"Up North" Country Cooking

The Fresh Healthy Cuisine of Northern Michigan

Northern Michigan is a land with beautiful valleys, peaceful rivers, sand dunes and lakes so clear you can see right to the bottom at 100 foot depths. Farmstands all along the roads have organic heirloom tomatoes, the freshest vegetables, and sweet corn that needs no butter to taste delicious. In little towns all along the shores and clear blue waters of Lake Michigan, fishmongers sell fresh caught King Salmon, Whitefish, Trout and the most amazing Smoked Whitefish and Smoked Salmon pates. Mile after mile of cherry orchards march in rows up the hills along the picturesque roads.

The food here is a feast for the eyes and the senses, but the cuisine is fairly simple and straightforward. The people here don't spend their time making fancy sauces or complicated recipes.  Fresh fish is the centerpiece of the menu in restaurants and homes wherever you go.  It is a healthy and delicious way to eat. They bring out the wonderful taste of the vegetables that grow in the area with marvelous herbs like oregano, thyme and basil.  Desserts are made with natural sweetening materials, honey and molasses, and they drink the excellent local wines with their meals.

The abundant fresh vegetables and fruits that can be found in the small grocery stores in towns that dot the shores of the big lake determines what is served for dinner that night. Yellow and green Patty Pan squash, amazing green beans, cucumbers, zucchini, fresh fennel, eggplants, cherries and peaches are snapped up as they come in off the farmers trucks. Fresh herbs are sold in small bunches at every farm stand. Crisp heirloom apples that have a distinct lemony taste can sometimes be found in the Farmers Markets that travel from town to town each week.

The grapes that grow in vinyards along the 45th parallel around the Grand Traverse Bay and the wines they make from them are exceptionally good. World class wines including Chardonnay, Reisling, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, and Pinot Grigio can be found throughout the region.