Duluth, Minnesota - May 16, 2003

Everybody knows that Betty Lessard - THE Betty of the original Betty’s Pies near Two Harbors, Minnesota - makes first class pies. Now Betty will also be known for serving up a First Place award-winning cookbook.

Betty’s Pies Favorite Recipes earned the top honor in the 2001 cookbook category at the Midwest Book Awards, presented Wednesday (May 14, 2003) by the Midwest Independent Publishers Association based in Minneapolis. This year the awards offered categories for books published in 2001 and in 2002.

The fourth printing of Betty’s Pies Favorite Recipes was just released in mid May by its publisher, Lake Superior Port Cities Inc. of Duluth, Minnesota. The cookbook represents something of a publishing departure for the small family owned company. The majority of its 15 books to date have recorded the regional, shipping and shipwreck history of Lake Superior and the Great Lakes, not surprising for the publisher of the bimonthly Lake Superior Magazine and the annual Lake Superior Travel Guide.

“Betty represents a Lake Superior icon to us, so even though a cookbook was new to us, the history she offers along with the mouth-watering recipes made a good fit for us,” says Publisher Cindy Hayden.

Betty Lessard was, as one might expect, baking pies the day before the announcement of her award. After describing how she had squeezed fresh oranges and grated the chocolate for her Orange Chocolate Pie (page 49 in Favorite Recipes), Betty said cookbook writing was a new experience that was rewarding and taxing. “I’d rather bake a pie,” she jokes. “I’d rather bake 10 pies!”

What she most enjoys about her own cookbook, Betty says, is what others tell her that they also enjoy: Tucked among the great recipes is some fascinating history of Minnesota’s north shore, where Betty’s family has been a fixture for generations. In fact, the pie-serving restaurant that made Betty and her pies famous first got its start as a roadside stand selling smoked fish that came from her family’s commercial fishing operations, as Betty recounts in the cookbook.

Lake Superior Port Cities Inc. will celebrate 25 years in business in 2004 and continues to publish Lake  Superior Magazine, the Lake Superior Travel Guide and the Lake Superior Calendar. Among its other book titles are The Night the Fitz Went Down, By Water & Rail: A History of Lake County, Minnesota, and Haunted Lakes. The company’s offices are at 325 Lake Avenue South, Duluth, MN 55802, its website is www.lakesuperior.com and its products can be ordered from 888-BIG-LAKE (244-5253) or 218-722-5002.