Innkeepers take benefit diners down the Mississippi

Strains of "Ol' Man River" and "Meet Me in St. Louis" wafted from the broad foyer of the 1917 guesthouse on East Riverside Drive.

Dinner service, cookware and Midwestern ingredients spread neatly over the wide kitchen with its near-commercial Wolf range and poised crew of three brunette women greeting each guest.

Behind a curtain in the tall dining room, a long, narrow table was festooned with candles, flowers and smooth river pebbles. Hand-painted napkins unfolded into maps of the Mississippi Valley.

Innkeepers and hosts Blaise Bahara and Bess Giannakakis certainly know how to set the scene for a benefit dinner party. Their theme for "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" on Feb. 4 was "Mississippi Rising: A Culinary Journey Down Ol' Man River."

Each year, clusters of hosts around Austin give dinners on the same night to raise money for Project Transitions, a nonprofit that serves people with HIV and AIDS by providing hospice, housing and support.

The scene was not unfamiliar. For several years, our former cooking group, dubbed the Spice Boys, hosted "Guess Who" dinners. This was the year to get back into the "Guess Who" spirit.

Two years ago, Bahara and Giannakakis purchased what would become Gateway Guesthouse, after moving here from Minneapolis, where Giannakakis was a professional chef.

So why a bed and breakfast in Austin?

"I've got 10 years of really hard work ahead of me," she confesses. "I don't want to spend 14 hours a day over a hot stove. I'd rather spend it making beds and chatting with people."

The couple rents out four rooms in two structures separated by a pool and spa deck that they added. The house is decorated with historical photographs of Austin and elsewhere, along with reviews of Giannakakis' last restaurant, which appeared on an episode of the Food Network's "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives."

Host Guy Fieri called one of her casual dishes at Colossal Cafe: "Christmas in a sandwich."

"All I got was a lousy hat," Giannakakis joked.

For the conceptual Project Transitions feast, Mississippian food remained the centerpiece. All the food and drink — or at least the ideas for the dishes — came from the basins of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Ten states — Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana — were represented. (The contributing Missouri River was snubbed.)

First came a thick, rich wild rice soup steeped in chicken stock, almost the consistency of pudding. Inside each glorious dish rose a tiny breadstick to represent the "knockers," the wooden sticks used to harvest the "Grass of the Midwest," that is not, by the way, directly related to rice.

"Wild rice is on every menu in Minnesota," Giannakakis said with an indulgent smile. The concoction came with a bottle of Summit Winter Ale, brewed in St. Paul, Minn.

Next arrived small, pale medallions of pork loin nested on a reduction of moonshine-corn cream, almonds and roasted red peppers. ("There are 10 pigs for every human in Iowa," we learned.)

Alongside sat a shot of the Prichards Lincoln County Lightning, a stinging white corn whiskey — that can't be aged — hailing from Tennessee.

Tiny bottles of Budweiser accompanied the next dish, lightly breaded catfish and even lighter hush puppies, for which Giannakakis used yeast to keep them from sinking to the bottom of one's stomach.

A fresh take on fried chicken — maybe the best I've ever tasted — was refreshed with 9-year-old Knob Creek single-barrel bourbon, along with biscuits and gravy as well as mashed potatoes and gravy.

Another meat dish still to go: Memphis-style barbecue pork ribs indulged in a spicy rub for three days, then smoked for three hours before finishing in an oven. Tender as a mother's love.

An exquisite profiterole that mixed hot and cool chocolate around a puff of bread finished the meal. This was served with a Missouri chardonnay.

"We had to ship it in," Bahara says. "It makes you appreciate California wine."