Country Cooking

The Quilt Inn Country Cookbook Introduction The Quilt Inn Country Cookbook was written as an invitation for you to join us at The Quilt Inn, to savor not only the joy of bountiful down-home cooking, but to drink in the pleasures of country inn living. We are itinerant travellers and country inn lovers, and we have selected and savored the best recipes of all the ones that we have tried, to create the essence of “inn-ness” for you. We’ve collected our favorite dishes, and memories, and spread them out for you here on our harvest table for you to sample and enjoy. When you re-create these recipes for yourself, and as the homey smells of country cooking waft through your own kitchen, we hope you will be transported to The Quilt Inn where a warm welcome awaits you. People often ask us where The Quilt Inn is located, and when then can come visit us. The Quilt Inn is that mythic sort of place, like Camelot, that rises unexpectedly and fortuitously at the end of a long day to give haven to the weary traveller. We’ve all been to The Quilt Inn, if only in our hearts. The Quilt Inn is old and cozy, just like one of Grandma’s beloved and faded quilts it was named for. Whenever we are weary and bleary-eyed we can wrap it around us, and sink into its warmth. In Spring, we find the Inn in a cozy valley blanketed with snowy white cherry and peach blossoms. In Summer, we find it perched atop a breezy hill where the verdant treetops rustle like yards of crisp taffeta swooshing overhead. In Autumn, we find it at the end of a long narrow lane bordered by rows of trees in riotous colored patchwork. In Winter, we find it etched sharply in delicate filigrees of ice as our footsteps crunch noisily across the big snowy fields toward a wisp of smoke and warmth. It is everywhere different, and everywhere the same. It is the best of welcoming places. Welcome to The Quilt Inn. The Quilt Inn Country Cookbook Aliske Webb Everybody’s From Somewhere As Michael and I travelled around the country collecting stories for our memories and recipes for the Inn, we’ve enjoyed visiting small towns everywhere. I avoid highways whenever possible and go out of my way to find the “grey roads” on the map. They are the old roads, that lead meandering routes from town to town, left behind by the “red” and important superhighways. I often get us lost, but even that’s OK. Getting lost can lead you to some place more interesting than where you were heading. Strange, that. A wise man said, “When you are on a trip and your destination seems to move further and further away, you know that it was the journey you were after, not the destination.” Early on we noticed that almost every town we visited had a sign at the town limits proudly boasting a native son or daughter who had gone on to fame and fortune, supposedly elsewhere. Now we’re on the lookout for those wonderful telltale signs. I think we’ve found the home of every Miss America since 1957. We found football, basketball and baseball stars who made it past local high school hero to world class competitor. We found singers and musicians who probably drove the neighbors crazy, were the ne’r-do-wells at the time, probably now laughing, and strumming, all the way to the bank. In the “Who’s Who” of towns, (or perhaps that should be the “Where’s Where”), is there a pecking order of luminaries? If your town can brag only of a Regional Lawn Bowling Champion, are you less of an address than a town strutting a Miss America or a Hall of Famer? It’s a comfortable reminder that everybody is from somewhere. And driving around any somebody’s home town lets us see a glimpse of their past and perhaps their burning motivation for achieving success elsewhere. We wonder how those home towns fare in the memories of native sons and daughters. Happy nostalgia of childhood? Or, couldn’t wait to leave nightmares. All those towns ar