Homegrown cookbook

Amanda Dyslin
The Free Press

May 03, 2008 06:08 pm

— Lisa Durkee opened the Amboy Cottage Cafe in 2000 with the belief that big things can be done in small places.
Shyma O’Brien grew up in St. Peter, but if you ask him, he’ll say it was in the St. Peter Co-op & Deli.
These are the beginnings to two stories that revolve around a love of food and community. A new book, “The Minnesota Homegrown Cookbook,” by Tim King and Alice Tanghe, features dozens more from across the state. The book brings back a tradition long missing from cookbooks — the stories behind the food, where the recipes came from and the connection with the growers of the produce.
“That’s the thing that’s missing in food these days,” said Margo O’Brien, Shyma’s mom and co-op general manager.
The purpose of the book — presented by Renewing the Countryside, an organization aiming to strengthen rural areas by highlighting the initiatives and projects of rural communities — may be summed up by a piece of the forward written by Garrison Keillor.
“A fresh tomato, sliced, with chilled cucumber and pepper and onion. An ear of corn. Six small red potatoes, boiled in their skins. All of it homegrown. From this, one can regain faith in divine providence and restore a sense of the kindness and beauty of the world and resolve to rise up tomorrow and try to do what needs to be done.”
Durkee’s and O’Brien’s stories are the two with ties to southern Minnesota. In the “Minnesota River Valley” chapter, The Amboy Cottage Cafe is described as a 750-square-foot renovated Pure Oil gas station built in the 1920s, with an English Cottage motif. “It seats 31 people, if you count the bathroom,” the story begins.
“I think it’s just pretty interesting to be in a book that has Garrison Keillor doing the forward,” Durkee said. “I think they were attempting to get something special from each cafe that you could actually take home and use — not just read, but implement.”
In a town of 600 people, the cafe employs 20 people and is packed at lunch time, said Durkee, who used to be a nurse in Mankato.
The book describes the closeness of the staff (some are related), and of course, the quality of the food.
Durkee describes it as “slow food,” compared to fast food chain restaurants.
“We actually take time to make a pot roast, and my mom still makes all the pie crusts,” she says in the book. “I think the people come for the good food.”
Durkee said she was contacted by an author more than a year ago. Someone came out to the cafe and did an interview, and pictures were taken. The same was true for the co-op.
The piece on the co-op, in the same chapter, is as much a profile of Shyma as it is on the deli. He has been working at the co-op for 16 years, working his way up from stocking shelves to now running the deli.
The deli serves 50 to 75 items, including a dozen varieties of pre-made sandwiches. The locally grown items are also highlighted, including cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes and fresh basil.
Shyama’s strategy, the book says, has been to serve foods familiar to rural Minnesota, but also to add a spice of ethnic flavors. The co-op also caters to the ever-growing community of people who want to know where their food comes from.
Shepherd’s Way Farms near Nerstrand is one of the area vendors at the co-op.
“People want to know the stories of the people who are responsible for their food,” says Jodi Ohlsen, co-owner of Shepherd’s Way, in the book. “They want to feel connected to those people.”
Recipes for Velvety Yam Soup and Caprese Salad run with the article on the co-op.
Durkee chose her Northern Lights Swiss Chard Quiche and Butternut Basil Soup as the two recipes to submit to the cookbook. Both appear thick and hardy, the perfect cottage cafe fare. Her Seeded Oat and Potato Bread also is featured.

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