The 'master'

Editor's note: This is another story in our continuing series on chefs who have shaped Tucson's cuisine. To see a video of Nordin in action, click on "video" to the right of this story.

It isn't necessarily the place you'd expect to find Donna Nordin, the person who brought a new kind of eating to Tucson — and trained a generation of chefs to follow in her footsteps.

This Sunday afternoon in November is girl time on the patio of the elegant house a block from the Arizona Inn. There are tables of handcrafted jewelry for sale, complete with a mirror inquiring "Do these beads make me look fat?" The ebullient Juliette Cristiani drapes visitors in the elaborately patterned pashmina-silk wraps her flight attendant daughter brings home from India.

The biggest giveaway is the table of really good red wines and cheeses for shoppers to snack on.

That, and the fact that Nordin, legendary founder of Terra Cotta restaurant and cooking teacher extraordinaire, is presiding over a table of her own jewelry creations — chunky pieces with brilliantly dyed pearls or ancient stones that have earned her a second career as a jewelry designer whose work is featured in eight stores and galleries across the country.

A few miles north, Terra Cotta itself, as it has for the past 21 years, was attracting a devoted clientele to eat its combination of California cuisine with Southwest flair. Although Nordin and husband Don Luria are allegedly semi-retired, she continues to be the chief palate and final arbiter of the style that has established itself as Tucson's own cuisine.

"It seems to me that three-quarters of the chefs in Tucson have passed through that kitchen," said Doug Levy, the owner/chef of Feast. Levy was the second employee of Terra Cotta back in 1986. "That to me is a testament of the level of quality expected in that kitchen and the raising of the bar."

The $5 Maytag Bleu Cheese Infused Angus Burger offered at happy hour is one of the best food bargains in the Foothills — if not the entire city. Many current Tucsonans had their first restaurant meal at Terra Cotta. During the tourist season, resort vans regularly disgorge loads of diners to experience dishes like stuffed poblano chiles and tortilla soup.

It's a place dominated by big folk-style sculptures and deep colors, meant to be upscale but casual, where diners can feel free to choose to eat anything from a small plate (such as the famous garlic custard) or a pizza to a three-course meal with a $150 bottle of wine.

The tiny hazel-eyed whirlwind behind the food at Terra Cotta took a long and circuitous route to Tucson — and to being a chef at all. Nordin grew up shy in Escondido, Calif., and San Diego, the elder of two daughters. She lived at home through college at San Diego State University, earning a degree in business.

Nordin still maintains friendships from high school days, along with a lengthy roster of newer girlfriends. "She's a girl's girl," said Cristiani, a local philanthropist and Nordin's friend and customer since 1986. "She's right up front, she's honest and hardworking, just a great personality. So down to earth. She really cares about you."

In 1965, Nordin's first marriage indirectly opened her eyes to good food, when the newlyweds moved to San Francisco so he could attend law school. She found the amazing open markets in Chinatown, then-exotic ingredients like cilantro, and fish fresh off the boat. Like so many of her generation, she began to work her way through French cooking master Julia Child's books.

After a divorce, she kept cooking, taking classes once she finished the Child books. She worked in an office and saved to attend the renowned Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris — a course she finished in two sessions in 1972 and 1974.

Back in her beloved Marina district in San Francisco, she began teaching. She met husband No. 2 — a French engineer who worked for Xerox — when he enrolled in one of her classes. Fame arrived in 1980, in the form of a Bon Appetit magazine cover featuring her recipe for Chocolate Mousse Pie. (You can find it on her Web site at www.donnanordin.com).

While Nordin is still too paralyzingly shy to join boards or speak up in meetings, she emerged as a confident chef and teacher. "She is completely at ease in the kitchen. She is a master at what she does," said Barbara Farmilant, another friend and owner of Strung Out on Beads. Farmilant taught Nordin how to make jewelry and, in turn, spent a week cooking with Nordin in France. "She makes you feel competent. I made a cake I thought I never, ever would attempt."

By 1984, the re-divorced Nordin was teaching cooking all over the United States. She met Don Luria when she proposed offering classes through the cooking school and catering company he owned in Tucson.

Family tales hold it was love at first sight — but not with the man who would become her third husband and business partner. Nordin fell for Michael Luria, his 13-year-old son. She invited Michael to visit her in San Francisco, and sort-of-incidentally invited Don, too.

That fall, she moved to Tucson. In 1986, the trio — Michael was involved from the start — opened what was then Café Terra Cotta, at its original home in St. Philip's Plaza. The elder Luria and Nordin married in 1987.

Two decades later, it is difficult to recall just how limited the food in Tucson still was in the 1980s. "Arguably you could say there wasn't a food scene in Tucson," Michael Luria says. "You couldn't get poblanos — she had to go to great lengths to get a purveyor to bring those in."

For fancy dining, there was "Continental" cuisine — lots of steaks and flambés. But things were stirring — with Janos, with Jerome's — and Terra Cotta quickly established its unique place and style.

Nordin never did become the kind of line cooking chef that many professional cooks prefer. But Levy said he learned something almost as important from her — how to create and manage a kitchen and staff to turn out consistently high-quality food.

"Now that I own my own restaurant, 20 years later, I really see that being a chef . . . is a lot like being a conductor," Levy said. "To me that's Donna's strength — to be able to assemble a group of really talented people and distill that group and bring the best out of them."

Still, it's been a turbulent roller coaster of a ride. Flush with the initial success of Terra Cotta, Nordin and Luria opened two more restaurants, only to wind up in bankruptcy. Terra Cotta alone survived. In 2001, they built their own place, on Sunrise Road, only to suffer a devastating electrical fire in 2004 — smoke and water damage closed the eatery for nearly six months.

That fire hastened the change to a new generation of management. Today, Nordin spends perhaps 10 percent of her time on Terra Cotta. Michael Luria and his wife, Maia, run the restaurant — and are bringing up their own two children there.

Nordin and Don Luria maintain schedules that would exhaust most nonretired people. He has "cut back" to a mere half-dozen major boards and committees. In addition to making jewelry and teaching others to do the same, she teaches cooking in Lake Tahoe and the Dordogne region in France, takes care of her elderly parents — Tucson residents in their late 80s — and enjoys being a grandmother.

Michael Luria reports she recently fed his 10-year-old daughter, Kelsey, goat for dinner.

• Name: Donna Nordin.

• Age: 64.

• Family: Married to Don Luria almost 21 years. Four adult stepchildren and five grandchildren age 7 to 18.

• Home: "About 90 seconds from the restaurant if the light is with me."

• Culinary School: Cordon Bleu, Paris.

• Favorite color: Greens.

• Car: Metallic-blue 2000 VW Beetle (license: Mimibug); Smart hybrid on order.

• Favorite holiday: None.

• Last meal she'd like to have: Pork chops, pasta with pesto, Brussels sprouts, carrots and a cookie plate passed around by grandchildren Kelsey and Max.