MARK ZARKIN/FACEBOOK

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Food for the Soul

H

Danny Raskin

Senior Columnist

Chicken soup joins
the menu at Lelli’s
Inn On the Green.

Ari, Michael and Mark Zarkin

e lives with a secret passion …
Wouldn’t tell anyone … And has
never found the time … or want
… to fully enjoy a very odd dream he
had … very strange.
Mark Zarkin has told few of some-
times wishing that he knew more about
cooking … Mark, owner of Steven
Lelli’s Inn On the Green, 12 Mile, in
Farmington Hills, says he has had that
occasional feeling to follow his secret
passion … but could never find the time.
Until now … With sons Ari and
Michael to help out Mark at the restau-
rant, the moment has finally come …
And the first thing he will make …
to bring in the eighth anniversary of
his Steven Lelli’s Inn On the Green …
is something as crazy as it may seem,
Mark says … the strangest dream he
could think of that one night … that just
seemed to come out of the blue … It was
while a student at Berkley high … Mark
figured it might be because his aunt,
Shirley Bloom, is noted for her chicken
soup and always talked about it … Mark
says he paid little or no attention to it
until the vision cropped up again …
Chicken soup is not something he overly
loves enough to dream about … Maybe
Shirley was to blame, he thought …
But that ridiculous bit of dream fantasy
became a secret obsession that never
went away,
The real thing, he says … Chicken
soup with long egg noodles … not those
little pasta things that Jewish ladies

wouldn’t think of using …. His soup
would have little pieces of chicken, car-
rots, etc. … Not any old chicken soup,
but the real traditional kind you thought
few made these days, he says … matzah
balls or kreplach, too … both also made
by Mark … Not soup from cans that so
many restaurants give you, he says …
and his own secret selection of dream
herb concoctions to give it “that honest
to goodness taste” that Mark says sound-
ed so good in his strange dream … But
he told no one …… in fear that he would
become a laughing stock.
Now that his first award-winning
executive chef, Cliff Meritt, is back taking
over the kitchen and its staff like he did
when Steven Lelli’s Inn On the Green
opened eight years ago, Mark feels a
huge load is off his shoulders, and having
his two sons has allowed him to finally
follow his peculiar vision … Cliff served
as the former chef at the original Lelli’s
years ago when it was on Woodward,
Detroit, and in Auburn Hills, and is back
making those great Italian dishes in place
of Steven Lelli’s former executive chef
John Sommerville.
Chicken soup is a strange way to cele-
brate the eighth anniversary of his Steven
Lelli’s Inn On the Green restaurant ….
but nobody said Mark doesn’t do odd
things … like now also constantly tell-
ing the world what he is doing on his
Facebook pages … and how to run a
good upscale Italian-style restaurant.
How does Mark feel about Jewish-style
chicken soup (Jewish penicillin) now

going with his fine Italian dishes? … The
answer was with Mark having the nerve
to put it on the Steven Lelli’s Inn menu.
NO STOPPING GEORGE Lukaj as he
presents the Grand Opening Special of
his fifth restaurant … Station Square on
Coolidge, one block south of Maple, Troy
… One week only, Thursday, Nov. 1,
through Thursday, Nov. 8 … 9-10-ounce
Great Lakes (Lake Superior) whitefish …
complete meal … broiled or blackened,
soup or salad, choice of two … vegeta-
bles, potatoes or rice pilaf … $10.95 …
No coupons … any hour.
COOKING WITH PAULA DEEN
national magazine lists Beans &
Cornbread, Northwestern Hwy.,
Southfield, among the nation’s top soul
food restaurants … “Will make you feel
like being in the South with all plates
served with classic cornbread like your
mama used to make.”
OLDIE BUT GOODIE … A guy
rushes into a bar and orders four expen-
sive 30-year-old single malts and downs
each one without pausing. “Whew,”
the bartender remarks, “you seem in a
hurry.”
“You would, too, if you had what I
have,” the guy says.
“What do you have?” the bartender
sympathetically asks.
“Fifty cents.”
CONGRATS … To Amy Wechsler on
her birthday. ■

Danny’s email address is
dannyraskin2132@gmail.com.

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MARTY'S COOKIES

November 1 • 2018

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