Features

Meet the chef

June 24, 2009

Meet the chef

By Mary Therese Biebel mbiebel@timesleader.com
Features Writer
Mary Therese Biebel on Facebook   |   @TLTLMaryTBiebel on Twitter

hef John Yencha spreads mashed potatoes on one of his pizza shells, Alfredo sauce on a second and tomato sauce on a third.

He crumbles goat cheese, slices spinach, dices peppers and boils a handful of pasta. All these ingredients – yes, even the pasta — will find their way onto the pizzas he’s making.

“They’re gourmet,” he said, barely pausing from his whirlwind of cooking activity in the kitchen at Elmer Sudds, an eatery and tavern on East Northampton Street in Wilkes-Barre.

Yencha, 34, bought the 100-year-old building the December before last and added pizza to the menu just this January. It’s one of his most popular offerings.

“People demanded goat-cheese pizza,” he said with a laugh, adding that once he tried it, he, too, became a fan.

But pizza is only part of the menu.

On a recent afternoon, Yencha resembled a conductor who pays attention to each part of the orchestra almost simultaneously. One moment he was butterflying jumbo shrimp and stuffing them with crab meat, the next he was wrapping bacon around scallops and securing it with skewers.

A pot of homemade blueberry juice bubbled on the stove, ready to be mixed with balsamic vinegar to form the house salad dressing.

Yencha placed organic greens and plum tomato slices on toasted buns to form a backdrop for his hand-patted hamburger and turkey burgers. He tossed seasoned salt onto french fries, dropped chicken wings into the deep fryer, julienned a carrot and added marinated chicken strips to a salad he was building.

Everything seemed to happen at once, but Yencha remained unflustered.

“The other night, 29 people came in and ordered at the same time,” he said. “Other times we might just sit here for four hours.”

It’s all part of owning his own business, said Yencha, who learned his way around a kitchen while working for other local restaurants such as Theo’s Metro, Dugan’s Pub, Fox Hill Country Club and The Ground Round.

He also enjoys cooking for people he knows.

“I started cooking for girls I would date. Most of them resented me because they put on weight,” he said with a laugh.

To complement the menu, which includes everything from homemade soups and steamed clams to jalapeno poppers and fudge bites, Yencha has a selection of 100 different beers, everything from cherry-flavored Belgian beer to locally microbrewed beer from the Breaker Brewing Co. of Plains.

If you visit Elmer Sudds, Yencha will be happy to cook for you. If you want to try to make one of his specialties yourself, here is one of his pizza recipes.

GOAT CHEESE PIZZA

1 rectangular pre-made pizza shell, 14x11-inches

tomato sauce, about 1 cup

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup shredded Cooper cheese

1/2 cup spinach, thinly sliced

2 ounces sliced goat cheese

2 tablespoons red onion, diced

2 tablespoons plum tomato, diced

Toast the pizza shell and remove from oven.

Spread tomato sauce onto pizza shell, followed by shredded mozzarella and shredded Cooper cheese. Then sprinkle a layer of spinach, which should be thinly sliced to prevent leaves from sliding off.

Crumble goat cheese and dollop onto pizza. Sprinkle red onion and red pepper. Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes, rotating once. Look for Cooper cheese to start browning. Then you know it’s done.

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