When social scientists write about cities and their suburbs, they like using Darwinian metaphors like “cultural survival,” “adaptation” and “evolutionary synthesis.” Lacking the dramatic contrasts that intrigue Darwinians, Des Moines and its suburbs rarely make it into such studies. When it comes to restaurants though, our city and suburbs differ utterly. The average suburban café here has lots more seats, offers much bigger menus, and occupies far more real estate (parking) than its city cousin. It’s also more likely to be associated with a large industrial restaurant group that spends more money on television advertising. The metro’s two newest sushi restaurants fit these patterns.

Like Samurai and Ohana in West Des Moines, or Taki and Appare in Urbandale, Tokyo in Ankeny (try repeating those words without smiling) sprawls over multiple dining rooms with different ambiances including cooking stations. Tokyo’s décor was predictably full of Asian trappings. Despite nearly 200 different menu items, not counting possible combinations, there was no toro, no hamachi kama and no uni – my favorite Japanese treats. I did find several good appetizers – fried tofu, fried oysters, seaweed salad and squid salad. Calamari disappointed me with the same chewy rings one finds in buffet lines. Both times I ordered tempura, my dishes were served crisp, light and perfectly golden. A sea bass special delivered fresh tasting fish.

The sushi menu required careful reading to avoid the Americanized touches of mayonnaise (“chef’s special sauce“) and creamed cheese. The size of fish cuts in my sushi rolls was consistently generous yet no one ever served me more than an ornamental touch of pickled ginger. Whenever I asked for a bit more though, I was given a huge bowl. Though nothing was inadequate, none of the raw fish nigiri I ordered impressed me with freshness. Imitation crab meat was used in specialty rolls though king crab was offered as nigiri.

In Dogtown, Hoshi opened after remodeling the former 21 sushi café, separating the sushi bar from the alcohol bar. That seemed to work, I was told that the food business was outperforming the bar business and my visits seemed to verify that, despite attractive specials on carafes of saki and on martinis. As in Des Moines sushi bars Miyabi, Sakari, Junko and the wind-grieved Zen, a one room café offered a focused menu. Hoshi has fewer tables than Tokyo’s menu has pages.

A dinner of soba (buckwheat noodles) was served in a very sweet sauce with broccoli, onions and carrots. Teriyaki also delivered sweet sauced entrees. Tempura was expert – crisp, golden and light.

The sushi bar, manned by a long time Waterfront veteran, featured several Americanized specialty rolls. He worked faster than anyone at Tokyo and he produced more photogenic rolls too. One included fried salmon, green apples, mayonnaise and eel sauce. Several mixed multiple sauces. (Some taste traits evolve from suburban carriers back to city folk). Traditional raw sashimi and nigiri were limited to big eye tuna, yellowtail and salmon. Octopus, cooked eel, roe, and shrimp rounded out that menu. Imitation crab was used exclusively in rolls. On my fourth visit, the freshness of the fish improved. I was told a new supplier had come aboard. That’s enough to get me to return.

Sushi fits Ingersoll more conventionally. That neighborhood consdiers itself the city’s most foodie and most multicultural. Noah’s, Jesse’s Embers, Kwong Tung, Ted’s, El Patio, the lunch counters of Dahl’s and Bauder’s and most of the boulevard’s taverns have all been thriving for around half a century. Flanagan’s,and Wellman’s aren’t a whole lot younger either. Star Bar and Bistro Montage are but they are forgiven because they are among the best restaurants in all Iowa.

Along with hairdresser Jason Simpson (Sahar’s) and engineeer Sang Cam, Satari is the latest venture of Nick Sisomphane, one of Iowa’s bright young restaurateurs. At age 32, he grew up in family restaurants in Fairfield determined to get into “any business except restaurants.” But after a stint at the University of Iowa, he says found himself enrolling in Venice, California’s Sushi Institute. After three years as head itamae at Three Samurai in Iowa City, he opened his own teppanyakki house in Cedar Rapids, then sold his share of that and opened the successful Sushi Kicchin in the Old Capitol Mall in Iowa City.

Nick says that he has high hopes for the Ingersoll venture where the menu is currently split about half traditional and half American style sushi, the latter adding fats like mayonnaise, cream cheese and avocado. Bento boxes have been ordered and large early crowds have encouraged him to offer off-the menu specials that he likes – hamachi kama (yellowfin cheeks) were superb on a pair of my visits.

“The trucks that deliver fresh fish don’t come to Des Moines every day and all sushi places pretty buy from the same supplier. The key is fish maintenance. I try to keep fish fresh for two days as raw fish and then it gets cooked. It really helps when business is good right away.”

To that end, both the tuna tataki and grilled salmon delivered great value for less than $10. I tried four soups, three on the menu, and all had excellent stock, seafood in an Udon, beef bone in a pho and the “clear” and white soy paste in a miso.

Of 37 rolls, 9 were vegetarian. Nigiri included red and white tuna, snapper and four kinds of roe, but no belly or uni yet. Nick promised both as the customer base begins asking for them.

Bottom line – These new places fit their addresses, excel at tempura, and offer much more than sushi.

Sakari Japanese Restaurant

2605 Ingersoll Ave., 288-3381

New Managers for Baseball Restaurants

Baseball may have lost national pastime status but it’s still the ultimate conservative metaphor. Its enneadic dogma (nine players go nine innings on ninety foot squares within a ninety degree axes) resists progressive interpretation. Baseball’s fans can even be rigidly conservative about the game’s food. My father never accepted that “hot dog stands” had morphed into “concession stands.” My grandfather referred to such things as “peanut stands.“ At least they both died before nachos became baseball‘s best selling food. As a new season began, two baseball themed restaurants opened with new managers and lineups.

