STILL LIFE MOJO: THE EXPURGATED VERSION

Dedicated to all those who worked at Still Life.

• “From the day it opened it was a classic…it features good art, good musical entertainment, and – remember these? – good vibes.  Leave reflecting on your good fortune that there is, in fact, still life in Fremont.”  Seattle Best Places.

• “A little more than a year ago the pastorally named Still Life in Fremont opened in a former office building and began attracting everyone from anarchists to pinstriped money managers for a soul warming bowl of carrot-ginger soup and inspired slice of peach plum pie.”  Paul Andrews, Pacific Magazine.

• “…the undisputable grand pooh-bah of coffeehouses…people don’t just feel comfortable at Still Life, they feel at home.  One suspects they move in.”  The Seattle Times. 

• “Make yourself useless at this Seattle institution…the inventive soups, sandwiches, and other dishes are local heroes, and for good reason; house made pastries are excellent too.”  The Seattle Weekly.

• “The menu is perfect…the soups rival the best in town… and on top of all this good ambience and food, there’s jazz, folk, and ethnic music…”  The Seattle Weekly.

• “…the beating heart of funky Fremont….Ingenious salads, hearty soups and gumbos, overflowing sandwiches and oodles of 60’s counter culture revisited by their contemporary cultural progeny.  Some of the best $5 meals in the city…Still Life is what so many, many other restaurants never become.  It is alive.” John Hinterberger, Seattle Times and Seattle Times magazine.

• “This breaks some new ground in local jazz venues, and I hope it continues…the Still Life is probably the most relaxing public establishment in Seattle.  It carries a good beverage list, sweets if you’re inclined, and excellent soups.”  Bruce Kochis, Earshot Jazz.

• “This is the place where the 60s meet the 90s, where, if it only had opened a couple of decades sooner, you might have found Dylan, back when he was still Zimmerman.” Best Fremont Hangout, pullout section, Seattle Post Intelligencer.

• “Refuel at Still Life in Fremont Coffeehouse, at 709 N. 35th, where le tout Fremont gathers for excellent baked goods, soups, sandwiches and, of course, espresso.” The New York Times.

A BRIEF HISTORY 

In 1986, Fremont and Seattle were a different world than they are today. The Fremont neighborhood evolution from working man and artist enclave to high tech mecca, and Seattle’s small-city-with-few-social-problems transformation with its affordable housing and little traffic to the tech boomtown of today with its accompanying sky high prices and terrible traffic were remarkable.  The city population in 1990 was 516,259 with a metro area population of 2,206,000; in 2022 it is 772,613 for the city, and 3,489,000 for the metro area.  

Then, Fremont had only two restaurants, a notorious biker tavern, an AA meeting place, various artists’ studios in low rent buildings, and some second hand furniture stores.  The specialty coffee craze had not yet hit most of the country, and coffee aficionados and snobs were found mainly on the West Coast.  Starbucks, founded in Seattle in 1971 by Gordon Bowker, Jerry Baldwin, and Zev Siegl (pre-Howard Schultz), and Peet’s (founded in Berkeley) were the only coffee suppliers in town, although there were several coffeehouses like Irv Cisski’s Last Exit on Brooklyn, the Boiserie, the Allegro, and the B&O Espresso. Last Exit was located at the last exit off Brooklyn Ave. NE going south, named after the Hubert Selby, Jr. book Last Exit to Brooklyn, and typified the quintessential coffeehouse — full of students talking or reading, chess games in constant progress, a fortune teller in the corner, and very good espresso.

Coffeehouses in the 50s and 60s proliferated throughout America but were primarily found on the East and West Coasts.  They fostered the folk music revival and beatnik/ bohemian culture in Greenwich Village at Cafe Figaro and The Gaslight Cafe, Boston’s Club 47 and the Unicorn, and San Francisco’s Cafe Trieste, the Buena Vista,  and Vesuvio. They were friendly, comfortable places where a person could hang out for hours for the price of a cup of coffee, and mingle with musicians and other denizens of the counterculture.  Ray Oldenburg’s 1989 book, The Great Good Place, describes the importance of such institutions because they served as a community anchor and established a sense of place – a third place in addition to one’s home and workplace, a unique haven where people could meet and converse with others and feel at home.  

Also in the late 50s and 60s, It was practically de rigueur for small town debutantes, egged on by Julia Child (who introduced French cuisine to the American mainstream), to attend the pricey Cordon Bleu cooking school so they could return to the States and faithfully follow the recipes as a prelude to cooking for future husbands. In those days, there was nothing like preparing boeuf bourguignon to cement your culinary credentials and dazzle your friends.  We also survived Adelle Davis, the nutritionist and writer, usually but not always correct in her dietary assumptions, who condemned a generation of young people to eating healthy but tasteless beans and brown rice. The English cook, Graham Kerr, was a fixture on late 60s TV with his Galloping Gourmet show, a big hit, but his on-stage histrionics caused one critic to call him the “Liberace of the food world.”

In the early 70s, however, Alice Waters, whose restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley turned the cooking world upside down, insisted on organic, locally grown produce, and launched the farm-to-table movement and the slow food movement, while promoting California cuisine in her own inimitable style and with unmeasurable flair.  As a result, American cuisine was thrust into a new, exciting space where experimentation was encouraged and creativity was rewarded. Ethnic foods started to work their way into the public sphere, specialty foods of all kinds became more available, and cookbooks were published heralding a new approach to cooking.  Under the spell of myriad food challenges, many of us prepared complicated, exotic dinners for our friends, and bought here-to-fore-unknown and previously unavailable cheeses, spices, fruits, grains, and wines from shops which were magically springing up everywhere to cater to these tastes.

The late 60s and the 70s were inspiring — an eventful, and powerful decade of social change in the struggle for civil rights, gay rights, a new approach to spirituality, environmental concerns, and feminism.  After the Watergate debacle and the Vietnam quagmire, authority and conventional values were questioned and rejected by many, and these revolutionary influences filtered into every aspect of our daily life – politics, music, art, theater, film, literature – food and coffee included.

Initially, my friend, Veleta, and I spent a year testing soups, salads, and pies on willing friends at dinners with a view to opening up a coffeehouse/cafe.  I went to classes held by the Small Business Administration, and read how-to books on starting your own business.  After a time, my friend decided she would be better off pursuing her career as an architect and not base her livelihood on pie making.

