"Mama" puts her heart into all her food

Ginger Senecal — mostly called "Mama" but also known as "The Soup Lady" — combines her love of family, cooking and community in two ventures for which she has become widely known: her restaurant, Mama Passarelli's Dinner House in Black Diamond, and the food she prepares and delivers to crews during search-and-rescue missions.

"It's all about family," said Senecal, whom nearly everyone calls "Mama." "My father taught me to work hard, love God and love my community. That's what this restaurant is about."

Senecal opened Mama Passarelli's in 2004, after a local pastor suggested that she start a restaurant to share her love of cooking with a wider audience.

Senecal and her husband, Harvey, bought the former Dinner House, a Black Diamond eatery that opened in 1969, and changed it from upscale to eclectic.

"It used to be fine dining," she said. "Now it's fun dining."

She based it on values passed down from her late father, Frank Passarelli, who taught her to set an example. She uses recipes passed down from her grandmother.

Since opening, Mama Passarelli's has developed quite a following, drawing 300 to 500 guests a week for lunch, dinner, business meetings and celebrations to the family-friendly restaurant.

"It's all about family sitting down and eating dinner together," she said.

Senecal prides herself on getting her customers to interact. A local teacher offers Italian lessons every Wednesday. Tables have game boards and Trivial Pursuit cards, and there is a player piano to entertain diners.

She also created "Dinner and a Movie Night," from 4-8 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, because as a child, Senecal was not allowed to watch television during meals. The first customers of the evening get to choose the night's movies, either one of Mama's 300 or so movies or one of the family-friendly alternatives the customers might have brought.

"It has become a community restaurant," Senecal said. "We're making families out of neighbors."

In addition to running and preparing meals at her restaurant, Senecal has been the soup lady for eight years. She got started at Real Life Church fellowships, where she fed 400 people soup, sandwiches and salads every Sunday.

She passed the Sunday service on to others after she took the pastor's suggestion and opened Mama Passarelli's.

Still the head soup lady, though, Senecal works with a group of other women to make soups and casseroles to deliver to King County search-and-rescue workers and to police and fire crews in Maple Valley, Enumclaw and Kent.

Food is prepped and frozen so it can be ready on short notice. All the soup ladies need to do is heat it.

Senecal also trains soup ladies elsewhere to help in crises. She has gone to Mississippi six times to cook for hurricane-relief workers.

Dana Blozis is a Kent freelance writer: dana@virtuallyyourz.com