After previously announcing it would open in January as Major League Pizza, Corigliano’s took over the former Big Leagues skywalk venue in April. The family name is a better fit for a conservative sport. Corigiliano’s is an old southside pizzeria, long famous with Lincoln students for the deep tomato flavors of their sauce. Opening Day came after four months of spring training adjustments. Because the skywalk is all electric, owner Andy Corigliano had to adapt pizza recipes that had only played in the gas oven league. His decorating scheme remained sports oriented with Cubs and Yankees getting preferential treatment while sports videos reminded customers how bad the musical scores for sports films like “Rudy” were.

Big appetites swing for the fences here.

My Italian sausage sandwich was twice of the size of some others in town with over half a pound of meat, plus cheese and tomato sauce on a large Rotella’s bun grilled in an old fashioned sandwich toaster. In southside fashion, one can choose hot, mild, mixed or giardiniere chilies, pickled banana peppers or fried peppers. Regular pizza were sold by the slice and the large slice, the latter being larger than some whole pizza elsewhere.

Grinders are the “fast” food here with loose meat sausage in tomato sauce on an untoasted bun. Everything else is made to order and takes a few minutes. Cavatelli came with the family sauce, two kinds of cheese and old school meatballs, herbed to their core.

It also brought two pieces of garlic bread, the soft Italian kind that has been state of the southside art for 80 years. Walking tacos and cappacola sandwiches completed the menu, though Corigliano said that will expand after a beer license comes through and the café can extend hours.

Across the street from the state fairgrounds, Homeplate opened as family diner with a baseball theme. The St. Louis Cardinals were the preferred icon, though owner Ken Sobocinski seemed savvy enough to welcome I-Cub memorabilia too. Homeplate’s venue long served its neighborhood as Four Seasons. From my visits, Sobocinski provides the same warm hospitality and special assistance for senior citizens for which Four Seasons was adored.

His menu is similar to Four Seasons’ too, mixing true scratch foods with some short cuts while keeping everything affordable. Among the scratch dishes, mashed potatoes, hashed browns, cole slaw, chips and roast beef stood out while pancakes really stood out for their marvelous textures. French fries and pork tenderloins were more typical industrial versions.

Hand made fried chicken and meatloaf have potential but the former was deep fried to an overly crisp texture and the latter had been grilled on both sides,

suggesting that a refrigerated cut had been reheated on a grill. Gravies had the bouillon flavor of Kitchen Bouquet. However, at the prices charged (a four piece chicken dinner with mashed potatoes, gravy and a salad cost $8), Homeplate deserves an expanded strike zone.

Corigliano’s

700 Locust St., skywallk level, suite 301, 244-9922

Mon. – Fri. 11 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Home Plate Diner

E. 30^th & Walnut St., 262-7000

Mon. – Sat. 6 a.m. – 8 p.m., Sun. 8 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Notes

Gateway Market introduced a fantastic new line of raw link sausages, including every genre in baseball’s “Sausage Races,” plus some chicken versions too.

Old Skills & Sneak Previews

Last week, Cochon555 brought its Midwest Regional championship to Des Moines for the second straight year. This Taste Network national tour puts our city in the select company of serious culinary destinations – New York, Napa, San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta, Portland, Seattle, Stillwater and Washington D.C. Cochon is an elite event hosted by several of America‘s most famous hotels and resorts. Chefs come from the country’s best restaurants (Boulud and Blue Hill in New York, The French Laundry in Napa). Time magazine and the New York Times cover the tour. In prestige, it’s the culinary equivalence of hosting an NCAA men’s basketball tournament. It might not return to Des Moines though. Ticket sales slipped and the event hasn’t interested any civic or state group that promotes this city’s image.

Five chefs competed by utilizing five heritage hogs, snout to tail. Guest-voters sampled pork while being treated to excellent wines from five boutique vineyards. Mike LaValle (Embassy Club) said that Chase Family Cellars’ Zinfandels were the best he’s ever seen in Iowa. This year’s competition included local chefs George Formaro and Hal Jasa, defending champion Matt Steigerwald from Mount Vernon, and two chefs from Kansas City – Cody Hogan and Howard Hanna.

Formaro and Jasa debuted some new applications for future restaurants. Using a Farmers Cross/Berkshire hog, Formaro premiered an all Mexican menu he’ll selling at the Downtown Farmer’s Market, and hopefully in a new East Village café soon.

His pozole was the best I ever tasted.

He fried carnitas in duck fat and coated Milanese style cutlets in pumpkin seeds. His huevos motuleños were a poached, Yucatan variation on bacon and eggs. His chiccarones were tender enough to pass for shoulder meat.

Jasa, who’s also hoping to open an East Village café this summer, presented ten dishes made from a Duroc. A deeply flavored consommé with pork cheeks and goat cheese tortellini stood out.

So did a fried ear salad of watercress with quail egg, and his corned tongue with pickled ramps. Jasa fried his rillletes, served his trotters with blinis, and presented a liver/heart pâté with a pistachio puree.

He served belly with poached grapes, cassoulet with orange gremolata, and sausage with parsnip puree and a pâté of roasted dates.

Recreating personal pan-served pasta from Lidia’s, Hogan kept things simpler with his Berkshire hog.

Ravioli were stuffed with mixed whole hog and served with roast pork and headcheese. His ravioli were the most popular single item of the night with the public.

At Hanna’s River Club, members pay dues to support things that Cochon advocates – preserving heritage breeds, and utilizing whole hogs. Like Steigerwald, Hanna brought a staff familiar with butchering, brining, rendering, smoking and pickling. Using an endangered Glouscestershire Old Spots hog, they executed five familiar dishes exquisitely: headcheese; trotter garlic soup with fresh nettles pesto; a Cuban sandwich made with sous vide of shoulder, ham and organ pâté; pork & beans made with legs, heirloom beans, sausage and “KC salt” (crushed cracklings).

