Neshonoc West Salem

Lake Neshonoc, an impoundment, was nothing more than a squiggly creek before Norwegian settlers in 1851 built the grist mill at the head of what is now called the La Crosse River.  There wasn't much here at the time but the criss-crossings of Winnebago Indian trails, much untamed timber, a very young settlement at La Crosse several miles toward the Mississippi, and the creek itself.  Miss Mattie Larson, daughter of an original Norwegian immigrant family to West Salem, recalled in an article

dating back to 1940, that the crude transportation her family used to get to this area from Madison were very rough-hewn wagons, "kubberulle," rolled on wheels "nothing but logs sawed straight through."  When the carts encountered even small hills, they would have to unhitch the oxen and lower the wagons by rope.  When the food supply ran low on these cross land trips, the family was put on rations.  Miss Mattie further recalls in later years – after the small settlement at West Salem

An original home (octagon in shape) in West Salem by founder of mill

had been finally dug out, so to speak, and flattened for agriculture – Sunday treats that consisted of two-days' old cream set in a pan mixed with sugar and cinnamon, then dipped with bread.  

"In the evening, supper would consist of oyster soup, sylte, lefse, rul, peresylte, bread and butter, and some kind of fruit sauce.  Then as we children grew tired, our parents would begin to talk of going home.  But first, we would have to have lunch, which consisted of coffee and cake, sandwiches, torte, fattigmand, pigekysser.  I don't remember any stir cake when I was small, except sukkerbrod, and that very seldom.  When our lunch was finished, it was time to get our wraps on, say good-bye, and thank yous and pile in the sleigh and home to the jingle of sleigh bells."  Mattie goes on to describe great Norwegian Christmas songs with phrases like "Ta dinerhn old den vardra tea den one vil den acre," public school with no music, unfortunate illnesses, and Indians that would arrive at their doorstep to beg.  "Whatever we children of the pioneers may have lacked, at least we had the pleasure and privilege of seeing nature at it's best."

Travel Songs

Longenecker Gardens (Arboretum UW Madison)
    – after Whitman



Ash leaves like golden swords,
Sugar maples, Hemlock, Crabapples, Vibernum,
red eruptions from every limb at the peak of autumn.
Here it was Leopold who planted
the long ridge line of experimental pines eighty years ago
at the far end of Redwing Marsh near the Grady Tract.
Where the prairie oak endures
its lone perch among the bunchgrass of the Savannah,
its corked bark evolved to expel fire.
Grasses wild and swaying.
Wild crisp music of the wind,
the wild music of the hawkwing cutting,
the music of the wild turkey scratching leaves
  baked of the underbrush.
Oh, for all to climb up the stem of such
a festival of color!
Hand by hand, foot by foot, up the steeples of color!

Travel Songs

Mirror Lake
         –after Whitman


The faint muse of the sun, early October morning
over Mirror Lake,
the squirrels in the forest dim and low volume,
walnuts fallen to the ground in broken shells
re-seeding themselves, saying thank you,
re-seeding the world anew reaching for no fame.
Here is where the world
of the Winnebagos, the Ho Chunk, the thousands
of peoples of the unknown races once roamed
in oaken dugouts carved by tribal elders,
paddled around the unglaciated
plates and dunes of sandstone...at Echo Rock,
they bore paddle down into shallow water
where the Pike fish once lay offspring, silver streaks
against gnarled rocks; and eagles sprang
from pine needle lily pad bog.
To this, the midwest is like All other.
To this, we, skipping from smooth beach under
a faint sun, looking onto the shoreline
which holds old Echo Rock, old Cambrian guard
of all the other shore-world in its microcosm,
we, by air, jumped, from grass, over water,
to rise up into the past,
and sent our thoughts
into a land carved by ancestors.

The Wisconsin Supper Club

Every great restaurant tries to capture some essential identity mark that carries along with the customer far after the dining.  Because Ishnala is built on the edge of Mirror Lake, nestled in under the hanging pines (a few pines growing inside the building as well) and across a small bay from the ancient Winnebago Indian spiritual gathering point Echo Rock, this place doesn't have to try very hard at being nearly mystical.

