Simple Breads for the Season Try these recipes for savory and sweet breads. They’ll fill your home with heavenly scents and make your family and friends feel loved. By PATTY LaNOUE STEARNS Whole Wheat Flat Bread These savory Moroccan rounds need to rise several times, but your kitchen time will be worth it. Serve them …
Into the Woods This mid-island, Alpen-themed eatery also boasts a bowling alley. By Patty LaNoue Stearns MACKINAC ISLAND–How many restaurants can you think of that require a 20-minute horse-drawn carriage ride to get there? Or that can boast a vintage 19th-century duckpin bowling alley? Those are just two cool claims Mackinac Island’s Woods restaurant can make, the …
Fresh, Pure and Delicious Just-picked asparagus, peaches, and zucchini. Wild raspberries and morels, free-range beef and poultry, whitefish and perch pulled from the lake this morning. These are the extraordinary ingredients that make regional cuisine sing. Here, we spotlight 40 eateries that seek out the seasonal best from our orchards, fields, forests and streams. Read …
Richard Simmons’ Kitchen Party Sweatin’ Over a Salad with the Deal-A-Meal Meister By Patty LaNoue Stearns DETROIT–Richard Simmons rolled up to the Free Press last week in a black stretch limo with big yellow lights, emerging in a sequined, hot pink tank top and his signature short-shorts. Never mind that the temperature outside was only 40. The wild …
Tapawingo Turns 20 Harlan “Pete” Peterson and his small but mighty crew have put the hamlet of Ellsworth, Michigan, on the nation’s foodie map. Can the state’s most celebrated restaurant keep the party going? Dan Flynn and Edward “Fritz” Girrbach stand a foot apart, heads bent over a wood-topped stainless-steel counter in the main kitchen …
Romancing the Riesling The grape of the 45th parallel has catapulted Northern Michigan winemakers onto the international stage. By Patty LaNoue Stearns Standing on the highest point of Old mission Peninsula, an undulating vision lies before you — a landscape of aqua, ochre, chocolate, windswept gray and shades of red, orange and green. Be it …
Taste of the Tropics The Tin Fish seasons freshwater goodness with a dash of tiki-inspired flair. By Patty LaNoue Stearns Let’s say you’re floating on Lake St. Clair’s Anchor Bay and suddenly the urge to nosh on a Dungeness crab cake sweeps over you like a gigantic cumulus cloud. Then you start hankering for a …
Pining for Perfection Float or drive to iconic Hack-Ma-Tack Inn and take in the massive trees, rolling river and first-class cuisine. By Patty LaNoue Stearns CHEBOYGAN–As we drove the pine-scented, sun-dappled country roads from Indian River to Cheboygan, heading to the fabled Hack-Ma-Tack Inn, I was salivating. It’s a pilgrimage I try to make every year, …
Ode To Joy Irma Rombauer’s 20-million bestseller, Joy of Cooking, has deep roots in Northern Michigan By Patty LaNoue Stearns I got my first copy of Joy of Cooking as a wedding present 25 years ago, and the all-purpose, encyclopedic tome quickly became my culinary bible. The thick, illustrated, 4,500-recipe cookbook covered everything from the method known as …
Up North Classics They’re unvarnished, unpretentious Up North restaurants–just like you remember them. You know the places. You return to them year after year because summer isn’t summer unless you get a hit of their “world famous” burger, whitefish sandwich, pan-fried walleye or fresh raspberry pie. These beloved eateries are all over Northern Michigan–out in …