Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • Page 58

64 THE HARTFORD COURANT Wednesday, October 1, 1997 CT COOKS Timothy Restaurant Has Staying Power Recipe Includes Great Food, A Persistent Owner N't i A i.ll.ii. ,1 I'i Otte, a recovering alcoholic who had been sober since 1985, considered abandoning the restaurant and moving to France "to drink and cook." Fortunately, the idea did not take hold. Otte stayed his course, stayed sober, and Timothy's endured. Since its refurbishing, Timothy's fairly sparkles. The walls are freshly whitewashed and offset by handsome forest-green trim.

Above the counter hangs a glorious mirror by Hartford glass artist Dennis Peabody, while works by other area artists adorn most walls. (The back wall remains reserved for the colorful, handwritten and often playfully illustrated papers that announce the day's menu additions). The stereo always features something interesting and not intrusive, and the staff, which generally includes some of Otte's relatives, is friendly and efficient (His longtime manager, niece Sarah Otte, is on maternity leave.) Outside the restaurant, there is also a small, landscaped herb garden installed by Otte's wife, Gail Glimpsed together with Otte at the center of the picture -Timothy's presents a scene of tremendous happiness, vitality and new growth. It is easy to interpret it as the rewards of a stubborn nature. Timothy's is at 243 Zion Hartford.

Call (860) 728-9822. KATHY HANLEY SPECIAL TO THE COURANT IS ANYONE OUT THERE? While Timothy's could use a few more customers, its the Zion Street location that the restaurant has occupied since 1 974. By DEBORAH HORNBLOW Courant Staff Writer Timothy Otte is standing in the doorway of his hot, windowless kitchen at the back of Timothy's restaurant in Hartford. He is politely negotiating for work space with his new baker, Ann LaPorte, ducking trays of hot chocolate-chip cookies and dodging nephew Jonathan Otte, who is making repeated trips to and from the counter ferrying fresh-baked bread and other supplies. Timothy Otte is answering a hail of questions, answering the phone and, in between, responding to salutations from some of his regular customers who sit leisurely sipping coffee, at nearby booths and counter stools.

Otte is also smiling and laughing a lot. It is a sound that spills out of him and is accompanied by an elfin gleam in the Dutch blue eyes of a native Midwesterner. "I feel very fortunate," he says, seeming at a loss to explain. "I have a wonderful life." For regulars of Timothy's, however, the fortune would seem to be their's. Since Otte and his first wife, Edna, opened the restaurant in 1974, Timothy's has been a populist's haven for home-cooked grub, comfy surroundings and easy-to-swallow prices.

The place attracts legions of Trinity College students, professors and administrators; legislators from nearby offices; and neighbors who make regular pilgrimages up the hill for fish cakes, Brunswick stew and Timothy's famous Black Magic Cake. In the evening, it is a favorite stop for intrepid filmgoers bound for Cinestudio or Real Art Ways. The success of Timothy's can surely be attributed to the good home cooking, but beyond that, there is the essential ingredient of Otte's stubborn mind. Since its founding, Timothy's has survived challenges from within and without. Its most constant opponent is its location.

A less willful man might long ago have moved Timothy's from Zion Street to a more central downtown address or to the perceived safety of the suburbs. But Otte continues to stand fast against the cycles of urban blight and revitalization that plague Hartford, and he and the restaurant continue to triumph. "Two or three years ago, I thought of moving. To Avon, West Hartford," he says. "But then we renovated." Otte also bought the building, and he is loosely considering plans for another renovation an expansion that would carve a new private dining room out of several spacious, unused back rooms.

His worst problem in the neighborhood is not crime but rather a "lack of customers," he laughs. The summer months, when Trinity is out of session and suburban flight from the city reaches a seasonal high, are particularly difficult. "When we started, Trinity was a part of our business," Otte explains. It now makes up the major portion of his clientele and has been augmented, in part, by a growing catering business. "One of the reasons I'm still here is we have wonderful customers," Otte says.

