By Mary Jane Miller
The James Beard Awards, often called the “Oscars of the food world,” are the most prestigious honors in the culinary world.
This year, Iowa had two contenders: Andy Schumacher of Cobble Hill in Cedar Rapids, a semifinalist for Best Chef in the Midwest, and Simon Goheen’s restaurant Simon’s in Des Moines, a semifinalist for Best Hospitality. Neither advanced to the finals, but the buzz around the annual awards ceremony always reminds me of the time I cooked lunch for a table full of Beard winners.
Back in 2016, when I lived in Minnesota, I got an email from my friend Greg Reynolds of Riverbend Organic Farm. He asked if I’d be willing to cook lunch for a visiting Swedish chef and a few other guests using his farm’s produce. I said yes before I knew who was coming.
The next day, he sent the list: Magnus Nilsson — chef of the world-renowned Fäviken Magasinet in Sweden — plus the restaurateurs Paul Berglund, Gavin Kaysen, John Krattenmaker and cookbook writer Amy Thielen. Collectively, they’d won no fewer than eight James Beard Awards. No pressure, right?
I reminded myself that in moments like this, it’s best to cook what I know: simple food made from well-raised ingredients. Greg had hull-less oats, cornmeal, fresh lettuce, some veggies in the root cellar and plenty of eggs. A friend delivered fresh crappie fillets. I found oyster mushrooms on a hike in the woods and carried them home in my husband’s hat. I had rhubarb and herbs in the garden. So the menu came together:
Rhubarb cocktail
Cornmeal-fried crappies
Hushpuppies with sorrel-horseradish tartar sauce
Oat salad with bacon dressing and wild oyster mushrooms
Mixed greens with roasted root vegetables and cider vinaigrette
Deviled eggs with pickled milkweed buds
Sourdough bread, local butter and homemade plum jam
Buttermilk custard cornmeal cake with poached rhubarb and toasted hazelnuts
The night before, I barely slept. Were the potatoes too dry? Too much mustard in the eggs? Would the cake be done in the middle?
The morning of, I discovered the lettuce had frozen in my fridge. I left Greg a panicked message — thankfully, he had more.
I got to the farm early. The table was so pretty with flowers from the garden, and we left the front door open, so the scent of lilacs drifted inside. Paul Berglund surprised me by sending two chefs from his Minneapolis restaurant to pitch in, and they could not have been sweeter or more helpful. One even asked for my hushpuppy recipe.
Paul himself arrived an hour early with Magnus. I was sautéing mushrooms when the young Swedish chef leaned against the wall in jeans and sneakers, his famous hair tousled. I offered him a taste. “Good butter, great mushrooms, and a little salt,” he said with only the faintest accent. “Nothing better.”
They toured the farm while we prepped. The deviled eggs were bright yellow, the fish fillets delicate and sweet, the hushpuppies perfectly golden. We brought the food to the table and joined the meal. The conversation flowed easily from fishing to farming to even maypole dancing.
We ended with dessert, more chatter and then, like any Midwest gathering, lingered in the driveway before heading out.
It was a joyful day celebrating great company and good food made with ingredients that were grown and gathered right where we live. Magnus closed Fäviken Magasinet in 2019 and now leads the Food Planet Prize, which annually awards $2 million to bold food-system innovators.
And me? I still believe in cooking simply and cooking with care. Especially when the hushpuppies are hot and the mushrooms are just right.