Still Life came into being in 1986 after a year of planning with my soon-to-be business partner, Nancy Weintraub.  We were Capitol Hill neighbors and had children the same age who were involved in soccer and baseball. We were at many of the same games, and I broached the idea to Nancy at some point. We started talking, and since neither of us were wedded to our jobs, the idea of being our own boss was stimulating, albeit risky.  Our vision for the coffeehouse came from a desire to create a comfortable and stimulating environment serving excellent food, and was modeled on both European and American coffeehouses we knew – the North Beach coffeehouses in San Francisco, coffeehouses in Berkeley, cafes in Paris, and a few in Seattle.

We talked with everyone we could who had similar establishments, and got an important tip from another architect friend on what he described as an “up-and-coming” neighborhood.  We had breakfast with a major property owner in Fremont, the designated neighborhood, who touted the wonders and advantages of Fremont. At some point I noticed an available space for rent there.  We looked at the space, a dilapidated office building, and loved the wall of windows, the 20 foot high ceilings, and the wood floors.  We signed a lease and set to work cleaning it up, tearing out flimsy partitions and doing much of the work ourselves – painting the interior and exterior, refinishing the floors, hauling in furniture, kitchen equipment, and dishes, and even planting a tree in the sidewalk planting area.  Veleta, my architect friend, designed the front counter and kitchen which had an extremely tight cooking area. At that time, we hadn’t yet rented the back rooms which were eventually turned into a large kitchen, office, walk-in cooler, and break room.

My restaurant experience was limited to eating in them, and Nancy had only waitressed at a couple of restaurants during the summer. We had a small bank loan, one residential stove, a leased espresso machine, and second hand furniture and china gleaned from garage sales, friends, thrift stores, and our own houses.  We bought everything second hand – kitchen equipment, chairs and tables, silverware, and china.  Nothing matched and it worked perfectly.  We had a funky “refrigerated” (meaning gel packs) unit for holding sandwich fixings and a used cooler.  We had a used bar dishwasher behind the front counter, and a tiny office which held our music tapes, purses, bookkeeping folders, safe, scheduling sheets, and a phone. Today, you could never start a restaurant with $25,000 and a sandwich table cooled with gel packs, not to mention the residential stove. It was a simpler time when cash registers were not the computers they are today. Only our accountant used a computer, and everything else was written out by hand. 

We hoped that our successful and interesting business proposal would result in a coffeehouse/meeting place full of art, music, good food and good vibes, a “third place.”  Thankfully, Still Life was a success from the first day, gradually growing busier as the food became more varied and our baked goods multiplied.  Toward the end, we probably had over 1000 different soups in rotation, and 100 different baked goods. We offered breakfast, lunch, and dinner specials, and increased the variety of sandwiches and tortilla and vegetable pies.  At some point, we unscientifically determined that on a typical day we easily served about 1,000 people.  On Fremont Fair weekends we probably served over 2,000 or more a day. During the fair, we would have hours-long lines of people refueling after a long day watching hundreds of naked bicyclists heading up the parade, listening to rock bands, and strolling through the fair booths filled with jewelry, pottery, and every kind of artsy knick knack.  

After the first year or so, we were able to offer fully paid medical and dental coverage to all full time (30 hours or more) employees, certainly one of the first restaurants in Seattle to do so at the time.  As Eric, one of our stellar employees, recollected:  “I hadn’t been to the dentist in 8 years! Dr. Barney fixed me up.  I hadn’t had med insurance for 4 or 5 years since I had rolled off my parents’ policy.  It was unheard of and a super great perk.” A few years after that, we started a pension plan; we had sick leave and vacation leave.  There were no uniforms — employees could wear whatever they chose — enhanced by an array of multi-colored aprons. These benefits, including a free meal per shift and all the non-alcoholic beverages they could drink, were some of the reasons that people stayed. More importantly, they all pretty much liked each other and became good friends – they lived together, partied together, and some married each other.  They were dedicated, interesting people who remain friends to this day.

Anyone who has ever started their own business know that the sleepless nights and endless days do not contribute to a sense of ease and well being. Anyone who has started a restaurant know they will easily work 80 to 90 hours a week, lose a great deal of weight, and rarely see their families, at least for a while. That our children grew up to be reasonably well-adjusted was a testament to our good intentions and our children’s resilience (our children worked there for a time); that our relationships survived was a consequence of exhaustion and fortitude. Once home, we washed dirty towels and aprons and brought them back the next day before we could afford a laundry service, or before it even dawned on us that there was such a thing.  Sometimes I would make chili at home to bring in the next day.  I taped music at home to play at the cafe, and planned the music and other entertainment schedules. Nancy scheduled the rotating art shows, and planned the daily menus.  We both worked on employee scheduling, business issues, and bookkeeping, or filled in wherever necessary.

Business success or failure depends on a wide variety of variables — luck, financing, customer base, location, staff, and an economy free from transfiguring infectious viruses.  It is an all encompassing and intense effort.

THE ATMOSPHERE

What made Still Life so inviting? The interior of the coffeehouse, highlighted by floor to ceiling windows that ran the breadth of the room, was full of antique, mismatched wooden chairs and tables, two ten feet long church pews, a reading corner with rocking chair, and a window seat piled high with pillows, magazines on a large, round, 50s coffee table once owned by June Alyson and Dick Powell, 2 bronze, antique, 4 feet tall, City of Seattle street light bases which held plants, and rotating art on the walls which changed every 2 months. My 8 feet tall ficus tree lived there as well. Christi, our baker, recollected a little detail about our small, round Duncan Phyfe table: “I remember that one of the tables had a little drawer in it and people would leave notes for others to find. That was sweet.”  She also said:  “Even today, when I tell someone I worked at Still Life, they will have some memory about it…one of my friends had their first date there and later got married.”  I still continue to run into old customers although it’s fewer with every passing year.  If you haven’t lived in Seattle for the last 20 years you wouldn’t know about it, but most long lived residents went there at some point.

The space was full of light, music, plants, flowers, and enticing smells emanating from the kitchen. In the winter, it was frequently so steamy inside from the armies of people coming through that the large windows would fog up and you couldn’t see in or out.  During lunch, It was very noisy – a heady, fast-paced environment.  Lunch was so busy that we would have to ask the morning customers to either buy lunch, move on, or at least consolidate their piles of thesis papers, books-in-the-making, Christmas cards, or bills so that others could share their tables.  We could seat 100 people but I vaguely remember that our limit was 60, as determined by the Fire Department, but there was frequently never enough room – which just added to the appeal of the place.

