In Search of Good Food

Pamela Rinella, who as a child spent summers on a farm in Longswamp Township, serves Pennsylvania Dutch meals to customers who drive up a mountain to get to her cafe near Tucson, Ariz.

SHE WAS BORN a German butcher’s daughter. As a young girl, Pamela A. Meyers watched her father, the late Tommy S. Meyers, smoke meats and prepare his own tasty blend of sausage for his butcher shops in Allentown.

By the time she was 9, she made her first ring bologna.

Today, Pamela Rinella, 62, owner of The Mount Lemmon Cafe, smokes meats and makes homemade sausages as a hobby at her home in Summer Haven Village on top of Mount Lemmon near Tucson, Ariz.

She continues to use her first husband’s last name, Rinella, though she is now married to Martin Mollo.

Driven by a desire to have the best-tasting foods available for people without asking them to pay $200 a plate for it, Rinella purchased the cafe in 1986 with Mollo.

She began cooking for a living in 1972 and had worked at several restaurants before going into business for herself.

Her decision was based on a deep-rooted philosophy.

“I wanted to work with fresh foods and wasn’t able to do that working for someone else,” she said.

Her specialty is Pennsylvania Dutch cooking.

Rinella has her own definition of what goes on in her kitchen.

“It’s fresh food made into something that tastes good and it’s to die for,” said Rinella, who cooks from sunup to sundown to keep her cafe — a three-star AAA destination restaurant — stocked year-round with homemade deep-dish fruit pies, German meat platters, soups and sandwiches.

Her love of feeding people is inherited from her father, whose last store was open for 20 years — from 1970 to August 1991 — in a small redbrick smokehouse next to Moselem Springs Inn, Richmond Township.

“He loved his meat stores like I love my cooking,” said Rinella, whose Pennsylvania Dutch cooking reflects a way of life years ago on a Berks County farm.

When she was a young girl, Rinella and her family left their primary residence in Hamilton Park, Allentown, to live during the summer on the Romig farm, a 35-acre property in Longswamp Township once owned by distant relatives on her mother’s side.

The farm had fields of wheat and corn, a Baldwin apple orchard, dairy cows, chickens and hogs.

Every family member had a chore that had something to do with putting food on the table.

“I saw it my very youngest years,” Rinella said. “We worked with what came into the kitchen from the fields.”

The biggest meal was served at noon; all leftovers would be put out at 6 or 7 p.m. for supper.

A typical Pennsylvania Dutch meal back then would have been two meats of either chicken, groundhog, pheasant or pork; both sweet and sour pickles; apple butter; cottage cheese; chowchow; potatoes; and two to three vegetables.

Pie or cake would be served for dessert.

“These experiences are my taste library,” Rinella said. “I think these things, the tastes come to me and I put it in a pot.”

MOUNT LEMMON CAFE

It’s about an hour’s drive on the Catalina Highway from Tucson to the cafe — at a height of more than 9,000 feet above sea level — in the Coronado National Forest.

It is the only public road to get there.

The trip appeals to hungry travelers who are looking for a respite from the desert heat in the cool mountain air.

The cafe, with indoor and outdoor seating for 65, is open for breakfast and lunch.

Rinella prepares all the foods herself, working from 8 a.m. until 11:30 p.m. to make sure her guests have sauerkraut for Reuben sandwiches, boiled potatoes for hot German potato salad and peeled and cut apples for pies made from scratch.

Because most Pennsylvania Dutch recipes are passed along generations by word of mouth, exact ingredients are typically not known (except for breads and pies).

“I have a thought, a taste and a memory and the ingredients come to me,” Rinella said. “It’s not a written thing.”

Summer is her busiest time of year, bringing in weekly sales of about $15,000 with just four full-time employees.

Despite its huge success, the cafe has had its shares of setbacks.

In 2003, a fire destroyed half the village, causing many of its 100 full-time residents to move out of the area. The only two buildings left standing were the cafe and post office.

The biggest hurdle has been highway closings due to construction.

“I had just opened this little restaurant when the federal highway people told me they were going to close the road,” Rinella said. “I didn’t know what to do, so I called my father and he said, ‘If you cook as good as your mother and if they love your food, they will climb over the rocks to eat it.’ ”

And he was right. People make the drive up the mountain just for Rinella’s deep-dish sourcream apple pie, the same pie her mother, the late Mildred M. (Unger) Meyers, made at home.

“She called it a ‘fussy pie,’ ” said Rinella, who keeps the pie recipe a secret.

The cafe is operating at full capacity every day since the highway reopened in June.

