Story Photos
 Suzanne Martinson of Longview holds her new book, "The Fallingwater Cookbook." Dave Rubert / For The Daily News
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Honoring Elsie: 'The Fallingwater Cookbook'
Wednesday, October 8, 2008 3:25 PM PDT
By Tom Paulu
Printable version
E-mail this articleSuzanne Martinson has written hundreds of stories about cooks and recipes. Now she’s co-authored a book about two wealthy first cousins who married, their world-famous house in the Pennsylvania woods and their spunky cook.
For 16 years, Elsie Henderson cooked for Pittsburgh department store owner Edgar J. Kaufmann and his wife, Liliane, at Fallingwater, one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most renowned designs.
Stories about the well-moneyed but generous Kaufmanns and their famous guests are woven among Henderson’s recipes in “The Fallingwater Cookbook: Elsie Henderson’s Recipes & Memories.”
Martinson was This Day editor at The Daily News from mid-70s to 1986, moving on to newspaper jobs in Knoxville, Tenn., and Pittsburgh. As a full-time food writer in Pittsburgh, she was the two-time winner of both the James Beard and Bert Greene awards for food journalism.
Three years ago, Martinson and her husband, Bob, a former assistant city editor at The Daily News and copy editor in Pittsburgh, retired to a house in the Lexington woods. The lush greenery around their house looks like pictures of the Fallingwater site — though of course the Martinsons don’t have a waterfall running under their home.
That gurgling — and occasionally flooding — feature is one reason Fallingwater is one of the most famous houses in the country.
The Kaufmanns, who owned Pittsburgh’s nicest department store, bought a country place 70 miles from Pittsburgh to escape the city’s industrial grit. They commissioned Wright to build Fallingwater, and the renowned architect decided to site the 2,800-square foot stone-and-concrete house over — not next to — a 30-foot waterfall.
The house was completed in 1939 for a cost of $150,000. Time magazine featured Fallingwater on its cover and dubbed the Kaufmanns “the merchant prince and princess of Pittsburgh.”
Their cook, readers will find, had regal bearing all her own.
Henderson is the youngest of 13 children; her father died when she was 2. As a girl, Henderson became a voracious reader; later in life, she was a meticulous dresser.
As a young African American woman, Henderson started taking jobs cooking for Pittsburgh’s wealthy citizens. At 33, she landed a weekend job at Fallingwater. The Kaufmanns’ chauffeur would pick her up and drive her there every weekend.
The Kaufmanns were top-level entertainers. Over the years, Henderson cooked for violinist Isaac Stern and artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
Whomever she was feeding, Henderson didn’t cut corners. “The first thing she did when she got up was make breakfast for the dogs,” Martinson said.
In 1991, Martinson interviewed Henderson for a Pittsburgh newspaper story.
“We sort of became friends,” said the writer. “We’d occasionally have lunch,” and Henderson would share her bounty of stories. One account was of Liliane insisting that the grapes in her salad be peeled. Another was about Henderson’s first visit to the estate, when she looked out the window to see the Kaufmanns and their guests, skinny-dipping in the stream.
When she retired, Martinson finally had time to expand those tales into a book. She met with Henderson, who’s now 95.
“She said, ‘I’ve always wanted to write a cookbook.’ I said, ‘Oh well, I’ll write it for you.’
“It’s a dream of every writer to have a book.”
The dream had its complications. Like many outstanding cooks, Henderson didn’t write down recipes. “I’ve never seen her look at a recipe,” Martinson said.
The women would get together and Martinson would take notes while Henderson sliced and sauteed.
“I knew I had to test every recipe,” the writer added. One that posed a challenge was Belgian Hare, a critter hard to find in grocery stores today. She finally located some frozen (Chinese) rabbit at a Pittsburgh butcher, packed it in ice and stuck it in her carry-on bag for a flight back to Portland.
Martinson recorded about 100 of Henderson’s recipes, which she described as “really straightforward.”
“She was pretty much a classic country cook,” buying fresh produce and meats locally. “It was the original farm-to-table movement,” said Martinson, who’s active in the local food movement here.
Henderson’s recipe for grilled trout was a natural for Fallingwater — the Kaufmanns had the stream stocked with brown trout. Another down-home dinner was liver and onions, one of Edgar Kauffman’s favorites. One simple salad included avocados, which the Kaufmanns discovered while visiting Kahlo in Mexico.
Every morning she was at Fallingwater, Henderson would rise early to bake challah, a braided Jewish bread much beloved by guests. The cookbook also includes the potato bread she baked as a girl for her sister and 11 brothers.
Martinson writes that Henderson jokes about how much “you white people” love chocolate. Martinson (whose own kitchen displays a plate labeled “Happily Dying of Chocolate”) included a Henderson recipe for chocolate cake that’s actually more like a frosted brownie.
To enrich “The Fallingwater Cookbook,” Martinson included some 100 additional recipes by Pittsburgh chefs Robert Sendall and the late Jane Citron. More complex than Henderson’s recipes, they include Beef Daube with Porcini Mushrooms and Winter Salad with Belgian Endive, Haricots Verts and Toasted Hazelnuts.
The book’s photos include historical family shots and new ones taken at Fallingwater, which has been open to the public since the Kaufmanns’ son gave it to a conservancy in 1963.
“It’s a magical, magical place,” Martinson said. “You hear that waterfall over the rustle of the trees and you’re part of nature.”
“The Fallingwater Cookbook: Elsie Henderson’s Recipes & Memories,” by Suzanne Martinson with Jane Citron and Robert Sendall. Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. 240 pages. $39.95 hardback, $24.95 paperback.
Book signing
Suzanne Martinson will sign books at several upcoming events:
10 a.m.-3 p.m. Oct. 18, Longview Sewing & Kitchen (Kitchen Inspirations), 945 Washington Way, Longview. Includes cooking demonstrations of recipes from the cookbook.
5-7 p.m., Oct. 24, Autumn Celebration to honor supporters of Kalama Public Library, Kalama Council Chambers, 320 First St. Martinson’s topic will be “Behind the Scenes in the Author’s Kitchen.”
11 a.m.-1 p.m. Oct. 27, Columbia River Reader office, Suite 108, The Merk, Broadway and Commerce, Longview.
9 a.m.-3 p.m. Nov. 1, Northwest Authors Day, Rainier Marina Market.
6 p.m. Nov. 4, WordFest, The Brits cafe, 1427 Commerce Ave., Longview. Topic: “So You Want to Write a Cookbook.”
7 p.m. Nov. 12, Northwest Voices, Longview Public Library. Topic: “The View from the Kitchen of the Most Famous House in America.”
An interview of Martinson by This Day editor Cathy Zimmerman is scheduled to air on the KLTV show “Book Chat” at 8 p.m. Oct. 21, 10 a.m. Oct. 23 and 12:30 a.m. Oct. 24, then at the same times each week for four weeks.
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