The Sun Sunnyvale's Newspaper Photograph by Skye Dunlap Zora Blair, left, cooks everything in her Corner Cafe deli from scratch, sometimes creating recipes as she goes. She is pictured here with employee Rosana Cukic. Deli customers benefit from woman's 'therapy' By PAM MARINO Zora Blair was going "cuckoo," as she put it. She left the cosmetics business four years ago, soon after her teenage son was diagnosed with diabetes. But after being at home for a month, she found the stress of focusing all of her attention on his needs overwhelming. Her family, which had escaped from civil war in Bosnia and was now living with Blair, urged her to do something for herself to take her mind off her troubles for part of each day as a kind of therapy. Instead of taking up a new hobby, Blair decided to expand what she loves to do, cooking, into her own business. So she bought The Corner Cafe in Cupertino, a small, struggling deli in Monta Vista across the street from the Post Office. "I liked the shop because it reminded me so much of Europe," Blair said of the deli, which has a quaint patio garden in back of the building. The deli is struggling no more, thanks to the popularity of Blair's own recipes. She cooks everything from scratch, creating as she goes. "I never know how it will turn out when I start," she said. Her staff peeks over her shoulder and hurriedly writes down what she puts into her dishes, so they can be recreated. "It's for me an art," she said. Ironically, when Blair left Bosnia as a young woman, she didn't even know how to cook an egg. She moved to Germany, and then lived in other European countries, as well as the United States, teaching herself how to cook all the various cuisines she was exposed to. The food, which always has an international flair to it, reflects her background. And there is no set menu, since Blair changes what she cooks from week to week, sometimes focusing on one cuisine, sometimes on another. There are always sandwiches, and a wide array of salads. There are also hot dishes and soup. She features hot specials every day, with a choice of salad. Everything is made fresh, Blair said. "It is against my religion to use cans," she joked. She makes salads and soups daily, and dishes like egg salad are made on the spot for each customer, instead of letting a big batch sit in the case for hours. She says she does not shy away from special orders. "People, I tell them to just talk to me," Blair said. "The trust is there between me and my customers." Blair, who at home cooks special meals for her son, is very health conscious. Her recipes are always as fat-free as possible--she uses no butter or oils--and she makes a large number of vegetarian sandwiches, salads and dishes. The meats she uses are either very lean beef, grilled chicken breast or seafood. Blair does a lot of catering, including catering for events at Flint Center. She says she works with clients to create a special menu for them within their budgets. Despite the hard work of cooking and running a deli, Blair said the job relaxes her, taking her mind off of the things that worry her at home. "It's my medicine," she said. The Corner Cafe is at 21730 Stevens Creek Blvd., Cupertino, 446-2029. It is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. [ Back to Contents Page | Sunnyvale Sun Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, November 25, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.