Stuff to eat. Mostly around St. Louis.

Whiskey and Soba 2/26/20 Whiskey and Soba 2/26/20

An Interview with Dave Stine and Stephanie Abbajay

Presented by Stag Beer

Dave stine is an enigma. A modern day paul bunyan. a lawyer. an amazing home cook. a prolific drinker. And the woodworker behind david stine furniture.

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting dave, here’s his story in a nutshell: he was born and raised outside of Alton, Illinois on his family’s land. they were dairy farmers. dairy farming was less than enjoyable, to say the least. his grandfather and father taught him woodworking. he went to college at penn state, then George washington university law school. being a lawyer was also less than enjoyable. this led to him leaving law behind, becoming the lawless woodworker he is today.

all of his tables—which can be found at many of your favorite restaurants, like Elmwood, louie, Balkan Treat box, Sardella, rockwell, The Tenderloin room, and more—are made from wood he has harvested from dead trees on his own land.

his partner in the business is his wife, Stephanie abbajay. I sat down with them over a farm lunch of pork, potatoes, pickles, and stag to discuss business, life, and steak.

Dave Stine: I’ve been selling stuff that I’ve made, grown, bred, or harvested my whole life. That’s the way I grew up. Raising cattle, showing the cattle at 4-H, then selling the cattle.

Stephanie Abbajay: Success, I think, was when Dave didn’t have to go to his law job. It was being able to not do what he didn’t want to do, and only do what he wanted to. It was never financial.

D.S.: The overall goal was to do woodworking and to work for myself, but more importantly doing our own designs and finding customers for those. Staying in our lane.

S.A.: Our view of success has always been being independent. Not being beholden to other people’s interests. It’s never been based on money. It’s picking and choosing what we want to do.

D.S.: The power of no. Being able to say no to things is very powerful. Being in the driver’s seat of what you do everyday is all about being able to say no to things you don’t want to do.

If someone wanted me to build a house for them, I could, but I’m not going to do that.

D.S.: Our house is littered with pieces of furniture that just don’t work. But they’re all for sale!

S.A.: I see Dave as a craftsman with the soul of an artist. When he was able to do only what he wanted to do, he was an artist. Every single piece was one-of-a-kind.

D.S.: I struggled for years with people saying I was an artist, or that my furniture was art. I started playing around with functional art, sculptural art. I don’t know.

S.A.: We basically have two businesses. The artistic side: the one-of-a-kind Dave Stine-vision pieces. Then there’s the commercial side: we can do 10 of these tables and they will all look the same. It’s the perfect articulation of how you need to be in a business: you can be an artist, but you can also create a product that can be reproduced.

D.S.: The stuff we do for Gioia’s, they aren’t artistic tables, but the art in that is my relationship with Alex, figuring out what looks good in that space, what Gioia’s means to people, and what physical items I can help him build that reinforce the whole idea of the brand. There’s some kind of art in that.

D.S.: The artistic skill in that big table is understanding what that thing could be. But then you have to set aside your own ego and let that table be whatever it should be. You have to show restraint. You have to know when to stop. People want to take a table like that, gouge out a bunch of shit, pour in epoxy, and really put their stamp on it. I get that. It’s tempting. It’s why people carve their names into trees. I think it’s much more interesting to find the right piece of lumber for that person and work within that parameter.

“Put something down for 24 hours and look at it with fresh eyes. ”

D.S.: Yeah, I’m competitive. In my lane. I don’t want or need to build every table in the world. But I should have the right of first refusal. That only seems fair (laughs). No one is more competitive than Stephanie.

S.A.: I let other people win sometimes.

D.S.: Which says how competitive you are! You LET them win.

D.S.: Twenty years ago, no. Now, yes. Almost every woodworker will take a live edge job now.

D.S.: We’ve had issues with tables in various places from time to time. They call, I stop what I’m doing, then I go address the issue and fix it. I give everyone the same warranty: it’ll be great, and if it’s not, call me.

If I’m dead, you’re out of luck.

“I love it when the tables look used and beaten up. I think stuff looks better that way. ”

D.S.: Teaching woodworking to my guys is as important to me as it is to them. If they’re really interested, I’m really interested in sharing. I’ve learned just as much from them as they’ve learned from me. There are things we do much differently now than we did before Eli started 7 years ago. We find better ways that work.

D.S.: You always want your kid to at least be proud of you and understand what you’re doing. If they’re interested enough to work with you or want to take over, that would be amazing. It’s taken a lot to build this toehold, and it’d be great if someone could take it over, but people gotta do their own thing too.

