Farm Recipes and Food Secrets from the Norske Nook or Foods of Israel Today

Farm Recipes and Food Secrets from the Norske Nook

Author: Helen Myhr

When a small-town cafe in Osseo, Wisconsin, was praised for "some of the world’s best pies" in the best-selling guidebook Roadfood, Helen Myhre and the Norske Nook became famous! The same home-cooking tips Helen shared on "Late Night with David Letterman" she now shares with you. From breads to gravies, meats to jellies, and of course, that celebrated sour cream raisin pie, Myhre shows you how to bring a rich, thick slice of Midwest cooking into your kitchen.

Terese Allen

Helen Myhre says two things are important for good farm cooking: your hands ('you have to dig in . . . to know how things should look and feel') and butter ('lots of butter'). I'll add one more thing: this cookbook. Helen makes me listen, laugh, and learn.

Joanne Stuttgen

This book makes me feel like a member of the Myhre family. Helen pulls out a dining room chair, inviting me to sit for a spell. Over melt in the mouth pot roast and pie, we catch up on the kids and the locals who give Osseo its Lake Wobegon qualities. I'm back home again.

KLIATT

The legendary Osseo, Wisconsin restaurant has come out with a cookbook of honest-to-goodness "down home" cooking. Helen says, "recipes aren't just formulas, you have to get to know how things should look and feel, you have to dig in." She provides a vast selection of true Midwestern recipes along with running commentary about Osseo present and past. Through her eyes, we find out what it was like to prepare meals and to live during the Depression. Helen also provides a wealth of information about cooking and baking techniques. She makes readers feel as if they are a part of her family. This comprehensive book provides recipes for many different areas, from pickles to breads, soups, main dishes, pies and tortes, cookies and cakes, along with Norwegian specialties. Some of the featured recipes: Seventh Heaven Stuffing for Turkey, Glazed Baby Beets, Glazed Peach Pie, Cream Puffs, Dark Rolled Molasses Cookies, Lutefisk, Peach Pickles, and Rhubarb Cream Pie. This cookbook features a wealth of information that would be helpful to both the novice and the experienced cook. KLIATT Codes: JSA—Recommended for junior and senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2001, Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 269p. index., $21.95. Ages 13 to adult. Reviewer: Shirley Reis; IMC Dir., Lake Shore M.S., Mequon, WI , September 2001 (Vol. 35 No. 5)

Table of Contents:

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Me and the Norske Nook, the Restaurant in Osseo, Wisconsin	xi
	Breads, Rolls, and Sweet Dough Treats	1
	Hints	2
	Breads	4
	Rolls	7
	Sweet Dough Treats	11
	Biscuits, Quick Breads, and Muffins	15
	Soups	21
	Hints	22
	Soups	23
	Assorted Meats and Gravies	37
	Hints	39
	Beef and Pork Dishes and Their Gravies	41
	Turkey, Chicken, and Their Gravies and Stuffings	50
	Bolognas, Sausage, Liver, and Tongue	54
	Fresh and Canned Treasures from the Garden and Wild Patches	61
	Salads and Dressings	62
	Vegetables	67
	Hints for Home Canning	76
	Jams and Jellies	78
	Fruit Sauces	81
	Pickles, Relishes, Canned Vegetables, and Mincemeat	85
	Farm Meals	95
	Country Breakfasts	96
	Hints for Country Eggs	99
	Farm Lunches	101
	Everyday Dinners	106
	Farm Suppers	107
	Sunday Dinners, Holiday Menus, and a Country Picnic	110
	Pies, Tortes, Pan Desserts, and Puddings	115
	Hints for Pies	117
	Hints for Crusts	118
	Pie Crusts	120
	Hints for Meringues	122
	Pies	123
	Tortes, Pan Desserts, and Puddings	138
	Cakes, Bars, and Frostings	155
	Hints for Cakes and Bars	157
	Cakes	160
	Bars	181
	Hints for Frostings	186
	Frostings	186
	Cookies and Fry Cakes	195
	Hints for Cookies	196
	Cookies	198
	Hints for Fry Cakes	211
	Fry Cakes	213
	Fry Cake Frostings and Toppings	214
	Homemade Ice Creams and Toppings	217
	Ice Creams	218
	Toppings	223
	Old-Fashioned Beverages and New-Fangled Punches	225
	Scandinavian Specialties	237
	Good Kitchen Tools and Mail-Order Products	259
	Index	263

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Foods of Israel Today: Reflecting Israel's Past and Present through Its Many Cuisines

Author: Joan Nathan

In this richly evocative book, Joan Nathan captures the spirit of Israel today by exploring its multifaceted cuisine. She delves into the histories of the people already settled in this nearly barren land, as well as those who immigrated and helped to quickly transform it into a country bursting with new produce. It is a dramatic and moving saga, interlarded with more than two hundred wonderful recipes that represent all the varied ethnic backgrounds. Every recipe has a story, and through these tales the story of Israel emerges.