The survival of the restaurant was also briefly in question in 1986, the year Edna died of complications from post-polio syndrome. "Timothy's fish cakes are a big seller at the restaurant" Otte says. "In order to ensure their light and tasty qualities, it is best to have all of the ingredients prepped beforehand and ready to mix. Do not overmix." Woman Rediscovers Her Religion By Keeping Kosher owner, Timothy Otte, is committed to fish up enough to break it into inch pieces, or until mixture is evenly blended. In a blender or food processor, chop fine the saltines and place in a shallow bowl Form fish mixture into 8 cakes, and coat each cake in saltine crumbs.

Set on a large plate or cookie sheet, cover with plastic wrap and let rest in the refrigerator for 1 hour or more. Remove cakes from refrigerator 30 minutes before cooking. Pour 1-inch of vegetable oil into the bottom of a heavy skillet or electric fryer. Heat to 375 degrees (oil should be hot but not smoking, and a piece of fish cake should be met with small bubbles). Fry the cakes until golden brown on both sides and serve hot with tartar sauce and lemon.

Serves 4. Wine On The Web The Courant has a Web site with information on Connecticut's wineries. You'll find stories on 10 vineyards, tasting notes, recipes from some well-known restaurants and a place to share your opinions. The address is www.courant.com ding. Repeat layers until ingredients are used up.

Chill and serve. Serves 4 to 6. SPRITE POUND CAKE 3 cups sugar 3 sticks margarine or butter 6 eggs 3 cups flour 'A cup Sprite soda 3 teaspoons lemon flavoring Cream sugar and margarine until smooth. Add one egg at a time, beating after each addition. Add flour and stir to combine.

Combine soda and lemon flavoring, add to flour mixture and mix until smooth. Turn into a greased and floured tube pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 60 minutes. Cool at room temperature and serve. Makes 1 cake.

By UZ STEVENS Knight-Ridder Newspapers Elizabeth Ehrlich's craving began slowly, innocently: a renewed awareness of her family's roots, an itch to pass on tradition, a sudden dislike for shellfish. Before long, her kitchen was kosher. Ehrlich didn't grow up in a devout Jewish household, but marrying TIMOTHYS FISH CAKES ml pound cod 1 cup white wine 2 cups fresh bread crumbs Vi cup chopped onion 3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley 2 chopped scallions ml egg 3 tablespoons flour 4 tablespoons Dijon mustard 3 tablespoons lemon juice 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon pepper teaspoon Worcestershire sauce Tabasco, to taste 12 saltine crackers Vegetable oil, for frying Lemon slices Tartar sauce, optional In a shallow roasting pan, cover the fish with the white wine, and cook it in a 350-degree oven until it are out. Most nonreligious Jews and Reform Jews, and even some Conservative Jews, do not keep kosher kitchens. Ehrlich's parents, nonreligious Jews, paid heed to their kosher roots but were less than rigorous about the foods they ate.

Ehrlich spent her college years rebelling against organized religion, suppressing vestiges of her Jewishness. But soon there came a growing desire to raise her children in a kosher home, to ward 1 bell pepper, chopped 8 to 10 mushrooms, sliced l'A cup cold water Beat together milk and egg, and dip each chop into mixture. Sprinkle garlic salt and pepper over chops. Combine 1 cup flour and seasoned salt in a plastic bag. Put chops in bag and shake until coated with flour mixture.

Heat peanut oil in a large skillet, and fry chops in oil until golden brown. Remove to a plate. In another skillet melt butter and sauteonion, pepper and mushrooms until tender. Remove from heat and set aside. Pour off all but 4 tablespoons of the fat left in the pork chop skillet Over medium heat, sprinkle the remaining Vi cup flour over the oil, stirring until the mixture becomes a brown is cooked through, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Remove from oven, and set aside. Remove fish from poaching liquid, reserving the broth. Chop bread crumbs in either a food processor or blender. (Using fresh bread to make the crumbs will make all the difference. The fish cakes will have less volume if dry crumbs are used.) Transfer to a large mixing bowl, and add finely chopped onion, parsley, and scallions.

Add the egg, flour, mustard, lemon juice, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco. Mix the ingredients just until combined. Add cooked fish and cup of the poaching liquid. (Reserve the remaining poaching liquid in the freezer for another use.) Mix the off assimilation, to see Judaism as a way of living and not necessarily a God-centered belief system "It has always been the religion of the home that compelled me, not that of the public sphere," she writes in one of the last chapters. "My heritage was the kitchen, and holiday, and attitude, the atmosphere that my grandmothers were able to protect and transmit against odds, through time." paste.

