editor's note
W
hen i think of hospitality perfected, I think of a cool May night in Glen Arbor nearly 20 years ago, when dusk was settling across Sleeping Bear Bay. A friend and I were sitting with Senior Editor Lissa Edwards in her hippy-dippy wood-fired backyard hot tub, drinking wine and passing a floating aluminum bowl piled with sizzling hot pan-fried morels. Sip, grab, crunch, float to your neighbor, repeat. As the steam rose up to the stars, I thought, not only is this heaven; this is what it means to fully enjoy life and the people in it. The morels in question (and there were heaps, just bags of them) had been foraged, with help from his parents, by the young Keef Edwards—a precocious, scrap-tacular little boy with button eyes and absolutely no inside voice. Even then, when he wasn’t charming the ladies or tormenting his older sisters, he was all for rambling, rooting, collecting, fishing or picking over fresh road kill. He comes by his skills from an amazing childhood where he was loved hard and indulged in his passion for the outdoors at every opportunity. But I can’t discount the genes and role modeling he got from his mom—the hospitality baked into her Ukrainian DNA, which means guests are treated like royalty and a seat at the family table is a show of love and trust. There’s never been a time at Lissa’s house when I wasn’t pulled by the arm to come in and sit down for a bowl of freshly picked cherries, a glass of local white, a bluegill fish fry, an ice cream cone in lieu of dinner or even just a fresh pot of coffee—which seemed to be everpresent, even on endless summer evenings as sunset stretched into midnight. She’s always been an inspiration to me; her laidback, come-as-you-are, the-more-the-merrier ethos—one I struggled to emulate in my younger years. I was more selfconscious about having people over or returning invitations, feeling self-induced pressure to reciprocate or dazzle my guests and yet not really having the knack for it. I marveled at friends who could whip up pad Thai for eight while they chatted and sipped a beer. I always seemed to underestimate the amount of time or food needed. Once I prepared for a weekend visit from European friends, and felt so proud that I’d cooked up soup, smoked sausage and roasted a turkey tenderloin in advance. And was pleased and then slowly, mildly horrified as they sat down and ate it all in one sitting the night they arrived. My god, what would we eat the next day? (Spoiler alert: We went out for subs.) Then there’s the Christmas when I put a lasagna out on the deck to cool and the neighbor’s dog ate it. Or another Christmas when, instead of crashing for a nap with my exhausted toddlers, I roasted, crushed and peeled hazelnuts to make chocolate ganache tartlets that, get this, NOBODY ATE BUT ME.
A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE by CARA MCDONALD
But age and experience will do a number on you, expanding your skills, repertoire and self-compassion, allowing you to see that most people simply want to be at ease and feel truly welcome in your home. Just recently, I had the lastminute opportunity to invite my neighbor Laura over to hang out and catch up over dinner. We had frozen chicken burgers and salad, and a few fresh strawberries after dinner with the last pieces of a bar of dark chocolate. I forgot to chill the wine so the chard was warm. We had a delightful time. See? I’m teachable. It warms my heart to have Lissa authoring this month’s “Wild Dinner”; what food issue would be complete without an homage to the Northwoods bounty that surrounds us? Even better, the host/forager/cook is none other than Keefer, now a delightful, grown and über-competent man of the woods (and lake… and field). I guarantee you’ll feel the maternal pride rising up from every description, that you’ll practically smell the morels sizzling in their buttery bath—abundant, delicious, more than enough to share for anyone lucky enough to be pulled in the door and offered a seat at the Edwards table. Cara McDonald Executive Editor cara@mynorth.com
NORTHERN MICHIGAN'S MAGAZINE
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