Nathan shows how a typical Israeli menu today might include Middle Eastern hummus, a European schnitzel (made with native-raised turkey) accompanied by a Turkish eggplant salad and a Persian rice dish, with, perhaps, Jaffa Orange Delight for dessert. On Friday nights she visits with home cooks who may be preparing a traditional Libyan, Moroccan, Italian, or German meal for their families, the Sabbath being the focal point of the week throughout Israel (all her recipes are accordingly kosher). And she takes us to markets overflowing with vegetables, fruits, herbs, and spices.

To gather the recipes and the stories, Nathan has been traveling the length and breadth of Israel for many years--to a Syrian Alawite village on the northern border for a vegetarian kubbeh and to Bet She'an for potato burekas; to the Red Sea for farmed sea bream and to the Sea of Galilee for St. Peter's fish; to Jerusalem's Bukharan Quarter for Iraqi pita bread baked in a wood-fired clay oven, to the Nahlaot neighborhood for Yemenite fried pancake-like bread, and to a Druse village for paper-thin lavash; to a tiny restaurant in Haifa for Turkish coconut cake and to a wedding at Kibbutz May'ayan Baruch in the upper Galilee for Moroccan sweet couscous; and to many, many other places. All the while, she seeks out biblical connections between ancient herbs and vegetables and their modern counterparts, between Esau's mess of pottage and today's popular taboulleh, and she delights us with tales of all she encounters.

Throughout, Joan Nathan shows us how food in this politically turbulent land can be a way of breaking down barriers between Jews, Moslems, and Christians. Generously illustrated with colorful photographs, this enormously engaging book is one to treasure, not only as a splendid cookbook but also as a unique record of life in Israel.

Publishers Weekly

Modern Israel is one of the world's great culinary melting pots, and Nathan (author of the highly successful PBS series and cookbook Jewish Cooking in America) does it justice in this exceptional and comprehensive examination of its diverse cultural lineage. Israeli flavors include those of the Middle East like Classic Israeli Eggplant Dip, new inventions such as Israeli Revisionist Haroset and imported traditions like Judith Tihany's Transylvanian Green Bean Soup. Nathan collects recipes from both ordinary Israelis including 97-year-old Shoshana Kleiner, whose instruction for her Fourth Aliyah Vegetable Soup is "Cook until cooked!" and popular restaurants, such as Jerusalem's Eucalyptus. Nor are local Arabic traditions given short shrift, spotlighting dishes like Zucchini with Yogurt. The book also offers information ranging from the best places to eat falafel and notes on Israeli wine to a good-sized glossary. Nathan, who spent more than two years working for Teddy Kollek when he was mayor of Jerusalem, generously sprinkles the pages with her personal memories as well as descriptions of the pioneering spirit of early Israelis: in the days when a home oven was a luxury, they often made a dessert "salami" of crushed cookies, wine, cocoa and nuts. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Nathan is the author of Jewish Cooking in America and an authority on the subject. In her ambitious new work, she explores the food and culinary traditions of modern Israel, which she describes as not a melting pot but rather a multicultural "mosaic." Most of the more than 300 recipes she collected come from home cooks, and their stories make this title almost as much a cultural history as cookbook. The bread chapter, for example, includes Pita Spinach Turnovers from a Bedouin family, Yemenite Pancakes, Sesame Bread from the Armenian community in Jerusalem, Ethiopian Shabbat Bread, and Pan de Casa from a Moroccan grandmother. The extensively researched text provides background on the many immigrant groups that make up Israel's population; there are also photographs of many of the people she encountered, literary and biblical quotations, and even a brief Guide to Good Eating in Israel. Although Israeli recipes appear in other Middle Eastern and Jewish cookbooks, Nathan's impressive work is unique. Highly recommended. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

What People Are Saying

Daniel Boulud
Joan Nathan's cookbook is an intensely individual one, full of personal anecdotes and excerpts of relevant stories by various authors. I read this cookbook like a novel and really enjoyed learning more about the culture and cuisine of Israel. I also had the most incredible urge to try every recipe while I was reading the cookbook-a sure sign that a cookbook will be a hit.

Lynne Rossetto Kasper
I have been waiting a long time for this book. The years Joan Nathan has taken to 'get it right' show on every page. No one has dealt with Israel with this combination of scholarship, good storytelling, and the pure joy of a gifted cook. This is one of those books that softens and opens the 'otherness' of a complex country. Thank you, Joan, for a masterful piece of work and for building a much-needed bridge. It goes on my short shelf of classics.