SquawkRadio

The sky dumped about 20 inches of snow on us over the last few days. These pictures were taken from my office window and this was before it all ended. So what do you do when the sky is falling and the wind is whipping and the temperature is diving? Aside from anxiously watching your husband challenge the Coronary Gods by shoveling tons of snow?

YOU COOK!
Do any of you have a “go-to” cookbook? The kind that doesn’t have a million recipes but a choice, fabulous fistful of perfect ones? I do.
It’s Beth Dooley and Lucia Watson’s SAVORING THE SEASONS. Lucia Watson is chef-owner of Lucia’s one of the most highly rated restaurants in Minneapolis, a small gem of a place that insists on using local produce and products. The results, borrowing from traditional fare, are uniformly fresh, flavorful and fantastic but never fussy. She brings that same discipline to this cookbook—a happy and loving tribute to the various ethnic settlers of the upper Midwest.

Interlacing culinary history, anecdotes, and old pictures with mostly one page recipes using only fresh ingredients, she returns you to your grandmother’s kitchen (if your grandmother happened to be a Croatian, Irish, Welsh, Scandinavian, Italian, Polish farm wife) where everything is made from scratch and tastes sublime. Don’t get me wrong. This is not church basement food. There aren’t a whole lot of casseroles (hot dishes). This is comfort food, yes, but with a clean, contemporary vibe borrowed from a dozen cultures.

You can find a simple recipe for homemade ricotta cheese, then turn the page for tender, melt-in-your-mouth corn blintzes and the ricotta, parmesan and herb filling that accents it perfectly. If you’re a baker, you’ll be in heaven choosing between Limpa Rye, Black Walnut Bread, Stollen, Kolache, Potato Bread and, yes, Lefse. For myself, I tend toward the soups: Spring Borscht, Creamy Chicken and Barley (tonight!) or Sour Cherry Riesling. Fresh Corn Pudding, Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Hazelnuts, Chicken with Juniper Berries and Gin, Thresher Beef Stew with Onion, Beer, and Blue Cheese, Chicken Pot Pie with a Buttermilk Biscuit Crust are just a few of the recipes I’ve done time and time again. Much to my waistline’s dismay and my family’s delight. But they’re never so delighted as when I hit the last chapter for the meal course where farm wives (and Lucia Watson) pull out all the stops. Schaum Torte, Apple Strudel, Pumpkin Spice Roulade,Three Citrus Chiffon Cake or--- wait for it-- the cake that makes grown men weep and little children believe in fairy godmothers (or is that food godmothers?) the five egg, five ounce of chocolate, four layer, Minnesota Fudge Cake with Milk Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting.

Yeah, baby!