Home cooking, and comfort, and plain old Good Food. A book like this doesn't get written in a day. Over the years, Mrs. Sundberg has gathered the best recipes this side of Lake Wobegon®. It was a Saturday in the spring when she got to thinking about all the people who have requested recipes along the way and how she just might have enough recipes for a cookbook. Sure enough, she did. When it comes to good food, there's always room for recipes tried and true. This book by Holly Harden is full of good things: A return to simple food, lovingly prepared, sure to please - More than 160 basic recipes with common ingredients already in your pantry - Menus planned around shared life events―from holidays to funerals to vacations to Saturday night suppers - And on top of it all . . . a few of Mrs. Sundberg’s stories and thoughts on ordinary life: “I was at my parents’ kitchen table, in the midst of a large number of family members and dogs. It had been a happy day with food everywhere―dips and cheeses, ham sandwiches and cherry pie. And as I sat there, with kids screaming for joy, a dog shoving its head on my lap, my dad offering me a chili pepper beer, just to try, I felt at complete and utter peace. It’s not something you can pencil in. Real peace is elusive, and sometimes it comes out of nowhere, when you least expect it.” At age 9, in the back seat of her grandmother’s car on the way to a funeral, Holly Harden began to write, and she’s been writing ever since. She grew up in several small Wisconsin towns, and majored in English and education at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. After teaching English and literature at the secondary level for nine years, she earned an MFA in writing from Hamline University. Her nonfiction work has appeared in publications such as “Utne” and “Fourth Genre,” and most recently in the essay collection, “upon arrival of illness: coming to terms with the dark companion.” She is the editor for Garrison Keillor’s “Life Among the Lutherans,” and lives in Minnesota, where she writes for “A Prairie Home Companion,” teaches writing classes and helps her three children get where they’re going. March: Lenten Fish Supper Made fish chowder on Saturday, and it was pretty good. A bowl of soup can be a godsend and source of real delight. There’s not enough good soup in the world, I think. And light-heartedness. And there’s not enough tenderness, either. I could list a hundred things of which I’d like a bit more. Chocolate, of course, and sledding expeditions, and time to lie in bed and fool around but let’s not get carried away. I’m thankful for so much it feels silly to point out what is missing, but then how might we find more of what we wish for if we don’t speak it and seek it out? I’m thankful for my friends, of course, each of you, who pause in your day to pay a bit of attention to my silliness and my agonies. And those of you who love to cook and bake as I do, and indulge me in my going on about it―for you I am so grateful. For my children and their angst and hopes, for Mr. Sundberg in his diligence and love for things like flannel shirts and good crossword puzzles and speeches that inspire and peach pie. For my parents and the trail they’ve blazed, and my brothers and their wives and their passionate, hard-working lives, and for their children, all sparkling with what’s next. For dogs. For starlight, for cinnamon, for cotton towels and for song. Two things I wish for all of us: tenderness and light-heartedness, especially on these snowy days when emotions run high. Pause, then, and be tender with someone, and loving, and sweet. And pause again to laugh, share a meal together, feel delight. In his essay "Experience," Emerson said: I am thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one of my friends who expects everything of the universe, and is disappointed when anything is less than the best, and I found that I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate goods . . . I like Ralph, but I like you all more. Let us break bread together, then, and be thankful. For soup, for each other, for the journey. Amen. Fish Chowder 2 T butter - 2 T flour - 1½ cups water - 1 lb fresh or thawed fish―bluegill, sunnies, perch, etc.―cut into small pieces - 3 carrots, thinly sliced - 3 stalks celery, thinly sliced - 1 medium onion, diced - 4 potatoes, washed and cubed - 1 cup milk, more as desired - Salt - Pepper Melt butter in small pot. Mix with flour and set aside. In a large pot, bring 1½ cups water to boil. Add fish and cook ’til white. Remove fish and add carrots, celery, onion, and potatoes to water. Add more water to nearly cover veggies. Cook 10 minutes, covered. Add flour and butter mixture. Stir. Add milk to bring to desired consistency. Simmer 20 minutes. Add fish, salt, pepper.
