Ways to serve smoked trout

With quick-pickled rhubarb

12 ounces rhubarb, sliced into 1/2-inch pieces

3 cloves garlic, smashed

1 inch fresh ginger, sliced thin

1-1/4 cups distilled white vinegar

1/3 cup sugar

1-1/4 teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

1 teaspoon whole mustard seeds

At least a day before you want to eat this, pack rhubarb, garlic and ginger into a quart jar.

Put the remaining ingredients into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Using a funnel, pour boiling liquid over the rhubarb to cover it. Let cool, then cover the jar and refrigerate for at least 24 hours.

Store in the refrigerator and eat within one month. Over time, the flavor will intensify but the rhubarb will soften.

Serve with smoked trout and good bread or crackers.

With apple salad

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 heaping teaspoon Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons fresh-squeezed orange juice

1 teaspoon honey

1/4 medium onion, minced

3/4 to 1 pound tart, crisp apples, cored and sliced

1 large or 2 small golden beets, roasted, skinned and sliced

1 stalk celery, sliced

1 salad turnip or a few radishes, sliced salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley, optional

Put the oil, mustard, orange juice, honey and onion in a bowl and whisk until well combined. Let sit for 15 minutes or more to mellow the onion.

Add the apples, beets, celery and radishes and toss until thoroughly combined. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Just before serving, toss with the parsley. Adjust seasoning to taste and serve with smoked trout on the side. Good bread is welcome with this dish.

With potato salad

1 to 1-1/2 pounds new potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch dice

4 ounces sour cream

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 pickled gherkins, finely chopped plus 2 tablespoons of vinegar from the jar

1 small apple, cored and finely diced

Fresh dill, roughly chopped

4 spring onions, thinly sliced

Salt and pepper to taste

Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water for 10 to 15 minutes until tender.

Meanwhile, mix together the sour cream, mayonnaise and 2 tablespoons of vinegar from the gherkin jar in a large bowl. Stir in the gherkins, apple, dill and spring onions.

Drain cooked potatoes and stir them into the mixture. Season to taste and allow to cool.

Gently stir in the trout to serve.

Above, smoked trout, flaked, with quick-pickled gingery rhubarb. Below, fresh dill, chopped gherkins, and sour cream perk up this potato salad, which provides a delicious bed for smoked trout. (Photos by Katherine Larson) flavor and better mouth-feel.

So how to write the recipe? It really depends on the type of mushroom you have. If you went foraging and found lobster mushrooms, I’d try boiling them like lion’s mane. If your foraging was limited to the grocery store’s button mushrooms, I’d sauté them. Either way, sienisalaatti (wild mushroom salad) is a fascinating treat.

Janssonin kiusaus, or Jansson’s Temptation, involves potatoes and onions baked in cream with what recipes written in English call “anchovies.” Swedish in origin, it became common in Finland through the long centuries of Swedish occupation and remains popular at feasts and festivals. The dish appeared on the dinner table in my non-Finnish childhood from time to time, each time my father telling his made-up story about a man named Jansson who found the smell so alluring that he swam across a fjord to get some. (Not that Finland has fjords; it doesn’t.)

In my father’s memory, I wanted to include Jansson’s Temptation here, but I knew that anchovies might well raise eyebrows among class members. Could Finns really be that fond of those canned little red squiggles that seem made mostly of oily salt?

More research was in order, followed by another revelation: “Anchovies” are a mistranslation of ansjovis, which really means sprats, fish more akin to what we in the United States think of as brisling sardines.

Moreover, I learned, in Finland it is common to use a brand of canned sprats that includes spices. My task became to develop a spice blend that would turn Janssonin kiusaus into a treat for the Yooper palate. The solution? A combination of cayenne, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice — not too much, just enough to add their piquant warmth — and the dish turned into something truly worth swimming across at least a brook.

No collection of Finnish-style recipes would be complete without a berry dessert. In Finland, that might be cloudberry, lingonberry or bilberry. Here in the U.P., it had to be blueberries. That raised another set of issues. To begin with, every Yooper I know already has their favorite version of blueberry pie or tart. Beyond that, pastry is not exactly one of my strengths. One pie dough I made, years ago, was so tough that I actually broke a wooden rolling pin over it.