The wooden dugout canoe hanging on a stand at the entrance, an immediate reminder, was once pulled up from the bottom of the lake.  The Winnebagos, before wintering down in Arizona, had to figure out a way to hide some of

their non-transportable goods, so purposefully sunk their canoes to keep them in waiting for the next season.  Trail, rock, pine and walking bridge

lead to a restaurant entrance which, when entered, feels as though it seamlessly moves on through

the very landscape itself.  That imaginary wish of what might be the most interesting restaurant experience plays out as you move inside and sit down at your table: 'what would it be like to eat in a restaurant that is the woods, is the lake, the sandstone rock?'

We tried the vineyard steak filet (sun dried tomato and goat cheese encrusted), and a cognac-orange glazed duck (glaze on the side for Julia), and it was certainly earthy but prepared in a non-formal supper club way that would appeal to most folks.  Brandy old-fashions, the most popular cocktail in Wisconsin, was not exactly an uncommon sight here; pines rose up from below the dining room, and waved at the dying sunlight which shone in patches off the surface of the lake that then shone back at us, keeping its namesake, mirror, with us every bite.  

Weeknight Cooking

Nicoise Salad


When the mood is French, the taste is for tuna, and you feel like saying the word Nicoise (little squiggly emphasis mark underneath the 'c') out loud a few times for fun, then gather up a good bunch of kale, some green fresh beans, little potatoes – red or yellow – eggs, tomatoes, anchovies, garlic, olives, a pinch of lemon, and a favorite

dressing to drizzle. Most important, some good fresh tuna.  In the description to this recipe, it suggests that Nicoise salad is set apart from the mixed salad because the components are set on the plate somewhat for the sake of the look of the plate, but also so to allow each of the ingredients to stand strongly on their own.  That is, the green bean tastes just as it is: a good cooked green bean.  A slice of hard boiled egg is its own flavor; the tuna, a fine meat selection.  Even though this might have a French name, it is a type of salad that is very much in the 'local' vogue right now – simple, quite raw, good for you, and if you are lucky enough to find fresh local produce, so much the better.

Key hints to success are to first boil a pound of red potatoes until tender, quarter them, season, drizzle on some olive oil, then broil until crisp on the outside, this way the surface carrying crisp flavor.  Another is to

sautee minced garlic, a pinch of anchovies and chopped olives to provide the base for a batch of cooked kale.  What comes out of the fry pan becomes the important 'salty' base of the salad plate.  The last is the careful preparation of the tuna steaks.  Tuna is very easy to over cook because it is difficult to follow the cooking instructions for only one and a half minutes of pan time per side, but this does allow for that ruby red middle which, if warm, is the perfect preparation because it too allows for the real taste of the steak to come through.  In the end, it is a salad of taste choices.  You find your own favorite fork combinations as you go along.  The heavy starchiness of the potatoes contrast the crisp kale; the egg and tomato play well off each other; the crisp green beans are helped along by the coating of oil, vinaigrette or lemon.  Kids, oddly enough, eat it.

Echo Rock

Mirror Lake State Park, Wis. Dells

When the wind is high, the air moist and the sun dim, sometimes just getting on the trail takes its own special kind of courage.  All around, the fall colors are at their peak; folks walking around with cameras waiting for that stray patch of resistant sun to climb down onto the pine floor and illuminate the millions of jewels of seasonal leaves; but for the moment the walk will have to be about something else: what's it like walking in among these ancient sandstone cliffs? How did this slender body of water come to be called Mirror Lake?  Where does the famous Ishnala Supper Club sit overlooking all of this?  Echo Rock Trail rewards all of these questions very quickly as it meanders through the forest quickly out-letting to the famous rock outcropping which stands set back and above the water as though

conceived by a great landscape designer for the sake of climbing and finding the best view imaginable.