The front counter with dessert case, soup warmers, espresso machine and cash register faced the street with its wall of windows.  Behind the front counter were the sandwich prep and special salad units and the beer and soft drink refrigerator.  There was always a large vase with a flower arrangement. The fetching array of desserts were arranged on mismatched, pretty plates with their individual prices noted on small cards. As customers lined up along the wall by a twelve feet long bench piled high with flyers, newsletters, concert announcements, and Earshot magazines, they could read from the 3 large blackboards hanging on the wall describing the daily breakfast, soups, sandwiches, open face sandwich, salads, lunch specials, dinner specials, vegetable pie of the day, and corn tortilla pie.  By the time they got to the front counter, they would pick up a tray and order what they wanted.  If it was soup or a baked good, an employee would give it to them then and there. Everything else would either meet the customer at the cash register or was placed on a nearby ledge. The customer would scoot their trays down the copper tubing counter, pay, and then go to the antique oak buffet to get napkins, silverware, various condiments, milk, and sugar.  They would find a seat at large communal or individual tables. Sometimes we would run out the sandwiches and salads to the customer at their tables, but if it was particularly busy with lines to the door we would put their order on the ledge by the cash register and shout out, as delicately as possible, the item to be picked up.   Soups, baked goods, and most drinks would be delivered by the time the customer got to the cash register. Lunch was our most hectic time since there was an almost constant line of people waiting to order.

In the afternoons, it would be quieter but frequently still full of customers reading, writing, chatting quietly with friends, or working in a postprandial somnolence.  Once in a while tarot card readers, horoscope interpreters, and jewelry makers, would, with permission, sit at a small table with a sign and try to drum up some business. With the approach of dinner, the place would get lively again. There was rarely a time when only a few people were in the space so it always felt alive. The taped music would change depending on the mood and time of day, and ranged from jazz, ethnic, rock, soul, classical, and blues– The Blind Boys of Alabama, Marvin Gaye, Ry Cooder, Coltrane, Cesaria Evora or Carlos Montoya. 

In the back kitchen, the atmosphere was usually upbeat and purposeful.  Prep work, cooking, and baking had to be accomplished within a certain timeframe.. Whenever I hear a song by Al Green I’m reminded of one of our early cooks, Kimberly, who had a penchant for Green. Another peerless cook and relentless ham, Tina, had a taste for musicals. Christy, our exemplary baker, preferred Elliott Smith.  Caroline, another drama queen (with a starring role in Chicks with Dicks at the Empty Space), also one of our cooks and manager, had a penchant for KEXP’s Swinging Doors. There was a constant rotation of Prince, Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Taj Mahal, Patsy Cline, Stevie Wonder, Tom Petty, Joni Mitchell, and others depending on who was working.  The sexy or plaintive beats oiled the onion, carrot, celery, and potato chopping process and all of the other rote tasks required to get the show on the road one more time.

Marla, an early employee, remembered that “for years the lyrics to the Mary Tyler Moore theme song hung over the dish pit and whoever was on the dishes tended to belt it out,” while, as Christie added, “they were enjoying Still Life facials every time they opened the hot and steamy dishwasher.”

Who can turn the world on with her smile
Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile
Well it’s you girl and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it
Love is all around no need to waste it
You can have the town why don’t you take it
You’re gonna make it after all
You’re gonna make if after all

For a very long time, Nancy and I did much of the same work as the employees – dishes, breaking down boxes, wiping tables, bussing dishes, working behind the counter or the cash register. We all took turns at the espresso machine, making sandwiches, handling the cash register, doling out soup and bread, doing the dishes. There were no designated front of the restaurant roles; it was very democratic. Eventually, it finally occurred to us that making wonderful espresso drinks was not a gift we all shared, and certain people gravitated to the espresso machine as they became more expert at preparing fancy foam hearts. Some became very skilled at assembling our complicated and towering sandwiches – the most time consuming and challenging food item to prepare quickly — and others were more adept at the cash register. In the early days, food prep and cooking were difficult until we expanded since everything had to be chopped in the dishwashing area or the sandwich counter.  Moving into the large back room was a lifesaver, and we were able to finance a big walk-in cooler, commercial stoves and ovens (although we first had a row of three regular home kitchen stoves), shelves to the ceiling for canned goods and so on. By then, employees had specific food prep tasks, and we had cooks and bakers. 

We had an employee break room with a TV (that eventually became too much of a distraction), cubicles for each employee, and a couch.  The hallway by the bathrooms was lined with photos of musicians who had performed at Still Life. Boxes from daily deliveries of food filled the narrow walkway until an enterprising employee took it upon themselves or was asked to break them down, haul them down the stairs, and shove them into the recycling bin in the parking lot.

The outside parking lot on the floor below us was peculiar and arty.  There were about 6 parking spaces, and various dumpsters for our recycling and garbage. One end of the lot was blocked by a steep hill going up to N. 35th St. The artists living below the restaurant turned it into a wonderful garden with about twenty defunct televisions adorning the hillside, with some carved out seating areas on the slope as well.

The Still Life atmosphere was a combination of a variety of elements – good, affordable food, a relaxed and informal artsy interior, reasonably happy and interesting employees, and, dare I say, the fact that the place was owned and run by two women who tried to give it a warm and inviting touch. To use a jazz analogy, working at Still Life was either like an Ornette Coleman piece or a Ben Webster tune – frenetic and chaotic or smooth and mellow – but rarely anything in between. For the customers, it was a friendly and relaxing oasis.

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Marla, Kevin P., and Caroline.

THE EMPLOYEES

Let me just start by saying that anyone who ever worked at Still Life, and there were hundreds, played a most critical role in the development of what was, in my humble opinion, one of the most idiosyncratic and well known meeting places in Seattle for many years. Restaurants are an intense environment.  Everyone works together in close quarters; the proximity and intensity foster and spur a certain intimacy.  In stressful situations where one must perform quickly and efficiently, tension is relieved by a certain amount of sexualized banter, ghoulish and smutty jokes, swearing, laughing and occasional singing. How that stress presents itself to the public is sometimes iffy although we always tried to be cordial and have a dialogue with the continuing press of customers. There was an enormous amount of one-on-one interaction.

At the beginning, we started out with a much smaller crew – 5 or 6 at a time.  Shortly thereafter we had to add more people, and then had anywhere between 25 and 30 people working during the week according to their shifts. Still Life employees could be maddening and quirky; they mostly charmed but sometimes offended our customers. They were intelligent, usually considerate, witty, and creative,  with interesting conversation and opinionated takes on many topics.  The cooks and bakers were diligent and inspired; the managers and everyone else always went above and beyond the call of duty.  They all pitched in to help out.  

