Mother of The Month

ABOUT M.O.M.

Through her travels, Chef Lisa came to realize that the best meals of a country are not found in its restaurants. They’re found in its homes, made with love by mothers cooking for their families. So, in addition to Mother’s regular menu where she serves food from mothers around the world, Chef Lisa highlights a different mother each month and features some of her special dishes.

The special mother is called the Mother of the Month (or M.O.M.™), and her photograph, story and menu take a prominent place at the beginning of Mother’s menu. We choose a mother that allows us to take advantage of the seasonal availability of ingredients, such as a Greek mother in the summer months and a Polish mother in the winter months.

If you’d like to nominate a mother to be the M.O.M.™, CLICK HERE and tell us something about her and her special dishes.

CURRENT M.O.M. STORY

Helen Dana

Helen Kanisza Dana was born in Proctor, Vermont in 1914 to Hungarian immigrants. Her father, Louis, came to the United States in 1909, and her mother, Rose, immigrated in 1911. They both came from Marcalto, Hungary, and although they knew of each other in their small town, Rose didn’t think much of Louis while in Hungary. It wasn’t until they both settled in the same small town in Vermont with a limited number of eligible Hungarian bachelors that Louis became more appealing. They eventually got married, but Rose was widowed in 1932, left to find a way to provide for Helen (our M.O.M.) and her little sister. Rose worked in a sewing factory and moonlighted as a seamstress at home. She also saw to it that Helen went to college, not a common occurrence for women in the 1930’s.

Not surprisingly, Helen learned to cook from her mother, which was sometimes challenging. Her mother’s “recipes” generally consisted of a list of ingredients and instructions to add “some” of this, “a little” of that, and if it “doesn’t look right” add some more. Helen somehow managed to figure out the method behind her mother’s recipes, and continued to make the same traditional dishes that her mother cooked nearly a century ago, until Helen passed away in 2009. This month we’re offering you some of Helen’s favorites, and hope they’ll be your favorites, too.

Click here to See Former M.O.M.S

Nominate A M.O.M.

The M.O.M. menu has been an important part of Mother’s since we opened in 2000.  This allows our guests to experience both new flavors and dishes from around the world and meals prepared with love by mothers cooking for their families.  Our past M.O.M.’s include a wide variety of individuals- mothers, sisters, grandmothers, daughters, friends, and wives- and we’ve even had a few honorary male M.O.M.’s!

If you would like to nominate somebody (or yourself) to be a future M.O.M. at Mother’s, please fill out this form and return it to the host at Mother’s or [email protected].  Once we receive your form, we will contact the nominee (if possible), or you, (if it’s you or if you’d like to be the intermediary) to discuss potential dishes for the M.O.M. menu.

When making menu suggestions, please keep in mind that our M.O.M. menu typically includes an appetizer, salad and/or lunch item, 2-3 entrees (usually a meat, poultry, and/or vegetarian/fish dish) and a dessert.  When making suggestions, feel free to make your list as long as you’d like, but don’t suggest dishes that replicate those on our main menu (even if yours is the best meatloaf in the world, meatloaf is on our regular menu, so couldn’t be offered on our M.O.M. menu).

It’s likely we’ll have a bit of back and forth where I may ask you to list ingredients in a dish to gain a clearer idea of how it might taste, but keep in mind that we won’t need any recipes until after we finalize the menu.

Thanks again for your interest in the M.O.M. program.  Feel free to contact us with any questions you have!