Hanna said he harvested the main ingredient for his stunning blood pudding “by squeezing every vein and artery.” It also included chocolate, hazelnuts, cinnamon and shortbread.

Steigerwald, whose Lincoln Café purchases whole hogs exclusively, won the competition again with a Red Wattle hog.

His menu began with pork belly spring rolls with kimchii and an avocado/yuzu puree. It progressed to a “wattle head slick” with boiled peanuts and greens. He served a white sausage that included innards with fennel kraut. His hickory smoked shoulder was served on corn masa with turtle beans and pickled chilies. His ciccioli (compressed, dried fat) was treated to pickled ramps. He also served charcuterie that included ham and capicola. I have been dreaming of them ever since.

Side Dishes

SWINE’s fourth annual pork & wine celebration will be June 5 on the DMACC lakefront in Ankeny. Hy-Vee is selling discounted $30 tickets… Diva artist Leslie Hall promised personal label wines and “vegan extravagances” for her June 10 event at the Art Center.

Also known as Lucquoise, Oliva Lucchese, Oliverolle, Olivier de Lucques, Olivier Odorant, and Plant du Languedoc these are the royal highnesses of table olives.

 In the late 1950’s the Colby family offered Ann Tancredi free rent to move her restaurant to the northeast corner of 66^th & University. She came from Modena, the epicenter of Italian culinary style where her mother had been considered one of the best chefs in all Emila-Romagna. Tancredi’s Anjo’s introduced Central Iowa to a more refined dining style including coffee cups of wine, before wine was legal here. Customers could be thrown out for objecting to her pace, which considered three hour dinners normal. After Tancredi closed Anjo’s, Sage moved in and raised the bar for fresh and local cuisine. Great expectations come with the address.

Baru, Sarah Hill and David Baruthio’s new café, is audaciously designed to increase expectations. Walls are covered with large landscape paintings, by Jamie Navarro, of Strasbourg and Alsatian countryside – Baruthio’s stomping grounds and the most celebrated culinary region of the world now, producing Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Thomas Keller, Hubert Keller and Jean Joho, all regarded among the best French chefs in the world.

“Alsatian soccer teams suck. We’re too obsessed with perfecting our food and wine,” observed Baruthio.

Perfection seems an obsession here too. Almost every aspect of dinner was as I would have it in my dreams. Linen covered tables were set with cobalt blue vases and single yellow tulips (among designers that’s a French signature employed by above mentioned chefs). Flatware was Laguiole and wine was served in half a dozen different shapes of crystal, appropriate to their grapes. Every plate, seemingly ripped off the pages of the JB Prince catalogue, was a different shape and design. Bread had the texture of angel food cake and butter had been whipped with French sea salt.

A sensible menu included eight first courses, seven main courses and seven desserts, with evening specials.

An escargot cassoulet, served in a shiny copper crock, presented lentils in duck stock with juicy snails.

A foie gras terrine was wrapped in prosciutto and presented with bacon, a poached egg, raisin chutney and a reduction of balsamic vinegar. Terrines are Des Moines’ new rage, Bistro Montage and Alba have been inventive with them, as was the wind-grieved Phat Chefs. Vietnamese cafés like La Paris have been making them for their bánh mì. Baruthio’s was the best I’ve tasted.

One night, he served large seared scallops with a light and deeply flavored mousseline of celery root, fresh arugula tossed with fried gizzard chips, plus fresh chives, fresh dill and a cherry sauce. The gizzards, something I don’t usually like, added a new salty-umami dynamic to the dish.

My roast sea bass was served on fresh pea risotto with a foamy pea emulsion and a garnish of crisply fried basil.

Venison loin was served with forestiere sauce of mushrooms and demiglace. It was plated with a bed of salted cabbage, bacon, peppercorns and clove, plus a puree of parsnips and a beet mousse, the textures of which amazed me.

My cheese course included edgy (aged Camenbert and a crème do Epoisee) and mellow choices (Petite Basque, Chaource) with walnuts, green apples, mulberry jam and spinach leaves. Dessert textures were as amazing as the mousses and purees.

A pineapple sorbet, served with a pineapple salad, and a vanilla bean ice cream served with mint leaves and raspberries were Paco-Jet creations. That is the state of the art in European food technology. Fondant de chocolat was served with an utterly intense caramel sauce. Suspended between liquid and solid, vanilla bean “panna cotta” resembled pot de crème, .

Bottom line – Like Anjo’s sixty years ago, Baru significantly raises the bar for fine dining here.

Baru

6587 University Ave., Windsor Heights, 277-6627

Mon. – Thurs. 5 p.m. – 10 p.m.; Fri. – Sat. 5 p.m. – 11 p.m.

The opening of Café di Scala in 2005 marked a return of focus in Des Moines’ food scene to its Italian roots. Since then national accolades have piled up for Scala and for two other Italian restaurants that opened a year before and a year afterwards – Centro and Lucca respectively. Together with Mezzodi’s, they introduced a new dynamic within Italian – Des Moines cuisine. All respected local traditions but also pushed Old World recipes and fresh, local ingredients. Before those places opened, Italian-American restaurants here had evolved, becoming more American and less Italian as their customer base widened.

Of all these new places, Café di Scala is the most deeply rooted in Old World traditions.