RECIPES

Pork and Sauerkraut
makes 6 servings

• 4 pounds pork shoulder or country-style spare ribs
• 2 pounds sauerkraut from the refrigerated section (not canned)
• 1 teaspoon caraway seeds or to taste
• Salt and pepper to taste

Place the pork in a large kettle and add water to cover. Cover tightly and simmer on low for about 4 hours until the meat is very tender and almost falling apart. Do not throw out the pork broth. Remove pork and set to the side. Add sauerkraut and caraway seeds to pork broth and cook for 1 hour on a low simmer. Return meat to the pork broth and sauerkraut. Serve with mashed potatoes and applesauce. Cook’s note: Never allow the water to boil if you want to get a clear broth and tender meat. Also, a low simmer brings out flavor.

Mildred Meyers’ Raisin Pie
makes 1 pie

• 1 cup raisins (brown or white seedless)
• 2 cups water
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 4 1/2 tablespoons flour
• 1 large egg well beaten
• 1 lemon (juice)
• 2 tablespoons lemon zest (minced rind)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Soak raisins in water, cover and let stand for 3 hours (can use apple cider as a substitute for water). Combine the water, sugar, flour, salt, lemon juice and rind and egg. Mix thoroughly and cook over hot water using a double boiler for 15 minutes stirring occasionally. Let cool.

Make pie crust mix as directed (Rinella uses Crisco pie crust recipe that can be found on the back of a Crisco can) for a 9-inch 2-crust pie.

Lay the rolled-out pastry dough in the pie pan and brush with butter. Roll remaining pastry dough and cut into 10 strips, each about 1/2 inch wide. Put raisin mixture into pan and place 5 strips across the filling. Weave a cross-strip through by first folding back every other strip of the first 5 strips. Continue weaving, folding back alternate strips before adding each cross-strip, until lattice is complete.

Fold trimmed edge of bottom crust over ends of strips, building up a high edge. Brush lightly with egg whites and sprinkle with granulated or coarse sugar before baking. Place on a cookie sheet (to collect juices) and bake in 450-degree oven on the middle rack for about 10 to 15 minutes. Lower the temperature to 350-degrees and bake for another 30 minutes. Serve with French vanilla ice cream.

Cook’s tip: For easy rolling dough, make a loose dough ball, cover it with a piece of plastic and refrigerate for 2 hours. Before rolling, firmly press down on the ball and roll it out.

Tommy Meyers’ Mince Meat Pie (modern version)
makes 3 pies

Meat and fruit filling:

• 4 pounds coarsely ground beef (no sirloin or round steak)
• 4 pounds sugar
• 2 1/2 pounds diced suet (do not substitute butter)
• 2 pounds raisins
• 2 pounds chopped currants
• 1/2 pound of chopped candied peel (red, green and orange)
• 1/2 pound chopped citron (in abundance in supermarkets before Thanksgiving)
• 6 pounds of tart green apples (peeled, cored and diced)
• 1 tablespoon cloves
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon all spice
• 2 tablespoons nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 4 oranges (juice and minced rind)
• 4 lemons (juice and minced rind)
• 4 ounces candied cherries (cut in half)
• 1 quart brandy
• 2 quarts whiskey Put meat in a small amount of water in a kettle or crock pot with lid.

Simmer until done or no longer pink. Do not boil the meat. Put in a container with lid and refrigerate overnight. The next day, break the meat apart with your hands and put in a big bowl. Add sugar, raisins, currents and citron and mix together. Next add spices, suet and remaining fruit. Salt to taste. Mix thoroughly. Add the fruit juices (no seeds) and minced rind, brandy, whiskey and apples and mix thoroughly.

Put mixture into a suitably sized container, cover and refrigerate for 3 weeks (in the old days, or early 1900s, the mixture was put in a closed container and stored in cool dark place and not the refrigerator).

After 3 weeks, the mixture has enough flavor and adjustments can be made. If needed, add more salt, sugar, lemon juice, apples or spices. Put the mixture back into the refrigerator for another week before baking.

Pie crust: Make pie-crust mix as directed (Rinella uses Crisco pie-crust recipe that can be found on the back of a Crisco can) for a 9-inch 2-crust pie.

Lay the rolled-out pastry in the pie pan, brush with butter and add the filling. Roll remaining pastry dough and using a cookie cutter, cut a piece out of the center and remove. Lay pastry dough over mince-meat in pie shell and replace the cut piece in the center of the pie to allow for steam to rise. Fold and roll top edge of pastry under lower edge, pressing on rim to seal. Brush the pie with egg white and sprinkle with granulated or coarse sugar before baking. Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes on the middle rack in a 350-degree oven. Serve warm from oven for dessert.

Optional: For individual servings, lift crust and pour Meyers dark rum over mince-meat filling. 

Cook’s note: Save and freeze any mince meat that is left over.

Originally published in Reading Eagle Newspaper, December 2006.