This Chef Serves All Who Are Hungry

Every Monday and Thursday evening, Jane Pettibone serves dinner to 200 of her closest friends at one of the most inclusive dining rooms in Spokane.

Reservations aren’t required. There are no separate checks, because there aren’t any checks; the food is free. And as for a dress code, forget it.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a millionaire or if you have zero. Everyone is welcome here and they’re treated just the same,” says Pettibone, meals ministry director for Central United Methodist Church’s Shalom Zone.

The dinners in the downtown church’s gymnasium are part of an effort to reach out to its often-struggling neighbors.

“We don’t call them homeless, dirty, drunks,” Pettibone says. “They are our guests.”

Whatever you call them, don’t call them late to dinner. The door closes promptly at 5:30 p.m. Stragglers are sent away with a sack lunch and a reminder to be more prompt next time.

“This isn’t a restaurant where you can walk in any time,” says Pettibone. “This is a sit-down family meal.”

Pettibone, 42, has been part of the Central United family since moving here from Denver at age 11. While she remembers big church dinners back then, her interests were strictly on the receiving end.

“I would much rather have mowed the lawn (than cook),” Pettibone says. “I knew how to unclog the toilet, build a fire, by the time I was 5.”

But after she got married and moved to Mississippi, Pettibone discovered that store-bought bread was downright inedible compared to the homemade loaves she grew up with.

“I called my mom and said, `Teach me to make bread,”’ Pettibone laughs. “She said, `Over the phone?’ I said, `Yes!”’

Before long, Pettibone was learning the ropes at potlucks from some skilled Southern cooks. After returning to Spokane in 1981, she used church connections to land a job as a baker at the old Grape and Grain downtown.

In the mid-‘80s, she was hired as a hostess at the Spokane Club. But she wasn’t allowed in the kitchen until she passed out homemade goodies to her co-workers as Christmas presents.

“Everyone said, `Why are we wasting her talents out there?”’ Pettibone recalls.

She learned to make large batches of soup, using whatever was left around the kitchen. “I could do whatever I wanted as long as there was clam chowder on Friday,” she says.

Pettibone moved to Seattle in 1988 and went to work “slopping cakes” - 200 to 500 a day - at a Mediterranean deli. She studied classic French pastry-making at Seattle Central Community College and became a pastry chef at the Sheraton, helping to put out lavish dessert buffets.

“I learned a lot about cooking in quantity,” she says.

She also learned a lot about surviving on a shoestring. Pettibone’s troubled marriage failed following her fourth child.

“The food bank kept us alive,” she says. “I learned how to cook with what they gave me. I had 10 years’ worth of experience doing gourmet food on a food bank budget.”

That experience proved invaluable when Pettibone again returned to Spokane in November 1997, trying to regroup. She was offered the Shalom Zone job at the end of last May - less because of her cooking skills, Pettibone figures, than the fact she was a “daughter of the church.”

With an older, conservative congregation, tensions sometimes surfaced over the church’s increasing activism downtown. “They thought I could be a bridge between the traditional church and the meals ministry program,” Pettibone says.

She has, with a little help. Beyond a paid part-time assistant, Jerry Schwab, Pettibone relies on volunteers - anywhere from five to 70 on a given day.

Servers, who often include members of area youth groups, are encouraged not to rush. “We tell them, `Make that person feel special. You may be the only smile they see. You may be the only person they talked to today,”’ Pettibone says.

The benefits flow in both directions. “I learned they’re just like we are,” one teen confided after finishing a shift. Says Pettibone: “It was his life that changed that night.”

Depending on donations, Pettibone’s menus can be as unpredictable as her helpers. If a pickup load of potatoes shows up that afternoon, spuds show up on the plates that night.

“Manna from heaven - people don’t think that happens these days,” she says. “Two weeks ago, manna arrived in the form of portobello mushrooms, two flats of them, on a day when I was making spaghetti sauce with mushrooms.”

Pettibone makes the best of what she gets. Her Healthy Chicken and Stars Soup, homespun and wholesome with fresh flavors, was the winner at a recent cookoff among agencies that receive food from the Spokane Food Bank.

As part of the prize, Pettibone will serve the soup alongside food samples from leading local restaurants at the Food Bank’s “Taking a Bite Out of Hunger” fund-raiser next Wednesday evening at the Spokane Arena.

“It will be my one-year anniversary here,” she says. “Is that a cool way to end your year?”

And while some people still ask when she’s going to get a real job, Pettibone thinks she’s found her place.

Shortly after her arrival, she says, “I saw a note someone put up that said, `Janie will be here at such-and-such a time.’ I hadn’t been called Janie in 25 years. I knew then that I had come home.”

Healthy Chicken and Stars Soup

Multiply this recipe by 16 to serve 200 of your closest friends.

Chicken and stock:

1 whole chicken

Salt and pepper to taste

2 carrots, quartered

1 onion, quartered

4 celery stalks, quartered

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon granulated garlic

Soup:

2 cups carrots, cut into strips

2 cups celery, sliced

2 cups onions, cut into 1/2-inch dice

Olive oil or butter

Granulated garlic, to taste

Sage, to taste

Dill, to taste

1 (1-pound) bag frozen mixed vegetables

1 (15-ounce) can corn, undrained

1 cup uncooked star-shaped pasta

1 (1-pound) bag frozen snow peas

Additional chicken broth or bouillon, as necessary

1 to 2 teaspoons poultry seasoning

2 tablespoons parsley, chopped

Croutons for garnish

Place chicken in large baking dish, season with salt and pepper and cover 1/2 to 3/4 of the way with water. Add carrot, onion, celery, bay leaf and garlic. Cover dish and bake at 350 degrees 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Remove bones from chicken, cut meat into cubes and refrigerate. (For extra flavor, cook bones in stock in a large soup pot for another 2 to 8 hours, until bones are bleached white.) Strain stock, cool and remove fat.

Saute carrots, celery and onions in olive oil or butter, seasoning with garlic, sage and dill; when tender, add frozen mixed vegetables and heat through. Add vegetables to stock in pot along with corn and juice.

Cook pasta according to package directions, drain, rinse and add to soup along with cubed chicken and snow peas. Heat thoroughly, adding more broth or bouillon if soup is too thick. Season to taste with poultry seasoning, parsley, additional garlic, salt and pepper. Garnish with croutons.

Yield: About 1 gallon, or 12 servings.

Nutrition information per serving: 242 calories, 8 grams fat (30 percent fat), 35 grams carbohydrate, 10 grams protein, 5 milligrams cholesterol, 7 grams dietary fiber, 178 milligrams sodium.

This sidebar appeared with the story: DETAILS Fighting hunger For more information on dining with the Shalom Zone Meals Ministry, or volunteering to help, call 838-1431. “Taking a Bite Out of Hunger,” a Spokane Food Bank benefit featuring regional foods and beverages, is next Wednesday from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Spokane Arena. Tickets are $35, or $60 per couple; call 534-6678.