S.A.: A bar, a nightclub, and a restaurant. We sold the nightclub first. We only had it for two years, but we sold it when it was super hot. Then we opened the restaurant. We sold that when we moved to St. Louis. I didn’t sell the bar until 2010.

The hours. When you’re in your 20s, it’s fun to stay up until 5am and then jump on the back of your husband’s Harley and go have breakfast. Then you get married and have kids. You get to the restaurant at 3pm, doors open at 5pm, and then that Tuesday night just yawns in front of you and you’d rather be at home with your family. Add on people calling off or not showing up...no thanks.

I don’t mind putting 100% of myself into something. I actually prefer that. But I do want to not have to worry about it constantly. With a nightclub or a restaurant, you’re always worrying.

D.S.: We sold the restaurant and broke even. Which puts us ahead of about 80% of other restaurant owners.

D.S.: Stephanie’s red raspberry jam is my favorite. Or maybe it’s the blackberry jam. Close second are my mom’s sweet pickles—you can’t find them anywhere else, because they’re such a pain to make. And the sauerkraut we make. The pickled eggs in beet juice. I don’t know. I’m German. I love pickles.

“There’s nothing better than having a freezer full of meat.”

D.S.: I really miss having fresh milk. You can’t even describe to people the difference. Unpasteurized, straight from the tap.

D.S.: Mixed color fingerling potatoes from Mom’s garden. A 2-inch thick steak. Roasted asparagus. Stag. No TV. Just the fireplace.

SA: When we moved out here from DC, I brought 10 cases of my favorite beer from the East Coast. I was like, there’s no way I’m going to find good beer out there. I’m not drinking crappy local beer. When I got through all my beer, I tried a Stag and fell in love with it. I love Stag.

DS: If you don’t like Stag, you don’t like beer. Growing up, all the people around here drank Stag. Steak Taters And Gravy. Saint Ag. Our family friend used to have great sayings. He’d always say, “you know the thing I love about Stag? You can drink a case of it every night and still go to work the next day!”

I don’t care at all about the cans. Just don’t change the gold color or the recipe.

“It’s the local beer. It tastes like home. ”

This interview is presented by Stag Beer, Born in Belleville, Illinois.

Spencer 5/11/15 Spencer 5/11/15

Dinner Lab: Anthos

The last time I saw Russ Bodner was in mid 2003 when he graduated from my high school, headed off to study accounting at Indiana University. Imagine my surprise when, in early 2014, Russ and I reconnected and I found out that he was some big fancy chef down in Alabama. We started talking fairly often about all things food related, one of which was his fondness of pop-up restaurants. Eager to try his food and an avid fan of Dinner Lab, I put Russ in contact with some of the Dinner Lab crew and voila: I present Russ Bodner's Anthos - Greek Interpretations from a Lost Restaurant. The evening's meal took place at the midtown Urban Chestnut, which is probably my favorite out of all the venue's they've used so far. The size was right, the beer barrels all around created an industrial atmosphere, and it was connected to a bar for post-dinner drinking.

Russ' career has taken him from NYC (Anthos) to Alabama (Springhouse, Kowaliga) to Colorado (Aspen Mountain Club) and now, possibly, back to St. Louis.

How did you pick the name for your dinner?

The very first restaurant that I worked at was Anthos, and I loved the food that we were doing. Unfortunately, they've since closed. I've taken some of my favorite items we did there and put my own spin on them for this dinner.

Did you have a favorite Mediterranean dish or restaurant in St. Louis? We don't have too many here...

I didn't have a favorite in St. Louis growing up. It was all in the kitchen at Anthos. They were doing "new-age Aegean", something that I found fascinating and unique.

How'd you pick the five dishes for this menu? I'm sure you have an arsenal of dishes at your disposal.

I knew that when I did a dinner in St. Louis, I wanted a fish-centric menu. I played around with doing a Southern progressive line up, but the Mediterranean won out this time!

On his way up to St. Louis from Alabama, Russ stopped by some of the farms he used to frequent during his Springhouse/Kowaliga days to get some fresh seasonal ingredients, including fresh lima beans, corn, baby Vidalia onions, and okra.

You come to St. Louis every few years and eat like a horse - where were you most excited about trying this trip?

I was most excited to check out Publico. It's in my old neighborhood.

What are some standout dishes you've had in town?

My absolute favorite dish I ever had in St. Louis was a carrot dish at Niche when it was on Sidney Street. I also loved the pig tails at The Libertine and the lamb heart at Publico.