It‘s named for owner Tony Lemmo’s mother’s family town in Calabria. (She’s a Lacona, as in Noah’s, Mama’s, etc. Tony’ s paternal grandparents owned Lemmo’s on Indianola Ave.) It’s housed in a magnificent Victorian with a wrap around porch, from the era of Italian immigration to America. The menu and the wine list are all Italian. The latter includes rare brands and up-and-coming varietals like Montepuliciano from Abruzzo, Lagre from Trentino, Negroamaro from Apulia, and Gaglioppo from Calabriaalso. Lemmo makes food and wine pilgrimages to Italy to keep it current. That’s why he keeps winning top restaurant awards from both “Wine Enthusiast” and “Wine Spectator.” Inexpensive wine flights are sold to help guests appreciate regional subtleties.

Lemmo attracts top head chefs to his kitchen. Hal Jasa (Phat Chef’s) is a graduate, Phil Shires (La Mie) is the current chef and Sam Auen (Zen) works the line. They are given a free hand with specials.

A recent one of braised pork belly in a red wine demiglace, with watercress on gnocchi, was spectacular. Lemmo revived the 100 per cent scratch pasta tradition that was standard here fifty years ago. He learned whole egg pasta making from his mother and some of his variations can take your breath away.

Carrot tagliatelli did that to me recently. They were served with seared scallops, smoked tomatoes, spinach and grilled fennel. Duck mousse ravioli with wild mushrooms and a Port reduction replaced them a week later, with similar results. On an earlier visit, the ravioli were stuffed with grass fed beef.

Cavatelli are Lemmo’s signature pasta. They were the traditional Sunday dinner of Italian Des Moines and of pre World War II Italy. John Dickey dedicated an entire chapter to their significance in his history of Italian food. Shire tossed them recently with marinara, Pecorino Romano, Graziano’s sausage and fresh basil. Cappellacci con la zucca are a customer favorite; fresh shells were stuffed with roast butternut squash and served with Pecorino Romano and sage butter. In Calabrese lore, braciola is the carnal equivalence of cavatelli and Lemmo usually serves a version. Recently the braised meat was a huge pork chop with garlic sausage, stuffing and wild mushroom sauce. On an earlier visit the dish was made with tenderloin, pesto and fresh grapes. Manzo con rosmarino was an Italian swipe at steak de burgo, which is strictly a Des Moines dish. A T-bone steak was served with red wine and prosciutto butter and rosemary polenta.

Cakes of zucchini alla griglia were stuffed with fresh slivers of squash and served with roast garlic (or lemon) aioli and marinara. Romano di melanazane was a southern take on eggplant Parmesan. Steamed mussels in cream sauce, rack of lamb, and prosciutto stuffed chicken breast on risotto filled out the entrees on the recent version of the seasonal menu.

Desserts vary but usually include a family recipe cannoli (with almond chocolate and ricotta cream) and

a panna cotta served expertly outside its mold, with berry reduction.

One night I found reduced “butter shots” (rye whiskey & butterscotch Schnapps) on bread pudding with ice cream

Café di Scala

644 18^th St., 244-1353

Thurs. – Sat.: 5 p.m. – 10 p.m.

Side Dishes

Look for two new pizzerias to open by summer. Both Steve Logsdon (Lucca) and Lemmo are working on such…

Susie Johnson preserves Stanton’s Swedish culture

Stanton was forged with a steely Nordic edge. Swedish-born pastor Bengt Magnus Halland became a land agent for the Burlington Railroad in 1869 and invited “all God-fearing, non-gambling, non-drinking Swedes” to colonize Lutheran settlements in Essex, Red Oak, Nyman, Bethesda and Stanton. Swedish settlers swiftly answered that call and built majestic cathedrals like the 1870 Mamrelund Lutheran Church which still dominates Stanton’s skyline. As far as Swedish eyes could see from its hilltop steeple, that part of southwest Iowa had been consecrated by sacrifice and conviction that were eerily appropriate to those true believers “in grace alone, by faith alone.”

Swedish-Americans had been so vehemently opposed to slavery that they swung the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Relatively unpopulated Montgomery County, which included all Halland’s settlements except Essex, suffered more Civil War casualties than any other county in Iowa. That fighting Norse spirit lives today in Stanton. Few towns with fewer than 700 people still maintain their own high school. Its value accrued pride in each of the last two Novembers when the Vikings football team won its way to the state championship final rounds in Cedar Falls. On those game days, Stanton was virtually deserted – lots were drawn to see who would remain at the Volunteer Fire Department.

The softer side of Swedish heritage is also well preserved in Stanton, known as “Little White City” since the 1920’s because its clean and tidy look. On the last evening of April, men move from street corner to street corner singing the Swedish song Sköna Maj, to welcome “beautiful May.” Stanton is believed to be the only community in America that keeps that tradition and it’s done so for over 100 years. In June, Svenska Skolan (Swedish School) teaches children Swedish culture. A Midsommars Dag fest, a harvest time lutfisk dinner and December’s Santa Lucia Festival follow each year.

Coffee has become a cultural motif in Stanton. The St. Lucia queen carries a coffeepot while caroling and visiting homebound residents during the holidays. Stanton’s most famous daughter, actress Virginia Christine (nee Kraft), was best known for playing “Mrs. Olson” for 21 years in Folger’s Coffee commercials. She returned for Stanton’s centennial celebration in 1970. That inspired residents to convert the town’s 125 foot tall water tower into a giant Swedish coffeepot decorated with rosemailing and capable of holding 640,000 cups of coffee. With a conviction that Reverend Halland would have appreciated, that giant task was completed in just one year. Swedish media were fascinated and the tower became an international tourist attraction. In 2000, an even larger Swedish Coffee Cup water tower was built on the edge of town, capable of holding 2,400,000 cups of coffee.

“Love, at First Sight”

Susie’s Kök (“kitchen”) represents both the hard edge and the soft side of Stanton’s Swedish personality. Susan Johnson comes to work at 5 a.m. each day and opens her doors at 5:30. She comes much earlier when she bakes her famous rye bread. Signs alert visitors to the nature of her place:

“Will trade coffee for gossip.”

