ve hosted lots of famous folks at Mother’s over the years – from rock stars to politicians – but the former leader of the free world was certainly the biggest “celebrity” we’ve ever served. And with secret service, campaign staff and media in tow, he definitely had the biggest entourage!

Be sure to check out the video clip from KOIN-TV. Like a true politician, Bill is hugging a baby. I was also interviewed for the Mark & Dave show on KEX News Radio and the Dr. Doug & Skippy show on Charlie-FM.

On Wednesday, May 7th, please join us at Mother’s Velvet Lounge as we honor the memory of two giants of the genre who recently passed away (within a week of one another) when we present Jules Dassin’s last Hollywood produced film, Night And The City (1950) starring Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers and Herbert Lom.

Jules Dassin made his mark in Hollywood with three exceptional proletarian crime dramas, Brute Force (1947), The Naked City (1948) and Thieves’ Highway (1949), but in the process became a figure of interest for Joe McCarthy and HUAC, and was on the verge of being blacklisted. Darryl F. Zanuck, the head of 20th Century Fox, with whom Dassin had always shared a rocky relationship, took him out of the firing-line by sending the director to London to shoot an adaptation of Gerald Kersh’s novel, Night And The City. Like Thieves’ Highway before it, Zanuck interfered with Dassin’s vision considerably, but this remarkable film maker managed to make a brilliant film despite it. This would prove Dassin’s final Hollywood film, and he re-emerged in 1955 with the highly successful and critically lauded Rififi, which launched his career as a European director. He would eventually direct the enormously popular Never On Sunday (1960) and Topkapi (1964) and marry the charismatic female lead of both films, Melina Mercouri. Though essentially exiled from American film making, Jules Dassin found far greater success in Europe than many of his contemporaries who fared better with the Hollywood studio system.

Richard Widmark remains one of the stalwarts of American cinema in the second half of the 20th Century. He notoriously entered the scene as the giggling psychotic Tommy Udo in Henry Hathaway’s The Kiss Of Death (1947) (channeled, incidentally, by Frank Gorshin in his interpretation of The Riddler on TV’s Batman), and made an impression that few who have seen the film can forget. He effortlessly bounced between portrayals of heroes and villains alike. In 1950 he ran the gamut, appearing as the bile spitting racist Ray Biddle opposite Sidney Poitier in Joseph Mankiewicz’s No Way Out and in Elia Kazan’s Panic In The Streets as the heroic working class Health Department Investigator, Clint Reed attempting to track down a seriously deranged Jack Palance and avert a pneumonia plague pandemic.

But it was roles like Skip McCoy in Sam Fuller’s Pickup On South Street (1953) and Harry Fabian in Night And The City, for which Widmark had a particular affinity. These are men who are not all bad; certainly not evil, but who have lost their moral compass somewhere along the line and its both thrilling and a little unnerving to watch as they either search for it or trip over it quite by accident. It’s hard to even really call them anti-heroes, as that moniker suggests something inherently noble, and ignores the complexity of the portrayal.

The excitement begins at 7:00 when you will enjoy one of the best dinners in town (alternate selections are available for those who shun meat or wheat), followed by the screening at 7:30. Hope to see you there!

Mother’s is located at 212 SW Stark.

Greetings from New Orleans! I’m attending the annual International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) conference. I’ve been immersed in seminars and informative meetings where we learn about everything from chocolate to shrimp, and talk about food incessantly.  Most of the attendees are cookbook authors, publishers and cooking school teachers, so this is great info for me as I’m currently working on my first cookbook, “Mother’s Best”, which will come out in 2009.

After the conference, I will be staying in Louisiana for over a week. During that time, I’ll be working on my cookbook and enjoying two fabulous, world-renowned music events: Festival International de Louisiane in Lafayette and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

I can’t wait to check out the Lafayette cuisine. Lafayette is 129 miles west of New Orleans and I’ve never been that far outside of New Orleans before. The food at JazzFest is some of the best anywhere. It rivals the amazing music! In fact, I think the white chocolate bread pudding at JazzFest just might be the best thing in the universe.

Last night I had a wonderful evening dining and hanging out with Eric Wolf who heads up the International Culinary Tourism Association. We were joined by John Valls and his wife, Theresa. John is a photographer who worked for many years with another prominent Portland photographer, John Rizzo. John Valls recently shot new pictures of my restaurants and food for our Web sites: Mother’s Bistro and Mama Mia Trattoria.

We went to a restaurant called Herbsaint, which is named after a brand of absinthe and has received a ton of great accolades and reviews in the past few years. We shared a wonderful meal, trying as many different dishes as possible.  Being the mother that I am, I couldn’t help but commandeer the ordering, but I swear I made sure no one thought I was stepping on their toes!