I know you're looking to open a restaurant here. Do you have a concept in mind?

I have a few ideas in my head, but I will keep them close to the chest for the time being. I would love to do something that is different and not in St. Louis.

What are your favorite and least favorite ingredients to work with?

The tomato - for both. When the heirloom tomatoes are in season, I don't think there's anything better. But during the off season, there's almost nothing worse.

What's the most memorable meal you've had as a diner?

I'm not sure if this counts, but a few years ago, I was at an event in Virginia at Border Springs Farm. Craig Diehl and Bob Cook from Charleston were in charge of doing the dinner that night. Craig boned out a whole lamb, rolled it and slowly roasted it on a spit. He also slowly smoked and then grilled a skin-on pork belly. Both of the meats were so incredible, I can't even remember what the vegetables were!

If there is one dish of yours that would define your career so far, what would it be?

As far as a dish that got the most recognition, it would certainly be the catfish tacos I made when I opened Kowaliga Restaurant in Alabama.

Each course had an Urban Chestnut beer pairing. My favorite was the pairing of their Russian Imperial Stout Thrale's with dessert. The beer has a sour cherry and coffee taste, but man, it was a heavy, heavy beer. I'm not man enough to take down an entire bottle myself. Koval provided the house cocktail, a powerful gin and maraschino mix that would have rendered me useless if I had more than one.

Koval Cocktail at Russ Bodner's Dinner Lab

Russ' first course was a lightly seared tuna with a sweet and intense fennel pollen crust. Celery leaves, radishes, Thassos olives - an oil cured olive from Thassos with this amazing ripe olive flavor, and dehydrated feta were sprinkled around the dish, along with a bit of orange and orange vinaigrette. The flavors were distinctly Greek, but unlike anything I can remember having before.

Seared Tuna Plates at Russ Bodner's Dinner Lab

Russ is doing the same menu at Dinner Lab Houston; this dish was so good, I thought about going down to get it again. Then I weighed this dish versus having to actually be in Houston and decided it wasn't worth it.

His second course - and the most popular entree of the evening - were Sheep's Milk Ricotta Dumplings. I'm not sure anything about this dish was Mediterranean aside from the little pillowy dumplings, but it was outrageously good. Give me a Southern American + Greek restaurant! Russ cooked the crawfish in a crawfish stock with the lima beans and corn, then topped it with tobacco onions.

The result reminded me of something my grandma would have cooked when we were younger. Fresh, hearty, probably more unhealthy than it looks. I would happily, joyously pay for this at a restaurant.

This was the controversial dish of the evening, as octopus tends to be. Due to issues with the oven, some of the smoked octopus was undercooked, resulting in a chewy bite of seafood. I guess I was lucky, because my piece was tender. The octopus' smoked flavored was complimented by pickled shallots and mushrooms and subdued by coriander yogurt.

Lamb shoulders were donated from Border Springs Farm in Virginia, then slow roasted until it was time to serve. Like everyone worthy of your trust, I love nothing more than the taste of slow cooked, smoked meat. Seeing these lambs come out of the oven, I contemplated taking one and leaving, tearing it apart and eating it handful by handful like they serve it at Kapnos in D.C.

What you can't see in the pictures is the bulgar trahana, which tastes like grits and bulgar made a baby. The bulgar is cooked with dairy, resulting in a creamier texture and milder flavor. The red sauce you see at the bottom is a homemade harissa, also incredibly tasty. I will be going all Zero Dark Thirty on Russ to get that recipe. Grilled okra and baby vidalias rounded it off. If forced to pick 3 dishes from the meal to eat again, it'd easily be the tuna, dumplings, and the tsoureki shortcake with basil ice cream. Sweet desserts do about as much for me as monogamy does for Don Draper. They're wasted on me. This, however, was not. The tsoureki has mahlab, a spice made from cherry pits, giving it an almondy, nutty hint. On top of that was a thin layer of the piney, sappy mastic oil, then sweetened yogurt, strawberries, and finally, the basil ice cream.

The ice cream was on the same level (or maybe even higher...) than Anne Croy's basil gelato at Pastaria. You could tell looking around the room that this dessert was a home run. People stopped talking and just focused on eating as much as the could as quickly as they could, then trying to figure out who around them wasn't going to finish theirs.

Russ' Dinner Lab gave St. Louisans food that they can't find here otherwise. His love of Greek cooking combined with years in the South have left him with a unique voice in the culinary world. I hope he decides to make St. Louis his home once again - he'd have my business.