“Prices are subject to change according to customer’s attitude.”

“This is not Burger King, you take it my way or you don’t get the damn thing. “

“I don’t pee on your floor, don’t pee on mine.”

Sporting tattoos which resemble Swedish rosemailing, Johnson explained that she grew up in neighboring Villisca. As a teenager, she would baby sit in an infamous house known for early 20^th century ax murders. That might unsettle a girl of lesser spirits.

“Some people think that’s creepy but, let me tell you, it’s just a house – one that has been fiddled with to seem creepy. They painted red spots on the wall and covered that with wall paper, so that it makes people think they are seeing blood stains,” Johnson related.

Hard times, typical to southwest Iowa in the late 20^th century, led Johnson to Stanton.

“I always was a people person and I worked as a waitress in (Villisca’s) March Café, which later became the Circle J. When that place went out of business, I worked at a factory in Corning. When its jobs got shipped overseas, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was feeling pretty bad one night when Carolyn Gage ( publisher of the Villisca Review newspaper and a member of both the Villisca and Stanton Chambers of Commerce) asked me if I would be interested in opening a restaurant in Stanton.

“This place had been the Stanton Café, but it had been vacant for over two years. I took one look at it, and let me tell you, it was love at first sight. I cleaned it up, opened it up and I’ve been open ever since – except for four months in the middle of a really nasty divorce, when I needed a pay check instead of more bills. I ran this place single handed for years. I cooked, I waited tables, I bussed and washed dishes. I took reservations, too,” she added with a healthy laugh.

Susie’s offers extraordinary value. Meals cost $6.50 and that included pie and coffee or tea. Pie was served before dinner.

“Always before dinner,” explained waitress Kyla Clark. “You can have it after dinner in Des Moines.”

Susie’s pies draw customers from miles away, especially “Fruit of the Forest” pie. Its crust was made with rendered lard and “forest” fruits included apples, strawberries, black berries, rhubarb, raspberries, and boysenberries.

“It is not made the same way twice. I may even use gooseberries when I can find them,” Johnson admitted.

Susie’s pork tenderloins also defy convention. Johnson calls them “home style” meaning they are double breaded and grilled on a flat top stove, rather than cooked in oil or lard like most breaded foods. Their grain was longer and more tender than typical tenderized loins, and their pork flavor was stronger, probably from not being submerged in oil. Johnson served them on home made rye bread, a signature restaurant item – but not THE signature.

Susie’s Swedish pancakes have a national reputation, enhanced by kudos from Gourmet magazine. They are made with just four ingredients – eggs, flour, sugar and salt. Despite that seeming simplicity, Johnson went through dozens of recipes before finding one that produced perfectly laced edges in her kitchen. She serves them with lingonberries imported from Sweden. Johnson described that fruit as tasting like “tart cranberries” and showed off her cache with the pride a jeweler would reserve for her finest diamonds.

Susie’s cultivates customers two ways. First, Johnson brings personal touches to the place, like giving away free coffee and cinnamon rolls on one‘s birthday. Secondly, she keeps learning old Swedish recipes and including them on her special dinner menus, particularly on Wednesday nights. Johnson credits several Stanton ladies for teaching her Swedish dishes. Grace Schultz taught her to make ostakaka (curd cake with almonds and vanilla). Janice Peterson taught her the Swedish touch of using coffee and molasses in rye bread.

“Ham balls are the biggest deal here. I got my recipe from Phyllis Vessen. I usually prepare them on Sundays and use them till they sell out that week,” she said, adding that liquid smoke is an essential ingredient.

One “Swedish” dish might well be unique to Stanton. Johnson said she got her her gubbegott recipe from Ingrid Newman, who learned it from her mother Julie Newman, who said that she learned it from both her mother and her mother-in-law. That dish (a cold apple lasagna) has been beloved in Stanton for at least four generations, but it’s unmentioned in Swedish cookbooks and unknown in other Swedish communities around America and Canada.

Improv Kitchen Theater

Johnson describes her cooking style as improvisational.

“I learned by trial and error, mostly error. I am not an academy-trained chef. I worked with one though, while I was going through the divorce. What a contrast we were in that kitchen, at Firehouse in Red Oak. She was right out of culinary college and I was who I am. Neither one of us fit the philosophy of the place. I work on the run, a dash of this, as dash of that. I taste things to test them and then adjust to taste. But the restaurant insisted that everything be done exactly the same way – every single time. They were pretty rigid about recipes and all that. I discovered that I couldn’t work for someone else,” she confessed, laughing.

All Johnson’s written recipes have no instructions, just ingredients, and not necessarily all the ingredients. For instance, her “Swedish green beans” recipe omits green beans, just “3 strips bacon, 1 egg, 3 tablespoons vinegar, half a cup of water and half a cup of sugar.”

“Sundays are the only day of the week when I actually have a plan and follow it – at least as far as the menu goes,” she admitted.

Regulars have figured out Susie’s irregular style. They know that Saturdays are busy, at least when the football team isn’t playing in Cedar Falls, and “only hot beef and grill orders are taken.” They also know that her chicken is pan fried on Sundays, but it’s deep fat fried the rest of the week. They all keep coming back though, whether she’s making their favorite dish that day or not. Regular customer Norm Peterson put it simply.

“This restaurant means everything to this town. Without the restaurant, there is no town.”

Susie’s Swedish Pancakes

4 eggs
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
Quarter cup, plus one teaspoon sugar

Place in a blender and blend. Refrigerate. Grill on a flat top over medium high flame. When corners simulate lace, fold half the cake over the other half. Then fold half of that over the remaining quarter. Serve with fruit preserves, preferably lingonberries.