Christi, our baker, noted:  “We really were a family.  Instead of hiring outside cleaners, current employees were offered the chance to earn extra money deep cleaning late into the night after hours twice a week.  Whenever we needed to close for maintenance like painting and fixing tables, etc., employees were invited to help do the work so that they could still make money and pay their rent.  If you were interested in doing more or learning more, there was always an opportunity to move beyond the front counter.  You trusted us with running the whole business when you went out of town for big trips…that seems totally crazy to me now!! Ha ha.”

The back kitchen was a hub of music and activity.  In the morning, the kitchen prep person would be chopping vegetables for the next day’s soups and salads, and the cook would prepare that day’s offerings, moving from one pot to another pot, taking pies out of the oven, and preparing the daily lunch special. In front, people set up the sandwich board and arranged the dessert case, setting the mammoth loaves of bread from La Panzanella out in the bread basket, filling the soup containers, making drip coffee for the airports, restocking espresso beans for the espresso machine, refilling the silverware and napkin containers, filling the water pitchers, and writing the menu boards for the day. Some employees preferred kitchen prep to being out front and interacting with customers, but at least you could alternate your least preferred tasks with more interesting ones.  When the bakers worked their magic later on in the afternoon, however, the kitchen was a relative oasis of calm and quiet.

At night, when the closers would break down and clean the restaurant, Spearhead and Deelight would speed them on their way, sometimes to the despair of the artists living underneath the restaurant who would complain loudly the next morning about the noise. Tracy and Kevin used to lip sync to the Carpenters, others would jam with colanders and spoons while dancing to Fame, or use an upside down colander as R2D2 for an improvisational version of Star Wars to enliven the closing routine.

Once I hired a woman for our second cook shift who had previously worked at PCC, a local co-op chain.  I tried to get a reference from them, but all they would say is that she had worked there.  We were in a little bit of a bind, so she was hired and trained for 3 days, giving her access to all of our recipes.  On the day she was to start working, she didn’t show up.  I tried calling several times; there was no answer.  I went to her apartment, but no one answered the door.  Initially, I was worried that something had happened to her, but as the days passed by, I realized that she had just decided not to work for us.  Fortunately, one of our old cooks, Tina, was back in town and she graciously stepped in to save the day and fill that slot. A short time later, when I was at my second restaurant, Still Life on the Ave in the University District, the no-show employee opened a vegan bakery a block away. Eventually, she moved her bakery to Fremont, just a block from the old Still Life.  I began to feel that she was intentionally haunting me.

Another time, one of our more distracted employees came to work on the bus wearing see-through tights, no underpants, and a short leather jacket.  She put on an apron and started chopping vegetables.  When I saw her rear end, I was taken aback and asked her why she was practically naked. She claimed that she had forgotten her underpants and didn’t realize her tights were transparent. She continued the rest of her shift with an apron tied front and back. 

Ben, who went on to become a well known painter, had a cheeky attitude when he was manning the espresso machine.  If a customer asked for a nonfat decaf he would say “another why bother.”  When Starbucks decided to make milkshakes instead of espresso by adding syrups and whipped cream in 20 ounce cups, we had to reluctantly add a few syrups to our espresso offerings but we resisted the enormous cups (and the enormous prices). Drink ordering, in any case, became more complicated and we finally had to start writing down the orders.

The 1999 Men of Still Life Calendar was put together by Tracy, then a budding photographer, and was presented to me at a Christmas party at my house.  It was nicely photographed and featured the eleven men then working at Still Life in various stages of undress and in seductive poses with hilarious comments about their likes and dislikes. For example, Denis’s “turn-on’s” were : “kittens, wine, baby ducks, manifestos.” His “turn-off’s” were: “sourcraut, sock puppets, Sartre.” Out of deference to their advanced age and potential internet chaos, I won’t show any of the photos, but they were: Mr. January – Russ, Mr. February – Dennis, Mr. March – Rupert, Mr. April – Colin, Mr. May – Leo, Mr. June – Leif, Mr. July – Kevin P., Mr. August – Hayden, Mr. September – Eric, Mr. October – Tim, Mr. November – Brian,  Mr. (s) December – photo collage of male and female employees.

There were a few bad apples, but in general, the many young people who worked at Still Life were a cohesive, artistic, articulate and smart group.  They were friendly and intuitive and made connections with customers that encouraged many to return. They went the extra mile and worked for the benefit of the restaurant.  We appreciated them tremendously.  After they left, they went on to become cooks, bakers, restaurant owners, doctors, animal activists, writers, scientists, professors, artists in all genres, tech managers, and administrators. The employees are what I miss most about the business.

THE FOOD and THE BAKED GOODS

Nancy was a terrific cook, and she came up with many innovative variations on existing recipes — vegetarian and non-vegetarian, ethnic and regional American food. She made the soups for perhaps the first year and then we hired our first cook. There were many adaptations from the enormously influential Silver Palate cookbooks, Moosewood cookbooks, many regional cookbooks around the United States and different world cuisines – Indian, Caribbean, African, Thai, and so on. (All good cooks copy and modify recipes. They change an ingredient or two and then call it theirs.  Even the famed Ottolenghi recently modified the Silver Palate Chicken Marbella recipe where he substituted dates instead of prunes.)

Nancy had a rather cavalier approach to cooking and figured that a little butter, cream, garlic, and wine never hurt anyone, and the various cooks took on that approach as well. They would also contribute new ideas for dishes (for example, the corn tortilla pie was dreamed up by one of our early cooks, Ruth R. from Santa Fe).  They upped the ante on spices, herbs and garlic so that you could actually taste them. Substitution is a great enabler, and there is hardly a recipe (except for desserts) which can’t use a little sriracha. Sherry, marsala, vermouth, brown sugar, soy sauce, apple cider or rice wine vinegar, peppers, catsup, tomato paste, honey, curry pastes, fish sauce, lemon or lime, for example, can flavor and add depth to most recipes and were in constant use.

Our formidable cooks, including a couple from Still Life on the Ave – Delia, Ruth R., Lindy, Early, Kimberly, Christi (also the baker), Hayden, Kevin S., Noah, Tina, Caroline, Lillian, Denell, Jennifer, and Rosa – were inspired, hardworking, and very much appreciated. They were usually untrained, but were intuitive and deeply interested and knowledgeable about food. They all had strong personalities and several went on to own their own successful restaurants. 

The menu naturally expanded with the years to include breakfast, lunch, and dinner specials, weekend breakfast specials, with a general beefing up in all categories of food.  We always had two different soups every day, one of them vegetarian. We had assorted beverages, espresso, beer and wine, and an enormous variety of baked goods. It was hearty, delicious, and affordable food in a comfortable environment.

