Paul L. Hayden / Lake Superior Magazine
Pie Place Cafe
The Pie Place Café and Harbor Inn in Grand Marais, Minnesota, attract locals and visitors to the waterfront main street location.
A growing trend around Lake Superior is transforming cookbooks into keepsakes as local restaurants publish books that feature their recipes, their philosophies and often a heaping slice of their Big Lake neighbors and neighborhoods.
A series of books has been published recently (three by the publishers of this magazine), but the trend first sprouted a couple decades ago on Minnesota’s North Shore, where it still grows strong. Reading these cookbooks is like delving into passions of the restaurant owners and chefs. Sometimes the recipes almost seem secondary.
For author Kathy Rice, The Pie Place Café Cookbook got its start as a sort of “letter home” to distant relations after she and the other owners of the café moved to northern Minnesota.
“With family members living far away, I started writing stories about our restaurant experiences in Grand Marais each day,” remembers Kathy, a member of the family that owns The Pie Place Café. “I planned to send them the vignettes for Christmas.”
She soon felt those stories could be woven with recipes into a cookbook. She aimed to impart a sense of place, to share the feeling of community they have developed at the restaurant among family, co-workers, suppliers and most importantly patrons. “Food is our avenue to connect with the community. We think of them all as family.”
Sustainability and use of local produce is a strong focus at The Pie Place and at several restaurants that have produced cookbooks, including another popular Grand Marais eatery.
Angry Trout
George Wilkes of the Angry Trout Café in Grand Marais, Minnesota, with his restaurant's cookbook.
The Angry Trout Café Notebook emphasizes its philosophy in the subtitle: Friends, Recipes, and The Culture of Sustainability. Stories of suppliers, also the café’s neighbors, dominate the book. It is rich in detail, from the artist who hand carved the front door to the reason their reusable cloth napkins are so small. “People are always interested in the backstory,” says café co-owner George Wilkes. “They have questions about where the food came from, the tables and chairs, everything. We thought sustainability was an important part of the restaurant experience and wanted to share that background with our customers.”
Tom Hanson, co-owner of the Duluth Grill, is equally passionate about “local sourcing” and has taken the concept a step farther – out into the parking lot. His own produce right outside the restaurant and at his urban farm creates the starting point for some dishes on the menu. The grill’s patrons frequently requested recipes, and Tom never had the time to put out a cookbook until local freelance writer Robert Lillegard, who has done food stories for national publications, became Tom’s impetus to produce the Duluth Grill Cook Book.
“It started as a book to cook from,” Tom says. “Robert took it to a level of human interest. Robert knew … this was about the urban farm and the people involved.”
Tom likened final creation of the book to editing a film, reducing it to the best of the best while keeping the storyline. Vignettes are mingled with recipes and artful photography, done in the restaurant after hours.
Chef-proprietor Scott Graden took a hands-on approach with his New Scenic Café: The Cookbook. Scott even did his own photography, wanting the food to look real, not staged. Similarly, he chose a simple blue cover to mirror the nature of his eating establishment. “It forces you to open it up and look harder at the contents, just like our restaurant. It is understated on the outside, and some people still think we are still a roadside burger joint.”
Once inside, though, they recognize the New Scenic as a rich dining experience. Inside the cookbook, too, it becomes clear this is no ordinary recipe book. The color photographs of the food, of Duluth, of Minnesota’s North Shore and the café’s own gardens present a feast for the eyes. The large collection of recipes is supplemented by a guide to cooking terms, ingredients and tools plus a thorough glossary.
Lake Avenue Restaurant & Bar
Tony Beran of Lake Avenue Restaurant & Bar in Duluth.
“We’ve always had our own book of recipes, but they are work notes,” Scott says. “Doing a cookbook catalogs what you do, and your efforts are earmarked forever. It’s the natural next step in the restaurant and chef world.”
In the Lake Avenue Restaurant & Bar Cookbook 2014, recipes take center stage. “We are one of the few restaurants in Duluth that changes its menu seasonally,” says Derek Snyder, one of the owners. “We decided to put out a cookbook with the favorites from the last five years. In every restaurant, there are stories behind each dish.”