Julie Newman’s Gubbegott

Graham Crackers, crushed or broken but not finely so

Apple sauce

Cinnamon

Freshly whipped cream

Line pan with Graham Crackers. Alternate layers of applesauce and layers of whipped cream, any number, but with whipped cream on top. Chill well and serve cold.

Atlantic Café Practices Healthy Respect for Farmers

This September, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced a new program to develop local food systems – “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food.” The former Iowa Governor launched that initiative by recording a video. On both counts, Charlene Johnson was way ahead of the Secretary.

The Atlantic restaurateur’s TV series “What’s Cooking Atlantic?” (on Cable Channel 10 in SW Iowa) has always emphasized her direct relationships with producers of fresh foods. On her shows, Johnson brings her farmer-suppliers into her kitchen and even visits their farms to educate viewers. For instance, at A to Z Farm, she showed exactly what Alan Zellmer’s wagyu cattle ate – corn, hay, distiller’s corn gluten, commercial protein and corn syrup. Referring to the adage “You are what you eat,” Johnson deduces that you are also what your food ate.

“Direct connections are so important – people want to know that they can trust the people who raised the things they eat as well as the people who cooked them – to know it‘s going to be healthy as well as good to eat,” she explained.

Charlene and her son Mark Johnson know quite a bit about all those subjects – farming, cooking and health. They have traced their family farming roots back to Sweden in the 1700’s.

“Our ancestors came to America in the early 1900’s. Each generation of the family farmed until modern chemicals made Dad sick. Then Mom became a nurse,” Mark said.

Charlene was head nurse at the Cass County Hospital where she started the Diabetes Center. Mark graduated from Grinnell College as a Russian language major before discovering that part time jobs in restaurants were his true vocation. He started cooking at the Danish Inn in Elk Horn before becoming the banquet chef and later a general manager at a Wisconsin resort. Charlene said she began collaborating with him by telephone.

“He started calling me at all hours of the night, asking me how to make this and that,” she recalled.

Those phone calls increased after Charlene retired in 2002 and moved to Atlantic from Walnut. Mark had been looking for the right opportunity to buy his own restaurant and during one of those calls, his mom told him about vacant storefronts on a somewhat infamous downtown Atlantic street.

“Walnut had been tavern row. It was pretty much nothing but bars,” Charlene said, adding that her current restaurant occupies real estate that formerly housed three different taverns.

“We bought this place one bay at a time. The third bay, on the corner, was a real mess. Mushrooms, over a foot wide, were growing out of the yeast from spilt beer that caked the floor,” Mark recalled of a room that now sparkles with bright, old fashioned soda fountain décor. “The main room wasn’t so hard to convert because it had already added a kitchen,” he continued.

“Yeah, after the owner’s wife got religion we’re told,” Charlene added.

The restaurant was supposed to be just Mark’s business.

“First he asked me to help bake pies. He wanted a sour cream raisin pie and I don’t even eat raisins,” Charlene said of a pie that has been named one “500 Things to Eat Before It‘s Too Late” by Gourmet Magazine columnists Jan & Michael Stern.

It wasn’t long before Charlene was doing considerably more than baking pies.

“Now I am here for several hours each day before the breakfast prep staff even comes in,” she said.

“It’s how we keep Mom alive,” Mark added, explaining that Charlene is unable to take pain medication because of sclerosis and thus copes with considerable other pains by staying active. Charlene counters that Mark also keeps working through life threatening illnesses and injuries.

“The long hours keep us young. Besides, I am definitely not a coffee club type of person. I can’t even sit still long enough to watch a television show from start to finish,” Charlene admitted.

“I make sure everyone sees for themselves how much Mom loves working here. So they won’t blame me if she dies on the job,” Mark joked.

The Farmer’s Kitchen is no small café – it has over 100 seats in the two bays that are always set, plus an extra room for special occasions. Charlene does most of the baking in a kitchen that makes all its own breads and desserts, except for one sandwich bun. She also supervises a kitchen staff that ranges between two and five people during the 12 hours they are open, six days a week. She still finds time to chat up guests in the front of the house even on Wednesday night’s when a labor intensive, pan fried chicken special draws a large crowd. Holidays are also quite busy.

“We’re the only place open on Thanksgiving, for quite a distance. That‘s why we do it. So people with nowhere to go have a place – especially the crisis center people,” Charlene said, alluding to Atlantic’s Family Crisis Support Network which serves eight counties and also draws from both Omaha and Des Moines.

Mark’s in charge of the menu but entrusts all the decorating decisions to Charlene, with just one caveat.

“I told her she can’t do cute,“ he said with a hopeless inflection in his voice.

Antique signs, notoriously ersatz in most “farmer” theme restaurants, are genuine here. They come from nostalgic local places like Surge Milker in Elk Horn and Arnold’s Meat Market in Atlantic.

“I cleaned out my closets,” Charlene explained pointing to family photos of bachelor uncles, great grandparents and Charlene’s grandfather’s bar in Boonefield, Nebraska. One back wall displays some marvelous sculptures that her husband made of his father’s farm, plus a miniature windmill. Other walls hold lots of children’s art.

“I have a soft spot for that,” Charlene admitted.

Both Charlene and Mark have won serious cooking awards.

Mark took the People’s Choice prize in the International Chili Society’s World Championships with a recipe that features Anaheim chilies grown by one for the restaurant’s chefs. Mark credits Charlene with helping secure that award.

“I had her serve it. She yelled a lot at the judges and made an impression,” he laughed.