Over the years, we had many requests for a cookbook.  We started testing recipes, but never followed through with the cookbook idea. I may still do it at some point.  In 1999, we had a very successful series of cooking classes manned by our cooks at the time, Hayden and Jennifer, which focused on Mexico, Italy, Thailand, India, Spanish tapas, and the Southwest.  They were well attended and were held in the back kitchen with the cooks demonstrating their technique as they cooked. Christi, our baker, taught classes on fresh fruit desserts, chocolate desserts, and biscotti. At the end of this post, I’ve listed a few recipes you may enjoy from the cooking classes, a Seattle cookbook, and our recipe files.

In the early years, we imported our baked goods from various bakeries around town, but we were never completely satisfied with the product. We tasted and sampled many desserts, scones, and breads, but they were never exceptional. As we branched out into a wider menu, we hired our first baker, Maia, then Kim, then the awe-inspiring and talented Christi who stayed for 11 years. Susan helped out with the baking as well.  Vida baked and cooked at Still Life on the Ave, my smaller cafe in the U District, as did Denell, our superb cook. The large loaves of bread from La Panzanella remained with us from the first day because they were an excellent accompaniment to the soups.  (Ciro Pasciuto was the owner of the bakery, and he once invited us for lunch, a lunch which lasted for 5 hours where we ate countless dishes he had prepared himself, and sampled many bottles of Pinot Noir.)

We had fewer bakers but only because Christi worked at Still Life for so long.  When veganism started making inroads into the general public’s knowledge base in the 90s, questions were asked:  did the scones have butter, did the cheese have rennet, did the cream cheese brownies have eggs? Christi wondered how vegan bakeries could successfully exist since the elimination of butter and sugar rendered sweets as tasty as cardboard. Little did we know that some preferences for vegan desserts would out-trump our foolish thoughts about tastiness, although we did have a delicious wheat free peanut butter chocolate chip cookie.

THE CUSTOMERS

Still Life brought in an eclectic assortment of people – musicians, artists, writers, poets, University of Washington, Seattle Pacific, and Seattle University professors, teachers, local politicians, TV personalities, rock stars and other celebrities, people who lived and worked in the neighborhood, and random people passing through town who had read about us in a guidebook (Zagat Guide, Seattle Best Places, etc.).  The Lake Union boat building establishment descended on us as well – the shipwrights, marine architects and electricians, interior designers, and sailmakers.

The manner in which a customer treats a perceived lower status person, like a restaurant worker, is frequently an indication of their character.  If the customer is disdainful and arrogant, it is usually a reflection of their own fragile and insecure ego.  Fortunately, most Still Life employees, usually not shrinking violets in any case, were able to handle this occasional bad behavior with aplomb; most were able to politely handle any rudeness.  It did make for great stories in the back kitchen, however.

We had occasional complaints and difficult customers. One customer complained about “beard hairs” in the ginger cookie when it was fresh ginger fibers.  Another always wanted to smell the soups, hovering over the two pots with their nose millimeters away from the contents as they waved the aroma up toward their face.

On breaks from their EST derivative classes, the Landmark Forum participants would practice their assertiveness training on staff working the front line: 

EST customer:  “Will you microwave this for me?” 
Still Life employee:  “No, but I’ll put it in the oven.” 
EST customer:  “No, I want you to microwave it.” 
Still Life employee: “No, but I’ll put it in the oven.”
EST customer:  Why can’t you microwave this for me?” 
Still Life employee: “We don’t have a microwave.” 
“The stunned look was always enjoyable,” said our rather assertive employee, as formidably passive aggressive as the EST customer.

I don’t remember this but Caroline and Marla say it is so.  A customer once wrote a letter protesting all the female staffers and their hairy armpits, specifically accusing one of the employees of FLAUNTING them.  One of the irrepressible wits responded with “shave the boys.”  Others responded by actually cutting out armpit holes in their t-shirts in response – presumably so they could adequately flaunt them in front of the complaining customer.

Before we opened, the eccentric fellow who lived on the top floor of the apartment building across the street engaged in a series of old-school time lapse photos, taking one shot every day of our exterior progress. The exterior painting job, the mural painted by Maine artist, Wally Warren (whom Nancy talked into doing our two signs and first mural), our furniture refinishing and unloading of furniture and equipment for the restaurant were painstakingly documented.  When we were finished, he presented us with 45 photos as evidence of our progress which we appreciated.  A bit more disturbing than this benign voyeurism, he also had a female mannequin in his window that he dressed each day in different clothes and wigs – blonde and brunette page boys, sexy lingerie, nurse outfit, business suits, etc. He would then come into the cafe in the morning with his paperwork and work for several hours at one of the tables.

On the other hand, most of our customers were loyal, happy to be there, and gave us a great deal of positive feedback. Customers’ habitual requests were anticipated.  For example, Bob, a mathematics Professor at the University, came in at least once a day and always had a ginger cookie and cup of coffee. Another customer, a teacher at a top private school, always ordered a “double tall latte, no fat, no foam, tepid, not room temperature.”  

Stephen, a poet and regular customer, wrote several books of poetry while sitting in a corner table, along with other fiction writers. August Wilson, the playwright, stopped by, as did Tom Robbins, the author, who lived in La Conner.  In a related note, one of our early employees, Claire Dederer, went on to become a well known author and essayist.  

Dave, a cabinet maker, started to come in regularly.  He once remarked that some of our chairs were wobbly and that he could fix them. That was the beginning of a long friendly relationship where he kept our old chairs and tables in working order, and built our stage, in exchange for food.  He had such a large food account with us that he came in almost every day for lunch to try to use it up.

Other customers who stopped by were John F. Kennedy, Jr. (shortly before his death in ‘99 he was looking at houses to buy in Seattle), the Jamaican Bobsledding Team who pulled up in a stretch limousine (fresh from the 1993 movie about their Olympic endeavors and training, Cool Runnings), Jean Enerson, the first woman in the US to anchor a local tv news broadcast and who worked for 48 years at King 5 News, and other news people. John Doe of X, actor John Corbett who “sat around waiting to be recognized and necked with young coeds in the corner” – he was filming Northern Exposure and was Bo Derek’s husband – came by. Brian sold a cookie to Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, guitarist Jay Mascis was, apparently, “a dick,” Real World Seattle producer came in to ask if they could film inside the coffeehouse with the cast standing by outside, but Hannah firmly said no (why, I don’t know).  Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth came in and someone saved the coffee mug with her lipstick on it. Actor Tom Hulce, Mary of Peter, Paul and Mary, Bill Nye (the Science Guy) and crew from Almost Live (John Keister, Nancy Guppy, Joe Guppy et al), Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam (remembered as an excellent tipper and always got a ginger cookie), the morning DJ from KIXI, Ron Reagan Jr. (the atheist and son of Sr.), Winona Ryder, and Mark Langan of Screaming Trees were there.  Dave Matthews came in quite a few times before he ended up moving to the East Coast, Ralph Towner (composer and guitarist with Oregon, Paul Winter, and others) made occasional appearances, and huge Chinese and Japanese tour buses would unload their interiors at our front door.

