Home Plate

by David Hagedorn

85 Recipes for Delicious

Mary Lee Montfort’s family knew not to bother requesting the recipes for her mint-chocolate cupcakes, Boston cream pie, M&M bars, or any of the other delectable offerings of Mary Lee’s Desserts, the baking business she ran out of her Vienna home for 15 years. They were well-guarded secrets.

In September 2019, Montfort and her husband, Rick—their two boys grown and out of the nest— downsized and moved to McLean. “When I sent out the e-blast saying I was retiring, my ego expected a lot of, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry! We will miss you so much!’ ” she says with a laugh, “but, no, I got people asking me for my recipes! I was smart enough not to give them out. It was a running joke in our family.”

Now Montfort, who was born and raised in Arlington (she’s a Yorktown High School alumna), is finally revealing her tricks of the trade with the release of Baking the Best of Mary Lee’s Desserts, a self-published cookbook with more than 100 color photos accompanying recipes for cupcakes, cakes, icings, cookies, bars, tartlets and other goodies.

The book is a primer of stylish (mostly) American treats with tips on ingredients (the author names her preferred brands) and techniques. Cupcakes, for instance, are best made in Reynolds Kitchen Foil Baking Cups (“They are a bit bigger than their paper counterparts and they help the cake layer stay really moist,” she writes), which should be placed freestanding on baking sheets rather than in muffin tins for better rise and more even baking.

Montfort learned how to cook from her mother, Lee Hessney Pomponio. After earning a degree in communications from the University of Texas, she embarked on a career in advertising, first in New ork City, then in San Francisco, where she met Rick. The couple later moved to Seattle, where Montfort ditched advertising and became a line cook at Union Bay Café. The fact that she had no professional kitchen experience appealed to chef/owner Mark Manley, who liked training green cooks on his own terms. “He taught me everything,” she says. “I did prep and made all of his desserts. I was on my feet all day but loved it. I’d sing my way to work and sing my way home.” In 2000, Rick’s job as an attorney brought them back to Virginia.

A labor of love, Montfort’s cookbook ($45) took a year to write. She covered the printing costs herself and is donating all of the proceeds to three nonprofits: José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and The Trevor Project, which focuses on suicide prevention for LGBTQ and questioning youth.

Want in on another secret? To ensure that the greatest share of each cookbook sale goes to a good cause (and not to the hefty cuts taken by major online retailers), purchase it through Montfort’s publishing outfit, BookBab.com, or at Bards Alley Bookshop in Vienna. Find more purchasing options at maryleesdesserts.com

Order this NOW!

Espresso Martini

at RAKO Coffee Roasters

Sisters Lisa and Melissa Gerben co-founded RAKO Coffee Roasters in 2019, specializing in sustainably farmed, single-origin coffee sourced from Ethiopia, Sumatra, Guatemala and Burundi. (The business is named after a mountain in Ethiopia’s Yirgacheffe coffee region.) They began selling their beans online in 2020, and in August 2021 opened their fist café in Arlington’s Courthouse neighborhood—with a liquor license. Our favorite drink on the cocktail list, created with the help of spirits curator Stephanie Dissette, is the espresso martini ($14), made with vodka, Ethiopian Sidamo Kercha cold brew, allspice dram, Benedictine, simple syrup and chocolate bitters. It hits all the right notes of complexity and deep flvor, and supplies not one buzz, but two! rakocoffee.com

A Boodle Fight from Kamayan Fiesta

A Filipino Feast

Be prepared for indecision the first time you encounter the steam table at Kamayan Fiesta in Falls Church. Filipino dishes such as chicken adobo, deep-fried pompano, beef kaldereta (a spicy stew) and baby squid braised in soy and ginger are made fresh daily at this tiny, 600-square-foot café that opened in September. I thought I had finally made a selection (as the person behind the counter waited patiently to dish up my request) when out came a pan of bicol express—pork cooked with coconut milk, hot peppers and shrimp paste—and I had to rethink my plan. Platters of one to four entrées range from $7.99 to $24.99 and include rice and bottled water. The café has two small tables inside and a 15-seat outdoor patio.

This is the second location of Kamayan Fiesta for founder Ray Ann Bacolanlan Duran, who opened the first in Springfield in 2020. She an her wife, Jhett Dalo Duran, are the chefs. They co-own both eateries with Jhett’s brother, Leo Dalo Duran.

The Falls Church expansion was rather serendipitous. Ray Ann was scrolling through Facebook Marketplace in search of kitchen equipment for another location (which, as of press time, was due to open in Oxon Hill, Maryland, in December) when she noticed the former Johnsons Café space on South Washington Street was for sale. She struck a deal three days later, got a permit in two days and opened in less than three weeks.

Entrepreneurial by nature, Ray Ann previously owned a beauty shop, a restaurant and a store in the Philippines, where samesex marriage is illegal. She gave them all up to marry Jhett, who immigrated to Virginia in 2005. The couple maintained a long-distance relationship for years until Ray Ann finally moved stateside in August 2016. They married two weeks later.

The Durans have more than 55 dishes in their repertoire, offering roughly 20 at a time, Monday through Friday, and 35 on weekends. Various pancit (noodle) dishes are made to order. Don’t see favorites such as crispy pata (pork shank) or grilled pork belly? They may be available—just ask.

Diners who are new to the wonders of Filipino cuisine may want to request a guided tour of the steam table, as the dishes aren’t labeled. On weekends, Kamayan Fiesta offers sisig (a hash of pig ears, snout and belly, with peppers, onions and crispy pork skin), lechon (crispy-skinned pork belly) and chicken inasal (leg quarters that are marinated in lemongrass and then grilled).

A kamayan, by the way, is a feast in which multiple dishes are spread out on a table lined with banana leaves and eaten with your hands. Kamayan Fiesta offers such feasts (also known as Boodle Fights) as takeout to serve at home, complete with banana leaves. The feasts range in price from $35 to $50 per person and require two days’ advance notice. kamayanfiesta.com