What I needed was something simple enough to manage without destroying kitchen equipment, and imaginative enough to tempt people away from existing favorites, at least for a taste. And it had to relate to Finland in important ways. Finnish, Finnish, what is Finnish … I bethought myself of cardamom.

I have no idea why cardamom has become so closely associated with Finnish cuisine. Several theories circulate on the internet, and each says the others are dead wrong. Whatever the reason, though, the connection is real. And it turns out that the combination of cardamom and blueberries is, well, magical.

So much so, indeed, that as I made sample tart after sample tart, my tasters kept pleading for more cardamom. The final recipe includes the spice both in the blueberry filling and in the crust itself — a pat-in-pan crust that avoids any need for struggles with rolling pins.

The result is so easy to prepare that I ended up calling it “Easy-As-Pie Blueberry Tart.” How to translate that into Finnish? John and Pauline Kiltinen provided the answer: Helppoa kuin heinänteko mustikkapiirakka. With a cup of good Finnish coffee, superb; with a blob of whipped cream, even more so.

To all true-blue Finns who may be startled by what I’ve done to their grandmothers’ favorites, I offer this apology: These kitchen excursions were grounded in the deepest affection and respect. I’m interested to know what you think when you try them.

Katherine Larson is grateful to the Marquette Food Co-op for the inspiration and opportunity to embark on this voyage into Finnish-inflected cuisine.

Jansson’s Temptation (Janssonin kiusaus)

Up to 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided*

1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced

3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon allspice

1-1/2 to 2-1/2 pounds potatoes, scrubbed and sliced into 1/4-inch slices**

4 to 5 ounces brisling sardines, canned in oil, drained* and roughly torn

1/2 cup whole milk

3/4 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup panko or other dried breadcrumbs

* If you want to top the casserole with only butter, use 5 to 6 tablespoons total. If you want to top the casserole with a mixture of butter and fish oil, save the oil from the sardine can and reduce the butter accordingly.

** The number of potatoes will depend on the casserole dish chosen. If it is shallow like a pie pan, you’ll need more. If it is narrower and deeper, more bowl-shaped, you’ll need less.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Using 1 tablespoon’s worth, butter a 2-quart casserole dish.

To a skillet over medium-low heat, add 3 tablespoons of butter, onion and garlic. Season with salt and pepper and sauté, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes until softened but not browned. In the last 30 seconds of cooking, add the spices to let their flavors bloom.

Layer a third of the potatoes into the dish and season with lots of black pepper. Add half the onions and half the fish. Layer another third of the potatoes, season, then add the remaining onions and fish. Add the remaining potatoes and season once more.

In a small bowl, mix milk and cream and pour the mixture evenly over the potato/onion/fish mixture. Top the casserole with panko and the remaining butter and/or fish oil.

Cover the dish tightly and bake for 45 minutes, then remove the lid or foil and bake another 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown and bubbling.

Lake Superior Theatre opens for summer

Celebrating 25 years of live theatre on the lakefront

By Erin Elliot Bryan

Near Marquette’s Lower Harbor Park, located right along Lakeshore Boulevard, is a 2,000-square-foot working boat house that moves vessels in and out of Lake Superior. The boat house was built in 1926, and its shop was even used to construct iron lungs during the polio epidemic in the 1930s.

But for several weeks every summer, the boat house is transformed into Lake Superior Theatre, a premier arts organization that stages full-scale productions and gives the community a rare opportunity to see top-notch live theater in a unique venue. This summer’s season, which will kick off on July 5, marks its 25th anniversary.

“We’re going to make the summer as fun as we can,” said Peggy Frazier, a Lake Superior Theatre founding member and board president. “We mix the razzle with the dazzle.”

Lake Superior Theatre was created in 1998 when the City of Marquette was preparing to commemorate its sesquicentennial the following year. The city partnered with Northern Michigan University to commission a theater piece that would tell the story of those who immigrated to the area in the late 1800s to cultivate a new life here.

The sesquicentennial committee, led by the late Rita Hodgins, approached NMU professors Shelley Russell and Robert Engelhart, who created Beacon on the Rock, a musical that focuses on family heritage and the diversity of the people who call Marquette home.

But once the musical was completed, a challenge arose on where to stage it.

“We were trying to find a venue