For the mango salsa:

1 1/2 mangos, julienned
1/2 cup red wine
1 1/2 teaspoons sambal (an Indonesian spice)
2 tablespoons sugar
For the apple curry:

3 Granny Smith apples
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup yellow onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon garlic, diced
1/2 teaspoon mild curry powder
2/3 cup Marsala wine
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 teaspoon white pepper
2 2/3 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 teaspoons fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon red Thai curry paste
4 1/4 teaspoons coconut milk
For the saffron rice:

1 teaspoon butter
1 small yellow onions diced
1/2 cup leeks, chopped
1 pinch saffron
1 1/3 cups Calrose (white short-grain, sticky) rice
2 2/3 cups chicken or fish stock

For the mussels:

50-65 mussels, steamed
10 ounces carrots, julienned
10 ounces Napa cabbage, julienned
1 cup macadamia nuts, chopped
2 1/2 Granny Smith apples, sliced
2 starfruit as garnish

Instructions:

1. To make the mango salsa: Combine wine, sambal and sugar. Add enough sauce to cover mangos. Chill for an hour.

2. To make the apple curry: Sauté onions in butter until translucent. Add garlic and curry. Sauté for two minutes. Add Marsala and reduce liquid by half. Add remaining ingredients and simmer for 45 minutes. Strain. Then add fish sauce, red Thai curry paste and coconut milk.

3. To make the saffron rice: Sauté onions and leeks in butter until translucent. Add saffron, rice and stock. Heat until boiling. Cover and cook at lowest heat for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand with cover on for an additional 15 minutes.

4. Steam mussels in a sauté pan. Add hot apple curry, carrots, Napa cabbage, apples and macadamia nuts. Heat for one minute.

5. Serve in a large, deep plate or shallow bowl. Arrange mussels, apples and saffron rice on plate. Dredge mussels with the sauce left in the pan. Top with mango salsa. Slice starfruit for garnish.

Serves five.

The Valley Cafe

Justin Sanders and Dan Woodall share the kitchen at Ellensburg's Valley Cafe, but neither sees himself in a career as a chef after each graduates from Central Washington University, only a few blocks away.

"They are only here for the duration of their education," said owner Gregory Beach. "It's a blessing and curse. This is the most expertise we've had in the kitchen."

Woodall, 26, is on course to leave CWU this fall with a degree in mechanical engineering. Fortunately for diners, Sanders, also 26, figures he has three years to go for his computer science degree.

"There's a lot more to it than money, but the hours are so weird in this business," said Sanders, who enjoys hiking and camping. "I've been cooking for so long that when I went to work for a software company and worked regular hours, that was kind of weird, too."

Woodall, a skateboarder and snowboarder who has been at the Valley Cafe for two years, said, "I've pretty much decided I'm going to go into engineering after school. But for a student who needs a job, this is a great place to work."

Both graduated from rival Bellevue-area high schools in 1991, Sanders from Redmond and Woodall from Newport. Both spent several years at various Puget Sound eateries before enrolling at CWU. Although Sanders' interest in cooking began "like a lot of us - washing dishes when I was 15," he's developed a classic French base. He received four months of formal training in Grenoble, France, as well as a degree from South Seattle Community College's culinary school.

The dedication shown by Sanders and Woodall, and the cuisine they create to put themselves through college, reaffirms Beach's idea that chefs are unsung stars.

"In this country, we take for granted people who combine ingredients that pair food and wine together," Beach said. "In France, they are celebrities, somebody with that talent is held in high esteem. It is an art form."

As Match Makers, Beach, Sanders and Woodall set out to create a dish for McCrea Cellars' 1998 viognier that features food indigenous to the Northwest. They hit home: steamed mussels with apple curry and mango salsa served with saffron rice.

"It's amazing how few places serve mussels, but not a lot of restaurants want to deal with it," Beach said. "You have to bring it in right, hold it right and cook it right."

Wine Press Northwest supplied the mussels, three pounds of which cost $10 and netted about 60 of the mollusks. We sat down with the Valley Cafe threesome and talked about the project, casually dining on their creation as a group appetizer. However, 15 mussels a person makes this dish an entrée, and it's easy to lose count until you take inventory of the emptied shells on your plate.

When Woodall first sampled the McCrea viognier, "The first thing I thought of was star fruit because the wine has such nice fruit characteristics. Then, we thought of green apples and mangoes."

The subtle fruits and lack of oak often found in a chardonnay led the Valley Cafe trio away from other types of seafood.

"Mussels are probably the perfect seafood," Sanders said. "Anything else is overpowering. We tried mahi-mahi, but it was too much."

The apple curry addresses the fruit of the wine, while the curry helps clean the palate. The same goes for the mango salsa, where the key ingredient is sambal - an Indonesian spice with some jazz, but one that doesn't linger on the tongue.

"It took away a lot of the fruit in the wine if it got too hot," Woodall said. "It's very easy to make the dish hotter, though. You could add a little more of the Thai curry paste (to the apple curry.)"

Sanders quickly added, "It beats up the mussels pretty badly, though."

Valley Cafe, 105 W. 3rd, Ellensburg, Wash. 509-925-3050. Open 11 a.m.-9 p.m. daily. Deli/wine shop open 9 a.m.-3 p.m. daily.