THE MUSIC, ART, THEATER,  RED SKY POETRY THEATER, AND OTHER ARTISTIC ENDEAVORS

On the coffee table by the window seat lay a three-ring notebook that featured an ongoing bodice-ripper, potboiler of a romance novel. Customers could write an anonymous snippet that another customer would continue on with, often in a very different vein.  Some of it was typical: “Our eyes locked, and his burning look of desire made me weak, gave my heart a jolt, and made my knees tremble,” or “Sirrah, I must protest!” she exclaimed, while rapping his knuckles with her fan.  “I’m afraid I’ll have to tell my father, brother, and uncle about your despicable behavior.” Some was poetic or aspirational:  “The fog, a silver city blanket, the coffee house, a glowing ember” or “Even the ugly will find a world to be beautiful in.” Some entries were profane and scary, and some were just a diary-like notation of the customer’s mood.

Eric recalled that “in 1996 email was just becoming a thing, something you checked once or twice a week. Speakeasy brought in a computer that sat on a table with a small monitor in the alcove room. Customers could logon and check their email while drinking coffee, then move on and let the next person check.”

Our first stage was a heavy and cumbersome construction we had to drag from the back of the building to the front, set up, and then disassemble after the performance. Thankfully, we soon graduated to a wonderfully fabricated stage designed  by Veleta (who also had a hefty food account) and built by Dave, the cabinet maker and loyal customer responsible for keeping our chairs in working order. 

We started out with open-mic poetry readings run by Red Sky Poetry Theater and facilitated by Marion, Phoebe, Roberto and Jesse.  Those were wild nights with quite a lot of bad poetry and state-of-the-art “poetic” attire – Roberto would swirl around in his purple velvet cape and beret, and Phoebe was always in black velvet topped off with a black velvet beret.  The attire did not make the poetry any more palatable but at least the events were something of a visual feast. 

Seattle Improv did a weekly gig for a short time with John Keister, Nancy Guppy, Bill Nye and others who went on to make it big with Almost Live. Bill Nye, the Science Guy, moved on to national exposure and acclaim.  Watching the improv performers, I realized how difficult it was to be spontaneously humorous and clever working as an ensemble group; they were successful most of the time, however. We staged other theatrical productions, a few that were fairly experimental, a little painful, and not always well attended.

We also had our fair share of folk music and did several presentations with the Seattle Folklore Society, presenting most of the folk singers in the area at one time or another. We had concerts over the years with Baby Gramps, Strangers with Candy, Artis the Spoonman, Jim Page, and many others – although Artis and Jim were always favorites.  Guitarist Klaus Lendzian and blues singer and slide guitarist Laurette Langille, both now deceased, appeared occasionally and were wonderful musicians.

We moved away from folk music and started presenting ethnic, blues, and jazz musicians, but primarily jazz, on a weekly basis.  At the time, I was on the board of Earshot Jazz and was familiar with many of the local musicians. I was deluged with promo tapes, and spent quite a lot of time selecting and lining up groups, doing the advertising, and, of course, being there when they performed.  At the beginning, we had a small cover charge at the door which we gave to the musicians, and they could eat and drink whatever they wanted.  After a while, I paid each musician a flat rate regardless of what the door took in and they could still eat and drink what they fancied. Everyone needs to make a living. We showcased almost every jazz musician playing in Seattle at that time and in all of their various group configurations.  Several played in different ensembles, but we had them all from Pearl Django to Jovino Santos Neto, Matt Jorgenson, Jeff Johnson, Phil Sparks, Mark Seales, Milo Petersen, Mark Ivester, Buddy Catlett, Dumisani Maraire, Jabo Ward, Jay Thomas, John Bishop, Dave Peck, Amy Denio, Randy Halberstadt, Dan Greenblatt, Jamael Nance, Rob Silver, Brian Kent, Rick Mandyck, and many others.

For many years, an idea that lurked in the back of my mind was to open an art center with a jazz performance space, art galleries, bookstore, and cafe. It never came to fruition, but I spent a lot of time working on it.  I spoke with one of the early investors in Costco, the founder of a Seattle biomedical research company, my pal, Richard, John from Earshot, and a couple of local developers about the idea.  We had meetings and dinners and went through countless bottles of wine in avid discussion of the plan.  I looked at properties, but nothing clicked.  In the end, I opened the much smaller Still Life on the Ave, in the same building as the Northwest Film Forum’s theater, The Grand Illusion. That venture lasted for two years. It was a good run, but the drug dealers across the street, the break ins, and the massive redevelopment of that part of the Ave – tearing up the street to put in new plumbing and wiring – were too much to combat.

Because of Nancy’s previous work at Traver-Sutton, a well known art gallery in town, she knew many of the local artists who were more than happy to exhibit their work on our large, well-lit walls. She changed the art every 2 months with a steady stream of interesting and provocative displays – Gregory Grenon, Kevin Harvey, Anita Fisk, Randy Erickson, Joan Ross Bloedel, Fay Jones, and others.  There weren’t that many restaurants showing art then, but it was a good way for an artist to get more exposure since we had so many customers coming through each day.  When Nancy left the business after about 9 years, different people, including Christi, stepped into the curating role, and we continued with a different exhibit every two months as before. Our last curator, Barbara Shaiman, then the Director of the Rental Gallery at the Seattle Art Museum, continued to curate the art for me at Still Life on the Ave for a couple of years.  

THE PARTIES

Ah, the parties…Our first party was at Still Life, probably 3 months after we opened, and open to all and sundry. We provided the beer, wine, and food for free. I can’t remember if we actually obtained a private party liquor license to do this legally, but I suspect we didn’t. We also exceeded the fire code because we had too many people inside.  We had a rock band, I think it was Red Dress, and dancing. It was jammed with people — lots of fun, vaguely illegal, and possibly dangerous.  The old wood floor was shaking and creaking with the weight of everyone dancing.  Other parties at Still Life were a Halloween Party and Still Life Talent Show with performances by Brian, Sarah, Christi, and others. 

