Kristine Dalzell
If you’re going to spend any kind of time chatting with Kristine Dalzell you need to know one thing – you will be hungry.
Kristine is the owner and chef at Zucchini Blossom – a café located in the heart of Riverside. And a conversation with this young-looking 39-year-old doesn’t go far before talk turns to carrot cake, curried chick pea chutney or chipotle salad.
“I love the freedom we have with our menu,” says Kristine, who opened up the café with her husband and fellow chef, Jim, eight years ago. “I come in in the mornings and say: ‘What do I want to make today?’”
Her journey into restaurant ownership is anything but conventional. Kristine has a degree in Art History and planned on pursuing a career in art restoration. “But chemistry was hard,” she laughs today over a cup of organic coffee in her cozy restaurant. So her husband decided to lease their space and Zucchini Blossom was born
. And it made sense. “I grew up doing a lot of cooking and baking and I did a lot of eating in university,” says Kristine.
But whipping up a batch of African yam and peanut soup with cilantro and lime garnish is not for the faint-of-heart. “I think people tend to make cooking more difficult than it actually is,” Kristine says.
But don’t expect to find the same things on the menu day after day. Kristine and her husband are always switching things up. “We’ll always have carrot cake and scones, but we’re always trying new recipes.”
Besides just serving up breakfast and lunch fare, Zucchini Blossom also offers great coffees and lattes. A small corner of the café is dedicated to selling groceries – mostly stuff you won’t easily find anywhere else along with Zucchini Blossom’s own line of products. Kristine says their homemade tomato soup and hummus are two of the best sellers.
And while she says there is really no secret to her cooking, Kristine does say they use fresh ingredients grown locally whenever possible. “Everything is made from scratch here except our bread,” she says, adding that all of her five staff not only know how to work the front, they also cook.
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Kristine – who walks to work every day from her house a couple of blocks away – says it’s her customers that keep her motivated. “I love all the people,’ she says. “Our customers are fantastic.”
Oh and besides making a mean carrot cake, Kristine can also whip up a delicious latte complete with a cool design on top. Leafs or hearts are her specialty. “I make a pretty decent latte,” she says.
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