Only one boat motor stirred from a farther corner of the lake – no paddlers today. A family of fishermen threw out a line down on the shore below, but it didn't last long.  Just below the rock, further down the

trail, you could see Ishnala perched over the shoreline through the trees, connected, we found

out in just a few more minutes, to the network of Mirror Lake Trails.

Weeknight Cooking

Veggie Burger

If there's a more common go-to form of food in America than the hamburger, I'd be interested to know what it is.  Spaghetti maybe, mac and cheese, the chicken breast sandwich?  Open up the fridge and these are the ingredients on hand; roll up a patty of burger, dash on the salt, give it a quick flash in the pan and any kind of bread will do to cover.  Thinking about hamburgers just a moment though, you start to wonder about just what it is we're getting?  What is it we like about them, exactly?  All of this came to mind after making an attempt at veggie burgers the other night for the first time.  We've all tried them before from somewhere else, and probably even microwaved at some point those frozen versions that come as discs in the freezer section.  But when we bit into our own version, we were a little bit shocked to find out that not only were these just fine for you, but the taste was more complete – the entire burger tasted good, not just the salty surface or the so called marbling of fat and juices we normally associate with our craving.  This leads me back to the question, just what is a common burger?  In the old days, when beef held more natural flavor due a different quality of meat based on how we fed our cattle, you could assume that the burger you were eating was good because of its internal flavor; add your spices and ketchup and toppings and you probably really had something...hence the true American food, the burger joints galore, etc., etc.  Now, though, for any number of reasons, we may be looking at the burger a little bit differently, depending on how it is prepared and from what meat source.  The common burger on the grocery shelf, tending to be quite lean, carries little or no flavor of its own.  When we cook these burgers, then, what we taste might be texture itself, the salt on the top, and then the toppings.  Add some fat to this equation, and that is what we will taste, more fat, and therefore it might seem more satisfying and fulfilling.  The better the burger joint, usually the higher quality of the beef, and yet I would still say something is lacking.  What's interesting about the veggie burger, or the burgers we made, combining burger and veg, is that the ingredients you add to the meat gives taste throughout the burger and is pretty good for you.

The recipe we looked at – from a sort of farm to table book – was vegetarian, with a wheat bulgar and walnut base.  Looking down the rest of the ingredients list, though, there were a few things like cilantro, cumin and red onion that started to make it feel too much 'veggie,' and not enough burger.  It's one thing to eat a giant hunk of fat, like some burgers, but then it's another to eat a veggie patty.  I liked the idea of finding a balance, so bought our standard pound of turkey and lean beef burger,

processed some walnuts, pinto beans, two cloves of garlic, and a few pinches of soy sauce into a fairly runny paste, which I then folded back into the pound of burger, then added an egg according to needed consistency.

I balled those up and smashed down on the middle with my potato masher, cooking them for the standard burger time of five or so per side, maintaining a pinkness to the middle.  I used only a pinch or two of salt on the outside; cut up large strands of iceberg lettuce; cut open homemade hamburger buns; offered slices of tomato and avocado.  Biting into these burgers, I think the shock of the positive taste was probably moreso than really anything I've cooked at home.  Sometimes good strong flavor comes in small doses: one bite is excellent, but another next to it nothing special.  Because the garlic and soy was built right into the burger, every bite held a strong zing of that saltiness and spice that most of us crave in a hamburger, yet we knew what we were eating was low fat: beans, walnuts, a pinch of soy sauce, just enough garlic and topped off with greens.  The carbs were still there, but the fat had disappeared; fiber replaced cholesterol and there were no oddball bites that were co-op smelling funky vegetarian.  Looking at the burger from the outside, I had laid down a deep brown and plenty of olive oil to impart an oily surface.  The burgers were real in every sense except for the usual two hour stomach ache associated with the fast food version.  We figured if walnuts and beans worked, then any number of other ingredients were possible.  Wild rice burgers with ground mushrooms?  Quinoa?  Chili and bean burgers?  Avocado chunks...inside the beef?  Sounds fun.