THE RENAISSANCE MAN OF STELLA'S CAFE by ROB LOUGHRAN Greg Hallihan spends more time outside the kitchen than any chef I've ever seen. During the course of this interview he not only cooked us lunch, he: started two stockpots (one vegan, the other chicken/veal), installed a new faucet in the ladies room, planted chives and basil in the Café's organic herb garden, handled a dozen phone calls, and dealt with two wine purveyors. I was going to ask him, jokingly, to change my oil but he might have done it. Stella's Café is located between Sebastopol and Forestville on Highway 116. It faces vineyards and is ringed by an apple orchard. (Employee parking is in the orchard.) It's a funky-cutesy-little-place with an exhibition kitchen featuring counter seating for six, a patio that is densely and eclectically landscaped, a front dining room with a beautiful custom-made tanoak table, the back dining room resembles nothing more than a pre-WW II dining car. Authentic wooden Bodhisattvas lounge in the corners. The building originally housed exhibits at Treasure Island's World Fair and has in previous incarnations (so the Bodhisattvas do make sense) been a garage, several different restaurants, and local legend has it, a whorehouse. And Greg's menus-they change every two weeks-are as varied as the dŽcor. During the interview we sampled an al dente angel hair pasta with mussels, clams, scallops, and prawns in a delicately seasoned lobster jus. Then a mixed grill that featured brilliant colors, textures, and flavors. On a plate just slightly smaller than a garbage can lid were a sliced and fanned grilled pork tenderloin stacked on spicy Cuban black beans, topped with a papaya avocado salsa; a pan seared-tender, juicy-chicken breast on a nest of pine-nut/basmati rice, anointed with a nectarine chutney; finishing the trio was a grilled hanger steak with a veal demiglace nestled on delicious pinot mash potatoes. These potatoes were wine colored and according to Greg, "I think that they are the result of a collision in the kitchen. I can't recall reading a recipe or making a conscious decision to come up with something like this. But it seems to work for our clientele. I've since experimented with sake and wasabi mashed potatoes that we pair with grilled ahi. That also seems to work." Greg, mid-forties, pony-tailed, constantly smiling crookedly as if he's enjoying a private joke is a Marin County boy. A Drake high school graduate, 1975, he is a low handicap golfer, a bluegrass aficionado and justly proud of Stella's. A graduate of the California Culinary Academy he has cooked at the Manila Bay Hotel on Lanai, helped open the Maui Ritz Carleton, cooked at Brightsen's in New Orleans, and was sous chef at Santa Rosa's Café Lolo's and at the Willowside Café with Richard Allen. We finished up with salads, and as good as the lunch was, the house salad is like cheating and having dessert first. It's simply crisp organic greens with Gorgonzola, port plumped cranberries, toasted hazelnuts, all in a housemade maple syrup balsamic dressing. The Caesar was unchopped hearts of Romaine with big crunchy croutons-no anchovy-topped with an aged Vella jack cheese. We finished with a duck, chevre, and black mission fig salad with arugula and pepper cress done in a walnut basil vinaigrette. The next evening, at his urging, I returned to sample Greg's vegan cooking. After the three hour banquet I'd thoroughly enjoyed I thought I'd be disappointed. After a delicious vegan corn chowder I had a roasted Portbello mushroom on top of a Beluga lentil pilaf, sauced with a smoked tomato olive salsa. Greg proved to me that vegan isn't necessarily synonymous with tasteless. "You have to play around with flavors and textures to get it right. We use the smoker a lot with our vegan stuff, and it seems to work." What's with the name Stella's? He smiled that crookwards smile: "When I worked in New Orleans for Frank Brightsen-that's where I learned to cook gumbo-the highest praise he could bestow was stellar. But with his crazy-ass accent it came out stella. He's a great guy, I always cook a shift at his place for old time's sake when I'm in New Orleans for the blues festival, so I figured what the hell Stella's. Plus it's a woman's name, it's one word and everybody remembers the scene with Brando from Streetcar." How about a one sentence description of your cooking style? Greg was ready for this one: "White soul food." What's up with the cheap wine prices? "It's a geographically driven list. Predominantly Russian River Valley so it runs to Pinot and Chardonnay. But the people who make these wines: Tom Sellards, and Paul Hobbs; Dan Goldfield, Chris Loxton, Todd Williams, Carol Shelton they're my friends and neighbors. We're all West County business people. I do good they do good; they do good I do good. Several times a year we do mid-week five and six course winemaker dinners. In October, for our fifth anniversary we're doing a beermaker dinner with the Moonlight Brewing Company." I passed on dessert, opting for a draft Moonlight Brewery's Death and Taxes Ale, but the gregarious group at the counter ("My Counter Culture," Greg called them) enjoyed a chocolate roulade, a hot peach-cherry crisp, and a vanilla bean creme brulee. All housemade. Another feature of Stella's that sets it apart is the music. Every twenty minutes Greg fine tunes the stereo. In the few hours I spent there I heard the Sub Dudes, Bela Fleck, John Hiatt, Tom Waits, John Hartford, Cab Calloway, Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66, Allison Kraus and Union Station, The Iguanas, Miles Davis, Ralph Stanley, Charlie Parker, The Supremes, Louis Armstrong, and Bonnie Raitt. Incidentally, Greg is peripherally related to Bonnie: her brother married Greg's sister. I thanked Greg for two great days, got a big bear hug and asked him, "What's next for you?" Someday," he winked, "I'd like to direct." The menu at Stella's changes every two weeks (Greg describes himself as a Fresh-o-Phile) so check out the latest menu on their website: stellascafe.net. To find Stella's take 101 north or south to Guerneville Road. Drive west until you can't drive any farther; Guerneville Road ends at Highway 116. Turn right and in 100 yards you'll see a sign on the left Mom's Apple Pie. Stella's is in the same building with Mom's and they share the parking lot. The address is 4550 Gravenstein (116) Highway, but look for the Mom's sign. Dinners from 5:30. Reservations recommended: 707.823.6637 Rob Loughran's second novel Norman Babbit, Scientist will be published in November by Café Press. His first novel High Steaks won the 2002 New Mystery Award. However his lifetime goal of being published in Mad Magazine still eludes himÉ