Then there was the Tango-Tapas inspired party with tango lessons and delicious tapas at Nancy’s house; the Lake Washington Boat Cruise with food and plenty of beer; the rock n’ roll party at the Mercury Club; the Louisiana Garden Party with zydeco dance lessons, roulette and craps tables, lawn croquet, Cajun-Creole food, and a hot tub which flooded my back yard; the Still Life Prom at the Rendezvous Tavern where, according to an unbiased observer, “Matt’s band, 8 the Sandbox, played and killed it with ACDC’s Live Wire;” The Sunset Bowl Party with karaoke, bowling, cocktails, and food; The Tropics Party; the Gypsy Costume Party with fortune tellers, tarot card readers, and belly dancing; and a Farewell for Tracy & Holiday Cocktail Party culminating in the presentation of the Men of Still Life Calendar (see above), all at my house.

PROBLEMS

There are always disasters in a restaurant, particularly with equipment breaking down at the most inopportune moment – like the walk-in cooler or any refrigerated unit breaking. We lived in fear of the health department arriving when something crucial was broken.  We always, however, got excellent marks when he did come, a very nice man who liked eating there.  The various espresso machines over the years were notoriously temperamental. When the dishwasher broke down it was a disaster because the dishes and glasses were never-ending. When we graduated from an under-the-counter bar dishwasher to a real commercial dishwashing unit, life was easier, and it was a test of character to see how many bus tubs full of dishes you could vanquish, particularly during the busy times. Once the men’s urinal wouldn’t shut off and we had a cascading flood of water catapulting down the back stairs. Our ever more complicated cash registers would occasionally break down, or the power would go out, always the worst scenario.  I remember using my handheld Casio to add up customers’ orders during the lunch rush.  This happened on several occasions and was a colossal problem.

More problematic issues involved the local heroin addicts shooting up in the bathrooms, and break-ins at 3 am. Going to Still Life at that time in the morning to assess any damage, reset the alarm, and deal with the police always made me cranky. We had a major theft one Fremont Fair weekend which was never resolved.  We had a great deal of money in the safe but someone knew the combination and made off with it.  We had other minor thefts which, I suppose, is to be expected in the business.  Given that we were pretty informal in our business approach, I’m surprised it didn’t happen more often. 

Before I became a little more sophisticated about theft, I once bought about 50 very good, used books, some first editions among them, and set them out in a bookcase in the alcove room, along with some games, one of them being an expensive Go (Weiqi) game.  In a matter of days, most of them had been taken.  They left the bookcase, however.

We were inundated with phone calls each day wanting to know what the specials were. One of the more frustrating problems I encountered was dealing with the phone company when I wanted to set up an automated phone system to simplify our lives and evade the phone calls.  It was one of the early systems where you pressed 1 to find out what the soups were, pressed 2 to speak to a person, etc. It took weeks of daily phone calls with the phone company to sort it out and get the system working.

Other mundane issues involved dealing with insurance companies, accountants, bookkeepers, and landlords. We always had lovely bookkeepers who tried to keep us abreast of our finances, but our accountants were more difficult and expensive to deal with. They were appalled that we didn’t take inventory every week. The idea of inventorying our stock was too overwhelming and we were lucky if we did it once a year. Today, that kind of thing would be much easier given that everything is computerized. On the topic of landlords, let me just say that there are landlords and there are landlords.  Our first one was fair and nice; the next one, not so much.  I became a firm believer in the maxim that you should always try to own the building that your business is in.

PRESS/REVIEWS

We had significant press coverage beginning with our first review in The North Seattle Press three months after we opened, and then frequent notices and reviews in both local papers, The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, along with John Hinterburger’s 1990 review in The Times. He was Seattle’s influential restaurant critic who said, in addition to a rave review:  “Still, for the life of me, I can’t think of why I hadn’t reviewed it years earlier.  Possibly because I’ve never associated it in my mind with ‘work’ or an assignment.  I’ve always just gone to eat, meet a friend, remember the 60s.”  A few comments from reviews are listed at the beginning of this post.

There were many “best of” awards, inclusion in cookbooks, awards from the City of Seattle, and an untranslatable article in a Japanese magazine.  We were featured in: The Seattle Post Intelligencer, The Seattle Times, The N. Seattle Press, The New York Times, Earshot Jazz, A Gourmet’s Notebook, PCC Sound Consumer,  The Weekly, The Stranger, Sunset Magazine, Seattle Magazine. Seattle Best Places, Best of Seattle, Pacific NW Magazine, USA Today, Toronto National Post, Southwest Airlines Spirit Magazine, Yoga Journal, Best Places-Seattle Cookbook, The Seattle Press, The North Central Outlook, Jazz Steps, The Falcon, NW Film Forum, Tablet, Zagat Guides, The NW Palette.

THE END

It was a wonderful brief moment in time – in Fremont and Seattle – more wild west than Camelot but it did have its “shining moment” on the hill. Nancy left the business in 1995, and I continued on for another 7 years.  In 2002 I sold the business to Bob D., an unfortunate decision driven by my landlord’s intention to double the rent. Gina, one of the managers on vacation when this happened, responded by saying:  “You sold Still Life to a MAN?”  Bob D. failed in his attempt to continue in the style of the place, and changed the name after a year.  He turned Still Life into a chi chi French bistro, went through numerous remodels, and ultimately went out of business.  Since then the space has had several other incarnations with different owners as an Italian restaurant, none of which succeeded.  It is now a sandwich place called Crumby’s.  The European mountain ash, the third iteration of the mural painted by Seattle artist, Parris, and Larry’s iron exterior fencing remain.  Eric’s handmade birdhouse residing in the upper reaches of the ash has disappeared.  My towering potted ficus tree and the City of Seattle bronze light fixtures have also vanished.

Most of us learned and benefitted from the experience of working there. I made many mistakes, but learned an enormous amount about food, and working with and managing people. I learned how to resolve the many details involved in running a successful restaurant — food and drink orders, menu planning, scheduling, employee issues, music and art scheduling, accounting issues, equipment repair and replacement issues, and more. As a teaching experience, it was unparalleled.  It was exciting, exhausting, exasperating, debilitating, and rejuvenating.  The highs and the lows were always intense. Should you hope for an uneventful life, do not go into the restaurant business. Modo Abitus Non Peritus  (merely departed not wholly perished), gone but not forgotten.

