My Favorite Recipes - Meet Amy Day Warwick, Colfax

Linda Marler | Nov 22, 20120

If you’ve seen the familiar sign hanging inside the Fonk’s building in Colfax, Amy Warwick has already captured your attention. Keeping the Colfax heritage of the Fonk’s name alive is a goal of the Warwick family, along with serving coffee, lunches and snacks.

Amy learned to cook from her mother, while her Grandmother Olson taught her to bake. Grandma baked pies for the Top Notch and Tick Klock Drug. When a friend wanted cupcakes for her wedding, Amy offered to make some samples and was chosen to bake the cupcakes. Word spread, and Amy was soon busy baking. She noted that her grandmother would be proud. Now that Fonk’s has opened, she has less time for baking.

Although she was born in Colfax, Amy’s family moved to Pullman and she graduated from Pullman High School. She began working for Sport Town and met Joel Warwick, and the rest is history.

They have three children. Tobie will soon be 15 and is in high school. Parker is 13, and Cooper will be 3 in December. The older kids are busy with football, basketball, volleyball, track and baseball. Parker takes choir while Tobie plays trumpet in the band. Cooper loves music and dances happily.

For seven or eight years, Amy worked at Three Forks Orthopedic, beginning as a receptionist and moving to insurance authorizations, which can be quite frustrating. While she enjoyed working with the staff, she left when they began building their new home and she was expecting Cooper.

Two miles out of town, their home was ready to occupy three years ago, and the Warwicks are really enjoying it. It was hectic and stressful to plan and build. Joel worked with the crew, and then he and a friend built their barn. It was a two-year process, and they are still completing things, but they love their new home. Now landscaping is in process and fending off the deer is a challenge. If the Warwicks like it, so do the deer.

One fun event at Fonk’s this fall was the homecoming dinner for a number of Colfax High School students. Too young to drive out of town for dinner, they needed a fun place to take dates, so Amy and some moms planned the event. Pictures of the event show how inviting the lighted storefront looked that evening.

Fonk’s Coffee House is open 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday.

Concept development to opening for Fonk’s took two years. The project took time away from the Sport Town stores to finish the remodeling and open the shop.

Amy is constantly on the move, pulling espresso drinks, slicing turkey, making soup and keeping everything running. Caramels from Plummer made from fresh milk that the confectioner gets from her own cow are featured. The shop sells yogurt parfaits, rolls, muffins, bagels, slices of pie, other baked treats, an assortment of soft drinks, bottled water, sports drinks and sandwiches.

Daily lunch specials feature a sandwich and soup or salad. Amy has a mix of floral patterned china for serving lunches and teas. Creating a unique and comfortable atmosphere was her goal.

Fonk’s features Doma coffee, a Post Falls, Idaho, coffee roaster, which produces high quality, fair trade coffee. The crew trained at Doma, and the company came to Colfax to complete the training. Protecting their brand is important to Doma, so they are quite particular, including the exact fineness of the grind and precisely how hard to tamp the coffee.

Fonk’s buys bread from a Spokane baker and will be offering these breads by the loaf. They plan to add beer and wine soon.

Recipes:

Grandma Olson’s Coconut Cream Pie

1/2 cup sugar

3 egg yolks

5 Tablespoons flour

1 1/2 cups scalded milk

1/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup shredded coconut

Blend sugar, flour and salt with 1/4 cup cold milk; add to scalded milk. Cook in double boiler until thick; add beaten yolks and cook 2 minutes longer. Remove from heat; add vanilla and coconut. Cool and pour into baked pie shell.

Poppyseed Bread

3 cups flour

2 1/2 cups sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups milk

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/8 cups oil

2 Tablespoons poppyseed

3 teaspoons almond extract

1 1/2 teaspoons butter extract

Glaze:

3/4 cups sugar

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 teaspoon butter extract

1/4 cup orange juice

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix together and beat for 2 minutes. Bake in 2 loaf pans for approximately 1 hour. While still warm and in the pan, pour the glaze over the loaf and leave in the pan until glaze is absorbed. Turn out of pan while still warm.

Sausage, Egg, and Hashbrown Casserole

1 pound ground sausage

9 large eggs, slightly beaten

3/4 cups milk

4 Tablespoons melted butter

24 ounce package hash browns

8 ounces shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Layer raw sausage on bottom of a well buttered 9X13 pan. Add milk and melted butter to beaten eggs and pour over sausage.

Add hashbrowns and top with shredded cheese.

Bake for 1 hour.

Robin Wings