Hotel Lincoln

Parks has turned a Lincoln tradition into a must see and experience.

  

     The Hotel Lincoln and Log Gastropub have served overnight patrons and gourmet foodies since Laurie, her father, Don Tuschoff, and stepson, Kevin Parks, bought the business in 2011.

 

     It’s the ambiance of the food, the stay, and the passion for cooking that keep the satisfied tales coming from customers.

 

     The reputation that Parks, originally from Clarkston, Washington, has garnered in a short time, gained her the delight of being chosen the University of Great Falls 2013 Taste of Montana Chef. 

    

     “A gentleman asked if I would be interested and I was very honored and excited to say ‘yes’,” she says.

 

     Parks will be at the helm for the event Monday, May 13, at the UGF campus. 

 

     She will be in the company of all the great cooks in her life: her husband and Grill Sargeant Ed Parks; her brother and sous Chef, Jamie Tuschoff; and her favorite prep cook and baker, Kathy Bennett.

 

     Rolling up her sleeves to prepare and cook for a major event is hardly new to Parks.  From 1996 until 2001 she owned and operated “the Dill Pickle Deli and We’re Cookin’ Now!,” a catering business in Lewiston, Idaho.

  

     Later, she left the hospitality business and went back to study at the University of Montana.

 

    She readily admits, “I stalked my son Nathan to Missoula where we studied different fields until we graduated in 2008.”

 

     It was while she was working on a Master’s degree that she and her husband were out for a drive and stopped in Lincoln discovering the Hotel Lincoln which was for sale.

 

  “We walked in and instantly fell in love.   I could see the restaurant, the celebrations, the customers and my family happy in one beautiful place.   We moved to Lincoln in December of 2010.”

 

        Putting college studies aside, Parks’ passion from the eighties, when she started cooking, was resurrected.  And, she harkens to the past and the great chefs that have influenced her, though she hasn’t always followed the trends.  In fact, for a new dish (or an old dish) to make it on her menu it has to have the “OMG factor.”

      Today, she cooks with the freshest items available and starts with raw ingredients ninety per-cent of the time.  Three things that you won’t find in her kitchen are: a deep fryer, a microwave, or a mixer.

 

     Starting from scratch, Parks throws her hard working self in all the pictures.

 

     “No toques for me.  I have to run the hotel, the happy hour, and everything else as well.”  

  

     For the sixth annual Taste of Montana event, Parks has created a four course menu around wild caught salmon.

 

Logs Signature House Salad

Baby greens with pecans, Asian pears, huckleberries, balsamic vinaigrette and warm leeks.

 

Fresh baked baked demi-loaves of bread

 with balsamic reduction and Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

 

Poached Atlantic Salmon with Wild Montana Skies Sauce.

 Wild caught Atlantic Salmon poached in court bouillion, served on steamed fingerlings with sweet peas, celery, green bean and leeks, topped with a blushing butter sauce the color of a wild Montana sunset.

 

Mango Mosaic

Haagen Daz vanilla bean ice cream, Haagen Daz mango sorbet and huckleberries pureed in Chambord, frozen artistically in a loaf pan, then sliced.  It looks like stained glass, but tastes like Haagen Daz!

 

 

If you go:

University of Great Falls

Fundraiser

Sixth Annual Taste of Montana

Monday, May 13, 2013

Tickets:  $100

Call: 791-5310   

 

    

 

 

From 96 until 2001 I owned and operated “We’re Cookin’ Now!” catering and “The Dill Pickle Deli.