Dougherty - Life in a northern town cooking, eating, and other adventures along Lake Superior

Published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press

Publishers since 1855

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2017 by Mary Dougherty

E-book edition 2017

Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo appeared in The Woman Who Fell From the Sky (W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.) and is used by permission of the author.

For permission to reuse material from Life in a Northern Town: Cooking, Eating, and Other Adventures along Lake Superior (ISBN 978-0-87020-828-7; e-book ISBN 978-0-87020-829-4), please access www.copyright.com or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Dougherty, Mary, 1969- author.

Title: Life in a northern town : cooking, eating, and other adventures along Lake Superior / Mary Dougherty.

Description: Madison : Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2017. | Identifiers: LCCN 2017016089 (print) | LCCN 2017026329 (ebook) | ISBN 9780870208294 (Ebook) | ISBN 9780870208287 (hardcover : alkaline paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Dougherty, Mary, 1969- | Dougherty, Mary, 1969Family. | Bayfield (Wis.)Biography. | Community lifeWisconsinBayfield. | Bayfield (Wis.)Social life and customs. | Superior, Lake, RegionSocial life and customs. | Bayfield (Wis.)Pictorial works. | FoodSocial aspects--WisconsinBayfield. | CookingWisconsinBayfield. | Cooking, American. | BISAC: COOKING / Regional & Ethnic / American / Middle Western States. | COOKING / Entertaining.

Classification: LCC F589.B3 (ebook) | LCC F589.B3 D68 2017 (print) | DDC 977.5/13dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017016089

Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

RAINER MARIA RILKE

For Jack, Will, Sadie, Charlie, and Meghan. I love you more than George.

Contents

It just may be that the most radical act we can commit is to stay home. What does that mean to finally commit to a place, to a people, to a community?

It doesnt mean its easy, but it does mean you can live with patience, because youre not going to go away. It also means commitment to bear witness, and engaging in casserole diplomacy by sharing food among neighbors, by playing with the children and mending feuds and caring for the sick. These kinds of commitment are real. They are tangible. They are not esoteric or idealistic, but rooted in the bedrock existence of where we choose to maintain our lives.

That way we begin to know the predictability of a place. We anticipate a species long before we see them. We can chart the changes, because we have a memory of cycles and seasons; we gain a capacity for both pleasure and pain, and we find the strength within ourselves and each other to hold these lines.

Thats my definition of family. And thats my definition of love.

TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS

I DIDNT SET OUT to put down roots in a small town on Lake Superior, but thanks to a red sailboat and a sense of adventure, here I am, firmly planted in Bayfield. And like the best of epic tales, this one began with a journey on a boat, in our case with a bunch of kids and a 150-pound Newfoundland dog named Guinness. My husband, Ted, and our three children at the time, Jack, Will, and Sadie, sailed from Duluth, Minnesota, to Bayfield in June 2000 on our thirty-foot sailboat, Isle of Skye. Until then, my experience with Wisconsin didnt extend much beyond Polk County, where my parents have a raspberry farm, and thoughts of islands, ferries, and sea caves seemed fantastical. Given my seasickness issues, I slept the entire trip from Duluth to Bayfield, and I woke up just as we pulled into Justice Bay on Sand Island. I couldnt believe what I was seeing: brownstone cliffs, lighthouses, and crystal-clear blue water. I fell in love with the Apostle Islands as we sailed from Sand Island to Bayfield that June morning, and the deal was sealed when we pulled into the Bayfield harbor. I was home.

Our June visit, originally planned for a week, stretched into the fall and through our first Apple Fest, and by the following summer we had our own slip in the Apostle Islands Marina. Over the next six years we added two more children to our family, along with two more dogs, a trawler, and a house with a wraparound porch on Rittenhouse Avenue. Bayfield had become the place we dreamed of when we were at home in Minnesota, waiting for Friday, when we could head north again.

In 2007 we took the leap and moved to Bayfield full-time to open Good Thyme Restaurant and live our lives against the backdrop of waterfalls, beaches, and a quintessential small town of 487 people. I quickly learned that restaurant ownership doesnt mix well with five kids, four dogs, a ten oclock bedtime, photography, reading, gardening, and cooking for my friends and family. In 2012 I sold my interest in the restaurant to my business partner and set out to rediscover my own kitchen table.

Here I am, many years later, with a whole lot of lessons learned, a much wider cooking repertoire (having limited takeout options means that if I want naan, Thai, or moo shu pork, Id better get busy), and a greater appreciation for what it means to live in a northern Wisconsin town. Sure, I miss my favorite Greek grocery store, the Thai restaurant where we ordered by numbers, fresh tamales from West St. Paul, and oystersI really miss oysters. But like so many immigrants before me, I adapted. I stock up on Greek olive oil and Thai fish sauce when I visit my family in Minneapolis. I make my own meatballs, pt, pho, and ravioli. I havent figured out the oyster situation yet, but Im working on it (theres a beach party in my future featuring bivalves and champagne, I feel it in my bones). Ive found ways to incorporate what grows and is raised in northern Wisconsin into my familys favorites, bringing together at our table what we carried with us into Bayfield and what were learning about our new community. The name of the game in my kitchen is using local ingredients to cook globally and regionally inspired dishes. Fresh fruits and vegetables and local cheeses, eggs, meats, and grains are abundant on the Bayfield peninsula and in the Chequamegon Bay region. Ive made pho with beef bones from a farm in Mellen, a souffl with goat cheese made in Herbster, Indian chicken curry with curry powder from Washburn, and the best chowder with corn and potatoes from a farm stand in Ashland. Can I explain how a trip to Devils Island in July makes me think of Cuban pork with a garlicky mojo sauce for dinner? Not in any way that makes logical sense, but it does.