ROEDER MORTUARIES
Family Owned for 100 years
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It means so much. Whenever you need us, Roeder Mortuary is here for you. As a fourth-generation, family-owned mortuary, we know the importance of attentive service to every detail: • Traditional funerals • Graveside services • Memorial services • Video tributes • Cremation services • Pre-planning It’s our family helping yours, since 1912.
2727 N. 108th Street 4932 Ames Avenue 402-496-9000 402-453-5600
11710 Standing Stone 402-332-0090
www.roedermortuary.com
OUTDOOR KITCHEN & PATIO 12100 West Center Road 402.333.2282 www.outdoorkitchen.com
38 JULY/AUGUST 2014
“My dad sent me a clipping about the sale of the library as a joke,” recalls Christianna, who was living in New York at the time. “But I responded very seriously.” Today, the 3,000-square-foot summer retreat is both a refuge from and a sharp contrast to her life in Los Angeles, where she has a onebedroom apartment and works as a freelance writer and television producer. Having worked predominately in food production for the Food Network and the Cooking Channel for the last 13 years, she giggles about the irony of her latest accomplishment: A Daytime Emmy Award nomination for “Sea Rescue,” a children’s show about marine animal rehab. As for her recent book deal, well, that was a “lucky situation,” she says humbly. And her handsomely renovated summer live/work space had a lot to do with it. More than a place to “recharge,” the 100-year-old building serves as both inspiration and a backdrop for Christianna’s food and recipe blog, “Burwell General Store.” In addition to a platform for her original recipes, the blog features pictures and posts about the library, which she describes as a “mix-matchy New York-style loft.” An editor from History Press noticed the blog in May 2013, and Christianna had a book deal shortly thereafter. In turn, her summer retreat turned into a second home for all seasons. Christianna spent several months in Burwell researching archives and interviewing farm and ranch women in their 80s and 90s for her book, which offers a history of the Sand Hills from a culinary perspective. She developed 14 of the 16 recipes in the book in response to the stories she heard. “When you take people down memory lane … food is a great access point,” says the author. A fried chicken recipe, for example, was inspired by a 91-year-old’s recollection of her childhood school lunch. Her mother would ring a chicken’s neck, pluck the bird, dress it and fry it that morning. The steaming hot chicken would go directly into her daughter’s lunch pail (along with an apple) – with the lid off the pail until the chicken cooled. Christianna was most struck by the resilience of the scores of people she interviewed. “They are honest and straightforward. They have unmatched morals and ethics that are tried and true,” she says.