Typhoon! executive chef balances her passions

Well before dawn on a weekday morning in early November, Bo Kline and her husband, Steve, are already on the freeway heading south from Seattle to Portland. Having hosted back-to-back dinners, one at their restaurant, Typhoon! in Portland, the other at the Seattle Typhoon!, they are on their way home.

The dinners were critical practice runs for Kline, Typhoon!'s executive chef, and her kitchen staff. The elaborate menu — six courses preceded by half a dozen hors d'oeuvres — is the one they are presenting tonight to the 110 guests expected at the James Beard House in New York.

But during that drizzly predawn drive, she has another priority on her mind: She wants to get home before her kids leave for school.

"Children are everything," says the mother of Jerome, 21, Zachary, 14, and Tara, 10. You'd think raising three children and running four restaurant kitchens would keep one woman busy enough. But Steve, who handles the company's marketing and development, is formulating plans for two new ventures: a noodle shop and an upscale Asian grill.

"Steve's job," says his wife, "is to make more work for me."

Why, you wonder, is this woman smiling? Her family grounds her, but Kline clearly gets a charge out of work. "If you're not happy in your work," she says bluntly, "you should resign."

Born and raised in "The Land of Smiles," as Thailand is called, Bo Lohasawat Kline has had a peripatetic career. Graduate school first brought her to the Northwest, where she earned a master's degree from Eastern Washington University, studied for her doctorate at Gonzaga and taught college classes.

But family pulled her back to Thailand, where she began her career in hospitality doing sales, marketing and public relations for luxury hotels and resorts.

It was in Thailand that Bo met Steve, then a television producer on location to film a movie-of-the-week. "He can charm a bird off a tree," says the woman he wooed for four months, who finally agreed to come to Los Angeles as his fiancée.

Kline established a niche in L.A. as a caterer, consultant and chef specializing in Thai and pan-Asian cuisine. The couple became bi-coastal for a time when Steve's job kept him in New York producing "The Cosby Show."

Somehow both found time to be active in the community, as founding members of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and as board members of the Frances Blend School, a public school dedicated to the blind and visually impaired.

The needs of their children, one of whom is blind, have always been paramount. "We are very family oriented," says Kline. They found it hard to raise a family and still keep pace with a fast-paced Hollywood lifestyle.

"Steve was definitely looking to make a career change."

Return to the Northwest

Her return to the Northwest happened almost serendipitously. After Kline catered a reception for him, the then-governor of Oregon invited the Klines to come for a visit. They liked what they found enough to put down roots in Portland and in 1995 opened the first Typhoon! in the city's fashionable Northwest neighborhood. Two years later a second Typhoon! debuted downtown.

Then they moved north, bringing Typhoon! to Redmond's Bella Bottega Center. In 2000 Typhoon! hit Seattle, where it settled into the hallowed walls that once housed Wild Ginger, a restaurant that for more than a decade has defined pan-Asian cuisine for many Seattlelites. Even though (or maybe because) Wild Ginger had been transplanted to sleek, capacious new digs at Third and Union, the old location remained sacred ground to the legion of fans that mourned the passing of an era.

That, in part, made Seattle "a hard place to crack," says Kline. "First, we opened in an economic downturn. And then people scolded us because we weren't Wild Ginger." The Redmond store attracted crowds from the beginning, but growth downtown was slower.

Each Typhoon! offers the same menu. At its core, says Kline, are the Thai favorites people expect. She lets her creativity loose on the seasonal specials, playing with traditional Thai flavors in new ways. Though she researches and reads constantly, especially Thai history and cookbooks, looking for new ideas, she doesn't worry overmuch about being "authentic."

"In Thailand," she points out, "chefs are creating new dishes all the time. Cuisine moves on there, just as it does in America."

Inventing new dishes keeps the work interesting and motivating. "It keeps you and your staff going," she says. She visits Seattle once a week, "to keep quality control," but once a test kitchen with satellite capability is completed at their home south of Portland, she may be able to do a little less traveling.

"There will always be a need for me to go to the restaurants. But instead of descending on the kitchen staff every so often and having them feel that I only come in to pick on them, the communication can be ongoing."

Ties in Thailand

Typhoon's cooks are all from Thailand. Kline travels there once a year to recruit. She prefers people with hotel experience, but "nice" is her most important criterion. "They have to be able to get along with each other."

If prospective employees are willing to sign a two-year contract, the Klines agree to secure the visas, pay for travel costs and arrange a place to live.

"It's a lengthy, expensive process that takes several months," says Kline. "People often require a lot of counseling and reassurance about what to expect. We even give advice on how to dress for the colder weather. We are coaching them on how to live and cook at the same time."

The dinner at the James Beard House tonight is her second appearance there as guest chef. As you read this, she and her staff of five are probably frantically carving purple potatoes, cucumbers, carrots and chili peppers into the hundreds of intricate blossoms and leaves that will embellish every plate. "Every single thing has to make a good first impression," Kline says.

Meticulously skewered little nibbles will be passed as hors d'oeuvres, among them lemongrass scented pork and sweet prawns prepared several ways: tucked inside crackling egg wrappers; minced with peppers fried into delicate cakes; and marinated in a fiery blend of lime juice, fish sauce, Thai chili and garlic.

The courses that follow, each matched to wines from Chateau Ste. Michelle, reveal more spunky flavors. Mint and lemongrass perfume a ceviche-like salad of cubed ahi. A light but spicy curry broth brings crisp egg noodles into willing submission. Frizzled strands of ginger lend crunch to supple slices of grilled sirloin steeped in garlic and ginger (Think steak frites, Thai-style). An elegant, peanutty Massaman curry sauce drapes ruby-centered lamb chops.

After a trio of crème brûlées is served — cool comfort indeed following such a tongue-tingling parade of tastes — the petite chef and her staff will emerge to take their bows. No matter how the evening goes, you can bet she'll be smiling, and looking forward to going home.

Providence Cicero: providencecicero@aol.com.