A FEW RECIPES

SOUPS

Chicken and Hominy Posole (8-10 servings)
1 cup chopped onion (½ large onion) 
1 cup chopped carrots (3 medium carrots) 
1 cup chopped celery (2-3 stalks celery)
2 TBSP chopped garlic
2 TBSP corn oil
4 cups water
2 cups chicken stock
3 large russet potatoes
1 cup chopped bell pepper
2 TBSP ground cumin (cut back on cumin if not a cumin lover)
1 TSP ground coriander
1 TSP chili powder
2 TSP dried oregano
2 bay leaves
⅛ TSP ground cloves
¼ TSP ground cinnamon
½ TSP pepper
1 TBSP corn oil
4 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
15.5 oz. can of drained hominy
14.5 oz. can chopped tomatoes
⅓ cup mild green chiles – fresh or canned
¼ cup lime juice (or more according to taste)
1 cup chopped cilantro
Crushed pepper flakes to taste

– In a soup pot, saute the first 4 ingredients in corn oil until onions are translucent.
– Add water and chicken stock.
– Add potatoes, bell peppers, herbs and spices and bring to a boil.  Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
– Quickly saute thighs in 1 TBSP corn oil until they are no longer pink. Cut into chunks.
– Add hominy, tomatoes, chilies, and chicken to the pot and simmer for another 30 minutes.
– Add lime juice, cilantro,and crushed chili flakes and cook for another 20 minutes, tasting all the while.
– Top with grated cheese or sour cream with a sprig of cilantro.

African Chicken, Spinach, Peanut Soup (8-10 servings)
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped celery
2 TBSP chopped fresh ginger
2 TBSP chopped garlic
2 TBSP vegetable oil
1 cup chopped roasted, shelled peanuts
Pinch of cayenne (or more)
Salt
Pepper
6 cups chicken stock
1 pound chopped sweet potatoes or yams (about 2)
28 oz. can of drained plum tomatoes
½ pound of spinach coarsely chopped
½ pound skinless, boneless chicken thighs cut into chunks
½ cup peanut butter (or more)
Crushed red pepper to taste

– Chop peanuts by hand or in a food processor.
– Saute first 5 ingredients in oil in a soup pot until onion is soft.
– Add ¾ cup of chopped peanuts, cayenne, salt and pepper.
– Stir in the stock and sweet potatoes and bring to boil. Then add tomatoes and spinach. Simmer for 30 minutes.
– Add chicken and continue to simmer for another 30 minutes.
– Stir in the peanut butter.  Taste and add more peanut butter if necessary.  Add crushed red peppers.
– Top with remaining ¼ cup of chopped peanuts and a sprig of cilantro.

SALADS
Smoked Turkey, Brown Rice, and Vegetable Salad in Creamy Soy-Balsamic Dressing (6 servings)

New Potato, Asparagus, Roasted Red Pepper, and Vegetable Salad with a Lemon, Tarragon Dressing
(serves 8 or more)

12 new potatoes
1 bunch asparagus
4 roasted red bell peppers
10 scallions
1 red onion, julienned
1 cup of sprouted salad munchies

– Boil the new potatoes whole for approximately 15 minutes or until tender when pierced with a knife.  When done, submerge in cold water and then drain. 
– Cook asparagus, preferably in an asparagus cooker, for 2 minutes and submerge in cold water and drain. 
– While the potatoes and asparagus are chilling (you can put them in the refrigerator), roast the red peppers on an open flame, but canned red roasted bells would also work.  At this point, peel the peppers and julienne.

For the Dressing:

1 bunch of fresh tarragon
The juice of two lemons and zest of one lemon
1 cup of cider vinegar
1 cup of olive oil
¼ cup of water
1 TBSP salt
1 TBSP pepper
½ cup minced garlic

– Add all ingredients for the dressing into a food processor and blend until smooth.  Then add the red onions, scallions, and the salad sprouts into the dressing to marinate.
– When the potatoes have chilled, cut them into quarters and place them into a salad bowl with the red peppers, asparagus, and the marinated vegetables.  Mix well and add more dressing as 
necessary.

OPEN FACE SANDWICH

Marinated Portobello Mushroom Open Face Sandwich with a Roasted Garlic and Carrot Aioli (serves 8)

For the Portobello Marinade:

8 portobello mushrooms, stems removed
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup balsamic vinegar
1 cup olive oil
1 minced bunch of thyme
Salt and lots of pepper

For the Aioli:

8 whole peeled carrots, chopped small
1 cup whole peeled garlic cloves
Approximately 2 cups of corn oil
1 TBSP salt

– Boil the carrots in water until very soft. Drain and transfer to the freezer.  At the same time, saute the garlic cloves in the 2 cups of oil until the cloves have lightly browned.  Immediately transfer the garlic in oil to the freezer to keep the garlic from cooking further. It is absolutely necessary that both items be cold before you puree them, or the oil will separate in the aioli.  
– Once the carrots, oil, and garlic are chilled, place the garlic, salt, and carrots in a food processor and puree until smooth.  Then slowly drizzle oil into the processor until you have the desired consistency.
– When you have thoroughly mixed the marinade, quickly submerge the mushroom caps in the marinade being careful not to soak them but make sure they are well coated.
– When the caps are well coated, place on a cookie sheet and then into an oven that has been pre-heated to 500 for about 8 minutes.
– Spread a generous amount of the aioli on the bread of your choice (a soft focaccia works well) topped with the marinated portobello cap.

DESSERTS

Fresh Rhubarb Cake (makes 18 pieces or more)

1 ¾ cups brown sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 TBSP vanilla
2 ¼ cup all purpose flour
2 TSP baking soda
1 TSP baking powder
1 TSP salt
1 TBSP cinnamon
1 TSP nutmeg
½ TSP allspice
3 cups chopped rhubarb (3-4 stalks)

– Combine the first 4 ingredients in a large bowl and whisk until well blended.
– Sift dry ingredients into a second bowl.  Combine and add to wet ingredients, until  just mixed.
– Fold in chopped rhubarb.  Pour and spread into a greased 9 x 13 inch baking pan.
– Bake at 350 for one hour or until done in center.  Check after 50 minutes.
– Let cool, and serve at room temperature with cinnamon ice cream.

Cream Cheese Brownies (makes 18 brownies or more)

Filling:

8 oz. cream cheese
⅓ cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg

8 oz butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
½ cup flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa
½ TSP salt

1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts

– Beat cream cheese in mixer until softened.  Add sugar and incorporate.  Add vanilla and 1 egg.  Chill 1 hour.  
– Cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs one at a time.
– Sift dry ingredients together.  Add walnuts.  Add to dry ingredients.
– Put ½ of chocolate mixture into greased 9 x 13 pan.  Spread evenly.  Top with cream cheese mixture.  Spread.  Top with remaining chocolate mixture.  Bake at 350 for 1 hour.  Check at 50 minutes with toothpick.  Makes 18 brownies or more.

Lemon Rosemary Biscotti (makes about 3 dozen)