Customers helped to select the recipes by filling out forms on their tables. In the cookbook, Executive Chef Tony Beran encourages readers to make the recipes their own: “Have fun; use your creativity, favorite ingredients and techniques in unison with our collection of recipes to express yourself through food.”
Minnesota has dominated this new restaurant cookbook trend, but it only seems natural that Bayfield, Wisconsin’s premier country inn and restaurant would offer up its own version.
Lake Avenue Restaurant & Bar
Derek Snyder of Lake Avenue Restaurant & Bar in Duluth.
The Old Rittenhouse Inn Cookbook: Meals & Memories from the Historic Bayfield B&B rolls tasty recipes, sassy memoir and regional guide into one book. “I wanted it to be a keepsake also, something fun, almost a coffee table book,” says author-innkeeper-musician Mark Phillips.
This is actually the second cookbook for the inn, featuring the more contemporary dishes they prepare now, and their growing use of locally raised or harvested ingredients. “I originally thought I would expand and revise the first cookbook,” says Mark, “but we eat and cook differently than we did 22 years ago.”
Having literally grown up at the inn, Mark’s memories extend to a lifetime of innkeeping. The stories also reach out into Bayfield, highlighting the local sights and festivals that attract visitors to the lakeside community. In his book introduction, Mark summarizes plainly what so many of these cookbooks deliver: “A cookbook, too, is more than a collection of ingredients and instructions. It is a collection of memories because the most meaningful moments in life are often spent with our family and friends around a table.”
Local Restaurant Cookbooks
1 of 9
The Old Rittenhouse Inn Cookbook
2 of 9
New Scenic Cafe Cookbook
3 of 9
Lake Avenue Restaurant & Bar Cookbook 2014
4 of 9
The Pie Place Café Cookbook
5 of 9
La Cucina Della Razza Dei Ciurri
6 of 9
The Original Betty's Pies Favorite Recipes
7 of 9
Dining in the Spirit of Naniboujou
8 of 9
The Gunflint Lodge Cookbook
9 of 9
Breakfast at the Lighthouse
These cookbooks are listed by the year they were first published.
The Old Rittenhouse Inn Cookbook: Meals & Memories from the Historic Bayfield B&B, by Mark Phillips. 2014 Lake Superior Port Cities Inc.
New Scenic Café́: The Cookbook, by Scott Graden with Arlene Anderson. 2014 New Scenic Cafe Inc.
Lake Avenue Restaurant & Bar Cookbook 2014: Locavore Cuisine & Micro-distillery Bar, by Tony Beran and restaurant staff. 2013 Heirloom Industry.
The Pie Place Café Cookbook: Food & Stories Seasoned by the North Shore, by Kathy Rice. 2013 Lake Superior Port Cities Inc.
The Duluth Grill Cook Book, by Robert Lillegard. 2012 Duluth Grill Publishing.
Angry Trout Café Notebook: Friends, Recipes, and the Culture of Sustainability, by George Wilkes. 2004 Northwind Sailing.
La Cucina Della Razza Dei Ciurri, The Kitchen of the Race of Curly Heads, edited by Carol, Gina and Mia Valentini at Valentini’s Vicino Lago, 2003 Morris Press Cookbooks.
The Original Betty’s Pies Favorite Recipes, by Betty Lessard. 2001 Lake Superior Port Cities Inc.
Dining in the Spirit of Naniboujou: Recipes Collected from Naniboujou Lodge, edited by Bonnie Jean Swanson. 1999 Naniboujou Lodge.
The Gunflint Lodge Cookbook: Elegant Northwoods Dining, by Ron Berg and Sue Kerfoot. 1997 University of Minnesota Press.
Although Big Bay Point Bed & Breakfast in Big Bay, Michigan, does not offer dining unless you are a guest, it does have a cookbook:
Breakfast at the Lighthouse: Recipes from the Big Bay Lighthouse Bed-and-Breakfast, by Linda H. Gamble. 2010 Big Bay Lighthouse.
Did we miss your favorite cookbook? Comment below or drop a line to edit@lakesuperior.com.
Duluth writer Molly Hoeg also enjoys whipping up a good meal with local fare.