Cafe Wisconsin Cookbook

Following the popular Cafe Wisconsin, a guidebook to the Badger State's homiest diners, roadside restaurants and small-town eateries, this cookbook offers the best recipes from a state not necessarily known for its cuisine. Indeed, food snobs might cringe just skimming some of the ingredients: Miracle Whip, canned soups, jarred sauce and/or processed cheese star in several recipes. Nevertheless, there's something welcoming about Janette's Chicken Enchilada Soup, which hails from Daddy Maxwell's Arctic Circle Diner in Williams Bay, near the shores of Lake Michigan. A spicy concoction of canned enchilada sauce, chicken broth, and American cheese, the soup might not be authentically Mexican, but it's still delicious with a garnish of sour cream and tortilla chips. Pork Ribs and Saurekraut, a nod to the Polish heritage of many Wisconsinites, is a belly-filling casserole of meat, potatoes and cabbage. Hot Beef, ""the quintessential plate special in Wisconsin,"" is nothing more than beef and potatoes piled on white bread, but it's satisfyingly toothsome-especially, one imagines, on a cold midwestern night. Perhaps unsurprisingly, desserts are the standouts: what could beat a slice of Raspberry Cherry Streusel Pie, with a scoop of Wisconsin ice cream on the side? As this cookbook proves, delicious food can come from the most unexpected places.