Dave’s Tortilla Soup for a Crowd.
In Good Taste
Taste Makers
Our Seattle Design 100+ honorees bring their elegance and sense of simplicity into the kitchen as they share their most beloved, go-to meals
BY
Becky Selengut
PHOTOGRAPHY
Angie Norwood Browne

STYING BY
Jean Galton

They’ve been profiled in these pages before. We’ve celebrated their creative footprints in the local, national and international design world, and now we take the time to peek into the kitchens of several Seattle Design 100+ honorees. Though they range from a fine furniture dealer to a home builder, the honorees we interviewed picked surprisingly simple, accessible, down-home sorts of dishes. “In cooking, as in all the arts, simplicity is the sign of perfection,” said the French gastronome Curnonsky. When we have excellent materials—whether food, wood or fabrics—with which to work, restraint really allows natural beauty to come to the fore. Read on and see what creative ideas are simmering in the pots of our Seattle Design 100+ honorees.

 Dave’s Tortilla Soup for a Crowd

Courtesy Dave Masin, Masins Fine Furnishings and Interior Design

Dave Masin joined the family business in 2001, bringing with him communications and management degrees and some contemporary savvy. “My mom is an excellent cook,” Dave says, with a touch of pride. “She tends to cook more mainstream, traditional dishes, so when I presented her with a bowl of tortilla soup, it was her first.” He's adapted this Mexican recipe to his own tastes, tinkering here and there to leave his imprint. Turns out that she absolutely loves it and now requests it often.

Plenty of recipes are well suited for Seattle’s winter days, but few conjure up the flavor of Mexico’s sunshine quite as effectively as Dave’s Tortilla Soup. “Great for rainy Sunday afternoons, this soup will serve many people with leftovers,” he says.

Aussie Mixed Grill

Courtesy Jeff Santerre, president, Prestige Custom Builders, Inc.

Jeff and Teresa Santerre, co-owners of Prestige Custom Builders, Inc., do a lot of entertaining. They often gather with friends and family around a stone fireplace outside their 1906 Seward Park home. According to Jeff, a beautiful home with wonderful landscaping is complete—“inside and out”—when good wine and food are shared there. “This may seem like an obscene meat-lovers plate,” he says of his favorite recipe, suggesting a superfresh organic green salad to serve alongside it to lighten up the meal. (Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with a meat-lovers plate, mind you.)

“I generally get all the ingredients that I need at Leschi Food Mart,” Jeff says. “They have a great fresh meat market and perhaps the best prices on quality wines. They make a spicy fennel sausage that works well for this recipe. While you are there, pick up a good Australian Shiraz. You won't need it for the recipe, but you will want to drink it while you cook.”

Helen’s Famous Apple Cake

Courtesy David Pfeiffer, Garden Architecture, Inc.

When garden designer David Pfeiffer creates a garden, he often pays special attention to the fragrance of the plants, lulling visitors in nose-first. So it was hardly a surprise when he shared a recipe that pulls us in with the most American of smells: apples and cinnamon. David’s recipe calls for sweet, homey fruit tucked into layers of rich batter, with or without walnuts, and comes from his mother-in-law, Helen, though he admits the recipe has been around for so long, no one really knows its origins.

Despite its sketchy pedigree, the cake’s versatility (“works for both dessert or brunch, with ingredients you often have around the house,” David says) and crowd-pleasing quality (not overly sweet, it pairs well with many cuisines) makes it one of his favorites.

Grilled Portabella Mushrooms

Courtesy Leatrice Eiseman, colorexpert.com

Leatrice Eiseman, best-selling author and color expert, shares with us a simple, rustic mushroom dish inspired by her aunt and mentor, an avowed “health food nut.” Eiseman is the “color whisperer” of the design world and suggests that the earth tone of mushrooms is part of its appeal.  She prefers to keep this dish garnish-free, highlighting the organic, natural color by contrasting it with an accompanying salad of arugula and red cabbage.  For a subtle contrast, she suggests pairing the mushrooms and salad with aubergine (eggplant) – a “classic and sophisticated” accompaniment.

How to Boil Water

Courtesy Ginny Ruffner, ginnyruffner.com

“I eat but I don’t cook,” says world-renowned glass artist Ginny Ruffner. Conversing with Ginny, you get the sense that she is the real deal, refreshingly down-to-earth and straightforward. It is with this spirit that she guides us, tongue only somewhat in cheek, through her recipe for boiling water. “Everything in the world is funny,” she says. All the same, many things in cooking can’t be taken for granted. In days past, cookbooks told our grandparents to cook meats “until done.” Our foremothers and fathers knew exactly what that meant. In our postmodern culinary age, when what many people “make” for dinner is reservations, we have Ginny to thank for teaching us the basics.

“Many noncooks, when quizzed about their culinary skills, often give the standard reply, ‘I don’t even know how to boil water!’ ” Ginny explains. “Sensing a pervasive and unaddressed need, I offer this crucial recipe.”