Mark’s Cy-Hawk burger, now on the menu, won WHO Radio’s “Best Iowa Burger” contest this September. Earlier this year, Charlene entered the American Pie Council’s National Pie Championships in Orlando, Florida for the first time. Her chocolate peanut butter explosion was named the nation’s best peanut butter pie. As awards come their way, the Johnson’s shift credit to others, emphasizing the role of local farmers.

“We get all our eggs from Lyman Produce, all our Kobe burger from Zellmer’s and all our regular burger is all fresh ground each day at Henningsen’s (meat locker in Atlantic). We get our bacon from them too. We get seasonal produce from Rhonda Elbert in Marne and she also grows greenhouse tomatoes,” Charlene said.

Those suppliers are not the only reason the restaurant is named The Farmer’s Kitchen.

“Ninety percent of our cooking is complete scratch cooking – old fashioned farm style,“ Mark said.

Charlene’s two award winning pies, plus several others, are available every day. Mark’s championship chili, made with just chilies and meat, is not – he substitutes a tomato rich recipe that fulfills more popular expectations for that dish.

“My competition chili would have to sell for about $10 a bowl to break even. And people expect chili to taste like tomatoes,” he explained.

Their menu focuses on traditional Iowa café dishes. Slow food techniques distinguish them. Hot beef sandwiches are made with bottom flats, far more tender than rounds, which produce plenty of trim for old fashioned stock pot gravies. French toast is made with Charlene’s leftover cinnamon rolls. Charlene’s meat loaf, a perennial best seller, manages a wondrous crust as well as a moist interior, even on the last piece in the pan.

“That’s always the challenge with restaurant meat loaf – to keep it from drying out. We experimented for years and finally tried something we didn’t believe would work. We substituted oatmeal for bread crumbs,” Mark admitted.

In one instance, Mark isn’t interested in prizes. Six ounce pork tenderloins are cut an inch thick and marinated in fresh buttermilk before being tenderized three times and then fried. The result is remarkably tender for such a thick cut of pork. Mark says he knows he will never attain an award-winning color with such a thick cut but he thinks customers prefer a significant piece of meat over a golden glow. People who want their pork tenderloins to look perfect order Mark’s “Pig Lips” which are tenderloins cut into thinner strips.

Mutual experiences revealed insight to the Johnson‘s.

“The restaurant business and the medical business have more in common than I ever imagined. The stress level is similar because in both cases there’s always too many things to do and too little time, explained Mark.

“But they are also similar on a more gratifying level. When I try to explain the long hours and the low pay, it comes down to this – there’s no where else I can think of where you get so much instant gratification. Where you can please folks in just the time it takes to serve a good meal?” Charlene asked.

As for nursing, Charlene says she only misses it when she hears emergency helicopters landing at the hospital.

“That gets my adrenaline going. Otherwise, this is where I want to be,” she said, admitting that they have found a way to bring her two callings together:

“Once a month, we feed the crisis center people. That’s just something we feel like doing, especially for the children. Their world is falling apart and they can really appreciate a good meal and a friendly place to eat it. That’s good medicine.”

Charlene’s Sour Cream Raisin Pie

2 cups sour cream
4 egg yolks (save whites for meringue)
1 cup sugar
4 heaping tsp. flour
1 and half cups raisins

for meringue

a quarter tsp. cream of tartar
4 to 5 TBS. sugar
4 to 8 egg whites

Stir sour cream & egg yolks in a saucepan.
Add sugar, flour & raisins. Mix.
Cook over medium heat until raisins are plump & mixture is glossy.
Pour into a 10” baked pie crust.

Beat egg whites & cream of tartar on high speed until frothy.
Add sugar slowly until peaks form.
Using a rubber spatula, spread meringue over warm pie filling. Spread over pie edge to insure firm seal.
Swirl top of meringue with spatula to create peaks.
Bake until peaks are golden brown.

Farmer’s Kitchen Meatloaf

8 lb ground beef
2 lb ground pork
4 cups minced onion
8 cups oatmeal
10 eggs
1 ½ cups milk
1 cup ketchup
1 TBS garlic
½ TBS sage
2 TBS salt
2 TBS pepper

for the glaze

1 cup ketchup
1 cup BBQ sauce

Thoroughly combine LOAF mix ingredients.

Measure ½ lb. (2 #8 scoops) mixture & form into large balls.
Pack 12 balls into a sprayed 2” half pan and press balls down.
Bake at 350 degrees until internal temperature reaches 160 degrees (approximately 45 minutes to an hour).

Drain excess liquid & spread glaze over meatloaf. Bake an additional 15 minutes.
Cool & portion.

New restaurants aren’t what they used to be. Before 2008, a new joint was opening in the metro about every 10 days. Many were heavily leveraged, stand alone stores with corporate brand names. After the federal banking bailout, loan officers lost interest in restaurants of almost any kind – Smashburger and Jimmy John’s seem to be exceptions. Opening a new place today requires more ingenuity and personal risk. We checked out a few that have adapted creatively to the new economy.

Alohana’s new shop looks like an intelligent collaboration. The café occupies a corner in the 101 Lounge and provides foods that seem to complement drinking. This fledgling chain offers franchises for as little as $15,000 and sharing a venue helps keep expenses at a minimum.

Hawaiian plate lunches dominated a menu that included rice plates of heavily marinated chicken, pork and beef short ribs, plus fried chicken katsu, Spam musubi (sushi style Spam) and “loco moco” – Hawaii’s “crazy” dish that covers rice with burger, brown gravy and fried egg. A seafood platter mixed rice with fried shrimp and fried fish. I particularly liked a burger, with a quarter pound of fries.

Grilled chicken salad completed a menu on which nothing cost more than $6 and everything included a side of sweet macaroni salad.

Beefburger Barn / Fourth Down Sports Bar announced its opening in January but workers were still varnishing woodwork while I sampled several dishes recently in an unventilated room.

