table talk / By Bob Doran

Reinventing the Spaghetti Feed

(Jan. 28, 2010)  When I started working on the Journal‘s calendar about 10 years ago, I was given a rule: We don’t list pancake breakfasts — and no spaghetti feeds. The thought was that there were just too many of them. I eventually changed the policy. It turned out that there weren’t all that many pancakes being flipped, and lately, spaghetti feeds seem to have become a rarity. Perhaps because they’re seen as too boring, they’ve been supplanted by “gourmet” dinners offering more exotic fare.

But parents of children attending Redwood Coast Montessori, a one-room, 17-student charter school in Cooper’s Gulch, are set on changing that rep. They’re reinventing the spaghetti feed — adding a gourmet twist by turning it into a cooking contest they call “I’m Feeling Saucy!”

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“When we were talking about what to do for a fundraiser someone suggested a spaghetti feed,” said Carole Crossley, one of the R.C. Montessori parents organizing the event. “My husband and I have been doing fundraising for different organizations for decades and we know, if you just make a couple of hundred dollars, that’s a failure. Even if you make $500, that’s a failure because of all the hours you put in. I thought, how can we make this different and make it so that there are more dollars coming in the door?” Thus the contest with 30 cooks, each supplying two quarts of sauce (not just red sauce) and paying $20 to enter. (They also get two tickets, which would cost $20.) Crossley figures, “If someone enters, that’s two quarts of sauce we didn’t have to make.”

The sauciers will compete for cash prizes this Saturday, with $100 for first place. Among the judges is Yvette Troyna of Sweet Basil Catering, a business she runs out of Loleta cooking for events all over the county offering, she promises, “great service, great food and no drama.”

Her judging criteria? “I know what people look for in the food I prepare, so I’ll be looking for complexity in flavors and creativity, you know — something different.”

As far as her own pasta preparation, she likes to keep it simple. “I made up this sauce; I don’t even have a name for it. You start with butter and olive oil, add some fresh garlic, deglaze with wine, toss in your [cooked] pasta, add some cheese — pecorino or Romano — on top, and of course I always like to use fresh sweet basil.”

The contestants who have registered so far seem a varied lot. Among them is Eureka City Councilman Jeff Leonard, whose wife Michelle is a parent volunteer helping to organize the contest. She said she’s not sure what sauce Jeff will prepare. “Knowing Jeff, he’ll probably wait ‘til the night before,” she said.

Chef Jon Hoeschen from Cher-Ae Heights Casino’s Sunset Restaurant plans on preparing a classic Italian Bolognaise-style sauce. “I’ll feature some local grass-fed beef for the ground beef part and I’ll fancy it up with some sun-dried tomatoes and roasted garlic,” he said, noting that it’s not a dish he typically makes at the restaurant, although they do a pasta marinara dish on the kids menu, “and I’ll sometimes run that as a dinner special.”

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