“Only a Few Miles South: Timeless Recipes from our Favourite Locations” by Ouita Michel, Sara Gibbs and Genie Graf. Illustrated by Brenna Flannery. Lexington: College Press of Kentucky, 2021. 187 pages, $24.95 (hardcover).

Ouita Michel is a six-time James Beard Basis Award nominee who’s linked to a household of eating places and sandwich outlets in Kentucky’s Bluegrass area that features Holly Hill Inn and Halfway Bakery in Halfway, Wallace Station in Versailles and Windy Nook Market, Smithtown Seafood, Honeywood and Zim’s Cafe in Lexington. Her co-authors are chef Sara Gibbs and Genie Graf, particular initiatives director on the Michel Household of Eating places.

In his Foreword, Kentucky writer Silas Home calls the guide “a tour of Kentucky and a reward music for place. It’s a meditation on the significance of meals in our lives and the significance of being neighbor in methods massive and small.” In her Introduction, Michel says this about her work: “I needed to precise my love for Kentucky with substances which might be regionally produced by our farming group. I needed to precise it via location and setting – siting my eating places alongside scenic byways the place thoroughbreds frolic in vibrantly inexperienced paddocks and housing them in outdated buildings, some plain and easy and others crafted of grand limestone within the coronary heart of downtown. I needed to precise it with recipes which might be time honored – some so outdated that they’re new to younger people, and a few that Kentuckians are fortunate sufficient to eat almost each day.”

The guide is split into eight chapters: Breakfast, Constructing Blocks for Sandwiches, Wallace Station’s Well-known Sandwiches, Windy Nook’s Well-known Po-Boys, Burgers, Soups, Stews, and Salads, Brownies, Bars, and Cookies, and Pie Supper. Michel explains that in any respect of her eating places they use solely Weissenberger Mill stone-ground grits, produced simply down the street from Halfway. Different breakfast objects embody red-eye gravy, buttermilk biscuits, sorghum butter, and sandwiches and omelets, akin to Ouita’s Sardou Panini and Bluegrass Benedict. Topping off the breakfast part are candy potato streusel muffins, bitter cream espresso cake and zucchini bread. Most of the recipes are supplemented with commentary about the place the dish originated or at which restaurant it has been a giant hit.

Constructing blocks for sandwiches embody feta walnut unfold, bourbon white cheddar cheese unfold and cranberry mustard. Shady Lane rooster salad is known as after the Previous Frankfort Pike, the place Wallace Station sits. Michel explains that she makes use of dried cranberries in her rooster salad as a substitute of the extra conventional inexperienced grapes as a result of the salad holds higher with them. Together with the recipe for bourbon-brined roasted turkey breast, the chef explains that roasting giant cuts of meat in-house for sandwich fillings is extra economical and offers prospects with a more healthy different to deli meats, which are sometimes injected with curing options. In her introduction to Wallace Station’s well-known sandwiches, Michel says that the placement was named after Caleb Wallace, a choose who settled within the space round 1785 and who was an advocate for non secular freedom and public schooling in Kentucky.

Amongst Windy Nook’s well-known po-boys is its fish and seafood po-boy. Michel feedback that almost all catfish eaten within the U.S. is from Vietnam or China, however her eating places serve Kentucky Proud channel catfish and blue catfish from Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake. She after all recommends serving contemporary catfish rolled in Weissenberger Mill breading. She additionally explains that Kentucky Proud merchandise are “grown, produced and processed by in-state farms and associated farm companies and that the Purchase native program connects cooks and eating places to native growers. Within the Burgers chapter we hear concerning the Massive Blue Burger, that includes pimiento blue cheese, and the Thirty-seven Burger, which makes use of Lisa’s Remoulade and was named in honor of American Pharoah’s Triple Crown victory ending 37 years with out a Triple Crown winner.

Within the chapter on Soups, Stews, and Salads we discover recipes for Smithtown Seafood Clam Chowder, developed by a chef who got here from Boston, and Holly Hill Inn’s Butternut Squash Bisque, made with selfmade rooster inventory. Additionally included is Wallace Station Burgoo and 1812 Potato Salad, created for Woodford Reserve Distillery’s bicentennial celebration in 2012.

Ouita and her husband, Chris, each graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and she or he explains that her recipe for Glazed Lemon Bars is impressed by Chris’ childhood favourite Lucy’s Lemon Squares that he discovered within the Peanuts Cookbook he had bought at a Scholastic Ebook Honest whereas he was in elementary faculty. One other mouthwatering dessert is Hazard Brownies, which contained nearly a pound of chocolate and had a bourbon truffle on high. Michel explains that Stella Parks, the unique creator of the recipe, was the primary pastry chef at Wallace Station and later produced a guide, “BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts,” that received the Beard Basis’s Ebook Award for Baking and Desserts in 2018. Different yummy recipes within the final two chapters embody Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie Bars, Mabel’s Lemon Cake Pie, Apple Cranberry Bourbon Crunch Pie, and Blackberry Crumble Pie.

“Only a Few Miles South” is an attention-grabbing guide that ought to please any foodie who appreciates basic Kentucky dishes. Readers who’ve patronized a number of the Michel Household of Eating places might after all relate to the authors’ feedback in a particular method, however any cook dinner/baker can revenue by the detailed recipes for every dish and benefit from the cultural insights offered alongside the best way.

– Reviewed by Richard Weigel, Western Kentucky College Historical past Division.



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