Stir in cold water, then bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Add vegetables to sauce and cook for 15 to 20 minutes. Add chops to sauce and simmer over low heat for 10 to 15 minutes. Makes 4 to 8 servings, depending on appetites. BANANA PUDDING 4-serving size lemon pudding and pie filling 1 lemon 1 box Vanilla Wafers 3 ripe bananas Prepare lemon pudding as directed on package.

When thickened, squeeze lemon juice and grate lemon rind into pudding. Mix well. Cover a fiat-bottomed bowl with Vanilla Wafers. Pour enough pudding into bowl to cover the wafers. Layer sliced banana on top of pud Film Captures Power Of Home Cooking To Heal Souls mer squash A kosher kitchen requires relentless dedication and intense labor two sets of dishes, pots, knives, cutting boards and other tools.

One set is reserved for meat products, the other for milk products, and never the twain shall meet At least not during the same meal Kosher mammals those with cloven hooves and ruminant stomachs must be killed and blessed according to religious standards. Chickens are in, shrimp Fox, who plays Mother Joe's daughter, Maxine. Jeffrey D. Sams portrays Kenneth, Marine's husband and Ahmad's father. His recipe is for Banana Pudding.

Vanessa Williams is Teri in the film, Mother Joe's oldest daughter. Williams' recipe is for Sprite Pound Cake. VIVICA'S SMOTHERED AND COVERED CHOPS 4 to 8 beef or pork chops 'A cup milk I egg Garlic salt and pepper to taste l'A cups flour Seasoned salt to taste l'i cups peanut oil 'A stick butter 1 white onion, chopped into a family where tradition is the essence of life and where her effusive mother-in-law, Miriam, presides over the ancestral culinary customs stirs a latent hunger. In "Miriam's Kitchen" (Viking, Ehrlich takes her readers on a compelling journey with food as the vehicle for self-discovery. Recipes a couple of dozen pepper the narrative: sweet-and-sour cabbage, latkes, mandel bread, cholent sum guage, and a few sexual situations but I wanted to be as real as possible.

I wanted to show how families can fall apart" The writerdirector likens his film to the movies made in Hollywood 30 years ago. "It's not really about who can drive the fastest car," he says of the current trend towards action films. "It's about how we talk to each other. I want people to be entertained, but I hope they go home and say, 'I'm going to call my Sharing a meal is a focal point throughout the movie for a specific reason. "During slavery, after working all day, all we had was cooking to heal the sorrow and pain," Tillman says.

The first recipe for Smothered and Covered Chops is from Vivica A. Continued from Page G1 dinner scenes," he says. "We broke down what particular foods would be on the table for each dinner. We did a lot of flashback scenes and used foods popular in that time." Petros would prepare the food before shooting began, then arrange it for Tillman and the crew to study and correct the lighting. "There was a lot of color on the table candied yams and collard greens," Tillman says.

The actors weren't immune to the aromas and flavors of the food. "Vanessa Williams and Vivica Fox complained about putting on a few pounds," the director says. "We'd have to do take after take after take of the dinner scenes." Filming the dinners made the memories of his grandmother's dinners come alive again for Tillman. In recent years, as Kincaid's health failed, the dinners were no longer a weekly event Tillman's grandmother died last year just after Thanksgiving while the director was filming "Soul Food." What Tillman remembers most about his grandmother is her strength and wisdom "That's why I made the film through the eyes of a 10-year-old kid," he says. Tillman deliberately empowered the young Ahmad to bring together the "Soul Food" family.

"I tell it from the point of view of the new generation, how we should take over these traditions and move forward," he says. "The family almost completely falls apart until the younger person takes over. I did that purposely, because sometimes kids are a lot smarter than we are. He Ahmad listens to everything his grandmother has to say." Tillman says he has made a family movie, although the rating may not make it appropriate for younger children. "There is some bad lan Are you pregnant? If so, we would like to talk to you.

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