The food was delicious. We had crawfish gratin; iceberg lettuce salad with bacon, red onion and blue cheese; gumbo; wild striped bass with a fava bean and pea pilaf; crisped duck confit (Eric doesn’t like duck but the rest of us thought it was pretty good), sautéed airline chicken breast (it was as moist as moist could be!) with creamy grits and crawfish; and braised lamb shoulder.

After the conference meetings today we went out to Central Grocery for a Mufuletta Sandwich. Central Grocery has been open since 1906 and is a New Orleans icon. They originated from Mufuletta, but New Orleans is so famous for it, you can get them everywhere. If you’ve never had a “Muff,” it typically consists of one mufuletta loaf, split horizontally. The loaf is covered with a marinated olive salad and layers of meat such as capicola, salami, and mortadella, and cheeses such as emmentaler and provolone.

After that, I headed over to the famous Cafe du Monde for a bag of beignets (friend pastries). I’ve included a couple of photos from that experience.

After the IACP awards this evening, I headed out to one of Emeril Lagasse’s restaurants, Delmonico, because it’s right across from my hotel.  I ordered a lot of appetizers and they were pretty good.  The best part of the meal was the jalapeno cornbread, which came with dinner (yes, I realize that doesn’t say much about dinner, but what can I say?)

Tomorrow is the last day of the IACP conference and then I have to hunker down and work on my book. I swear I will!

This evening, Bradley Angle House hosted their annual fundraiser, Taste of the Sweet Life. This event helps raise funds to help survivors of domestic violence. As some of you may know, I have been involved with the Bradley Angle house for over six years and have donated my time and energy to hosting this event at my restaurants in the past. The event has become so big it can’t fit in my restaurants, so now it’s held in the atrium at Legacy Emmanuel Hospital.

It was a wonderful soiree with a beautiful performance by vocalist Rebecca Kilgore and pianist Tom Grant. According to Michael Feinstein, “Rebecca is simply one of the best interpreters of The Great American Songbook.” Of course, Tom is one of the most renowned musicians in the Pacific Northwest, with 22 albums to his credit.

I received a “Bridges of Hope” award at the event, with a plaque that says: “For courage, generosity, and tireless commitment to stopping domestic violence.” Later in the evening I took the stage and spoke out about being a survivor of domestic violence, sharing my own personal experiences.

Mama Mia Trattoria is participating in this years Cascade Aids Art Auction at the Oregon Convention Center.  We will be sampling our wonderful meatballs and home made manicotti in light crepes with tomato sauce.

We’re shooting a mini documentary of our Sunday Brunch this Sunday, April 6th, all day.  We’ll be posting it on our youtube site www.chefcam.tv as soon as it’s done.  Tentatively called “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” it will undoubtedly be interesting and definitely exciting.  We feed about 700 people brunch on a Sunday morning, from 9-2:30.

Mother’s is donating sweet pastries for the upcoming Bradley Angle House (www.bradleyangle.org)  ”Taste of the Sweet Life Auction” and they tell me I am to be getting a recognition award, so it’s even more exciting. ..

TASTE OF THE SWEET LIFE AUCTION SOIREE

Date:       Saturday, April 12

Time:      6:00-10:00 PM

Place:     Legacy Emanuel Hospital Atrium, 501 N. Graham St., Portland

Tickets:  $50 each, Tables of Ten for $500

Parking:  FREE

Then I am heading to New Orleans on April 16th for the annual International Association of Culinary Professionals Conference.  It is always interesting, inspirational, and insightful.  Thankfully, I have been to New Orleans before so I won’t feel pressured to have to try every restaurant.  Usually large groups go out after the conference each night, so hopefully I’ll be able to latch on with someone.

I’ll be becoming a “regular” on the Better Show on KPTV Channel 12 again…once a month I’ll be doing a recipe or talking about new food items.  You can check out my past appearances on www.chefcam.tv.  As soon as I know when it will air I’ll post it.

We had a lunch interview with Jazz great Nancy King in our Velvet Lounge on Thursday, 2/21 at 1:00 as part of the Portland Jazz Festival. It was a packed luncheon and for $16, guests got to listen and see Nancy, and partake in a two course meal with an entree, dessert and drink. She was interviewed by jazz musician and writer Tim Duroche (www.TimDuroche.com). City commissioner Randy Leonard came to the luncheon and introduced Nancy, declaring February 22 “Nancy King Day.”

Nancy was gracious and entertaining, speaking about her start in the industry and how she got where she is today. She loved Mother’s lounge so much that she said she would love to play it, so we are going to follow up and see if we can get her to perform regularly in Mother’s Velvet Lounge…Stay tuned!  Next year we are going to have a Gospel Brunch at Mama Mia Trattoria as part of the Jazz Festival…that should be great.

Our Mother of the Month Dolores Proesser came in for dinner on Friday, night, February 22 with her family…all 20 members! She has 7 children, so 20 with grandkids is not unusual. Her son, Jim, came with a magnum of his wine, JK Carriere, and everyone enjoyed!