Beefburgers, loose meat sandwiches that are Iowa icons, were drawing people from the street. Mine were far meatier and less expensive than the current version preferred by state regulators and the Des Moines Register editorial board. Hot wings starred too. I ordered a coney but half of my chili stuck to an unnecessary wrapper. Home made potato chips didn‘t taste fresh but they did make me thirsty. That seems to be the point here – food is garnish for the bar business. I was told the sports bar specializes in “pay per view events” (extreme fighting) and in fresh squeezed juice drinks. Pool tables and big screen TV’s served as ambiance.

India Grill dethrones Winston’s as the skywalk’s most complete restaurant. In the old Coney Island venue, they serve three meals a day and are open on Saturdays. Breakfast provided adequate short order work. The versatile kitchen makes two kinds of fish & chips, fried chicken (even livers and gizzards) and subs. The main attraction though is a north Indian menu that turns out lush, creamy dishes and clay oven specialties that compare to the best in town. Golden plated, domed chafing dishes reminded me, probably blasphemously, of the golden temple of Amritsar. No disrespect intended, my point is that food was presented here with religious reverence. Jalfrezi, a dairy rich dish associated with Id-Ul-Fitr ( the end of the Ramadan fast), emphasized that point.

I tried good vegetarian versions of alu dum (potatoes in chili sauce), saag aloo (creamed spinach), dahl palak (creamy lentils and spinach), mali kofta ( curried potato fritters) and navratam korma (vegetable curry). I also tried three kinds of bread, including naan that was baked on the oven walls. Tandoori chicken was strangely skinless, a sin against the lords of gluttony and clay ovens. I will forgive that because it’s National Nutrition Month and chicken skins are politically incorrect this year.

Alohana

102 Third St. (in the 101 Lounge)

Mon. – Sat. 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. – 11 p.m.

Indian Grill

500 Grand Ave. Ste. 210, (skywalk level) 244-5322

Mon. – Fri. 7 a.m. – 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. – 8 p.m.; Sat. 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Fourth Down Sports Bar & Beefburger Barn

207 Fourth St., 288-3880.

4 p.m. – midnight

This year National Nutrition Month began just hours after Bacon Fest served its last chocolate bacon martini. My mail box began filling with “exciting opportunities” to interview “medical experts” touting the “health benefits” of various products. A PR agent for the Midwest Dairy Farmers sent a recipe for “healthy” double corn tortilla pork tacos. It included two tablespoons of sugar, a cup and a half of cheese and half a cup of sour cream. Maybe that’s healthy in New York City, where the Midwest Dairy Farmers get their fix of public relations expertise. Out here in Middle America, we swallow the latest nutritional science with a chaser of cynicism. We’ve actually noticed that medical experts were a bit slow figuring out that margarine wasn’t healthier than butter. Cynical Midwesterner Mark Twain derided that claim in “Life on the Mississippi” in 1876! Yet nutritional experts were still slathering their toast with trans fatty margarine 100 years later. Not my grandfather though, despite the nagging of his daughters. He liked to say that “medicine is soft science and nutrition is the melted bacon grease of medical science.”

To honor National Nutrition Month, I visited three new places that Grandpa would have liked. Two Rivers Barbecue Market & Deli is owned by Joe Lyman, a traditionalist of Grandpa‘s ilk. Lyman used to own a Maid Rite, until that corporation changed its process and recipe.

Now he makes “beef burgers” that actually resemble the Maid Rite’s grandpa bought me. Lyman also produces a good pork tenderloin, thick and light crusted. His barbecue is traditional – slow smoked over indirect heat. Some scientists blame direct heat for food-induced carcinoma, so I sampled the health benefits of Two Rivers’ chicken, brisket, pork shoulder and two kinds of ribs.

My half chicken predictably delivered perfect dark meat but dry white meat. Other than that, the fare ranked with the best in town. Meaty baked beans were as good as they get. Slaw came from the southern school, with vinegar instead of mayonnaise. Bargains reigned with sandwiches, sides and soft drinks packaged for around $5.

The new Kansas City BBQ on Douglas is related to the store of the same name on the eastside. That place changed owners twice, survived a fire and sparked a war of nasty accusations on the internet. The new store is free of controversies, other than complaints about flashes of sunlight reflecting off chrome-lined walls. It also offered super bargain prices. Tenderloins, smashed burgers, real Chicago dogs, French dips, pizza, chili, tacos and ribs complemented the smokehouse menu.

None of my smoked meats measured up to those at Two Rivers. Brisket was dry, pork was even dryer, and ribs were served half cold. A half chicken was better but the skin wasn‘t edible. My tenderloin wasn’t as thick as the one at Two Rivers. I liked my burger more than anything else, and barbecue sauces were interesting.

On each occasion I visited, Louis D’s was the busiest place in the Locust Mall. Philadelphia style cheese steaks, or chicken, and Philly style hoagies were lovingly treated to fresh baked buns well suited to their fillings.

In the spirit of the month, I researched the basic cheese steak quandary — Provolone, American or Cheez Whiz? Unless sodium is your bane, Whiz is the healthiest option, with considerably fewer fats and calories than American, or real cheese. Louis D’s pepper option, a few diced bell peppers, just reminded me how good the Chicago style beef sandwiches at Tommy Farrell’s are.

Louis D’s Authentic Philly Steak Sandwiches

700 Locust St. (food mall) 288-3115

Mon. – Fri. 10:30 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Kansas City BBQ

5405 Douglas Ave., 270-4919

Daily 11 a.m. – 10 p.m.

Two Rivers Barbecue Market & Deli

1951 Indianola Ave., 244-0332.

Mon. – Sat. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.