Helen Myhre, known variously as the Pie Piper, the Queen of Pies and the Pie Lady of Osseo, always has lived by a simple motto: You work hard and then you work harder.
“Work is what you do,” Myhre said over a cup of coffee at her now-famous Norske Nook restaurant. For a Midwestern farm wife, a good portion of that work was feeding her family, friends and neighbors.
And what she fed them was real food-milk and cream from her own cows, butter from the creamery in town; eggs from the henhouse and chicken or beef from an animal she butchered.
In 1973 Myhre had more than 20 years of farm life, which included cooking for a husband and six children. But with four of the six grown and a few years’ experience working at a local restaurant, she wanted a change.
So she bought the Star Cafe, one of three restaurants in Osseo, about 25 miles south of Eau Claire. But she didn’t change her cooking. And in an era of fast food, plastic packaging and microwave meals, real food is what has brought her acclaim.
Today she no longer owns the restaurant, but she stays on as a consultant to new owner Jerry Bechard, and she stops by regularly, often taking up her rolling pin to lend a hand.
“Helen is the epitome of what’s great about farm women,” says Mona Vold, a former Osseo resident who is a writer. Vold helped Myhre convert a collection of grease-soiled recipe cards and a lifetime of experience into a book: “Farm Recipes and Food Secrets from the Norske Nook” (Crown, $24), already featured as a selection in two book clubs and scheduled to reach bookstores in the next few weeks.
The book is a promise, made first in those early days to a group of local farmers who became the inspiration for the restaurant’s new name.
“I had these retired farmers who’d come in every morning,” Myhre said. “Like good Norwegians, they’d put 12 chairs around the table for four in the corner, drink coffee and solve the world’s problems.
“The corner became their nook. The Norske Nook.”
The farmers loved Myhre’s cooking, but she felt guilty charging them-or anyone-for a meal.
“I couldn’t bear to charge them sales tax,” she said. “I made up the difference myself. I didn’t make much money that first year.”
Money wasn’t a big thing for her, she said, as long as she made enough to cover her overhead. But her recipes, they were hers. Her Norwegian farmers and other customers often asked for recipes.
“Someday, I’ll write a book,” she would reply.
Two years later, Myhre said, she was fortunate enough to have a few pieces of carrot cake and sour cream-raisin pie still left when Jane and Michael Stern came to eat.
Here’s what happened next, according to Myhre:
” `Some people out here want to know if they can put a write-up in their book,’ one of my waitresses said.
“Well, I had no idea who these people were, but it couldn’t hurt.”
The Sterns gave the restaurant a three-star rating (the best at the time) in their book “Road Food.”
“We were baking maybe four pies a day then,” Myhre said. “And it wasn’t long after `Road Food’ came out that Esquire magazine wrote us up for having `some of the best pies and cakes in the world.’ “
“Then all hell broke loose,” said Lorraine Eide, Myhre’s longtime assistant. A farm wife herself, Eide learned to cook the same way her boss did-from Mom and Grandma, her aunts and other farm wives.
Four pies grew quickly to 25 and then 50. Plaudits followed in Madison’s Isthmus weekly, the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Midwest Living magazine.
The “Today” show’s Willard Scott visited the restaurant, and so did CBS’ Charles Kuralt. Bus tours began making the Nook a regular stop. In the summer, visitors from Texas, New York, Florida, Maine and California stood in lines half the length of Osseo’s two-block business district to eat a piece of pie at the small-town diner that seats maybe 100.
Inside, the line of people ends in the paneled foyer. A guest book greets those waiting at the front of the line, and a pie case-a four-level carousel filled with pies and tortes-stimulates their appetites. The cash register rings non-stop. Waitresses in skirts and white blouses carrying coffee pots and trays of pies and homemade specialties hustle to serve guests seated at booths and tables of varying sizes.
“It seemed that I was making nothing but pies, but it takes time to make 150 a day,” Myhre said. “Lorraine’s whisk has gotten pretty worn from stirring meringue, my rolling pin’s not exactly round anymore and the pie table has a dent in it from rolling all the crusts.”
In 1990, Myhre and the Norske Nook were the subject of a syndicated New York Times feature. In August that year, she appeared on David Letterman’s show, teaching him to make a sour cream-raisin pie.
“It wasn’t long after that Mona called me,” Myhre said. “She’d been after me for quite a while to write a book. `It’s time,’ she said, and I knew what she meant.”
The book isn’t just a cookbook. It’s filled with stories about how various recipes came to be, about rural life of a generation past and about Midwestern folklore.
“The aim was to make Helen come alive,” said Vold, who moved back to Osseo from the East Coast to do a series of articles on the farm crisis in the mid ’80s. “It’s Helen’s stories and hints in the book that capture the essence of what the Nook is.”
Recipes, Vold said, are simple and practical. “Helen makes it easy.”
“Anybody that thinks farm women had lots of time for cooking is wrong,” Myhre said. “Myself, I raised six kids and sometimes made six meals a day, so we had to know how to work smart.”
Reflecting a lifetime of experience, Myhre’s recipes and tips tell how to make meals and desserts from scratch in little more time or effort than it takes with prepackaged mixes.
And homemade quality speaks for itself.
“You can’t be too fussy,” Myhre said. “A recipe isn’t a formula. Old-time cooks go by the look and feel of their food. There’s a certain feel to a good pie crust or bread dough.”
And coming from the farm, the ingredients are, by today’s standards, a little rich.
“I’ve always used butter, eggs and cream,” Myhre said. “In 18 years, I’ve only had one stick of margarine in the (Norske Nook). And that was for a friend on a restricted diet.
“To me the verdict isn’t in on this cholesterol thing. People around here have been eating it all their lives and live into their 80s or 90s.”
The book, like the restaurant, will appeal especially to urban people, Vold and Myhre say.
“Urban people want to feel a connectedness to the land and want to believe in the values and virtues of the rural Midwest,” Vold said. “We have a richness of life here. People can see it in the town and the restaurant, and they can taste it in Helen’s cooking. I think that’s the essence of her success.”
That success hasn’t changed Myhre. She still chats with the retired farmers who come in for coffee. And often she still wonders what all the fuss has been over her pies and cooking.
“I just do what I’ve always done, and they’re still eating it,” she said.
The following recipes are adapted from “Farm Recipes and Food Secrets From the Norske Nook.”
PRIZED CREAMY BEAN SOUP
Preparation time: 25 minutes
Soaking time: Overnight
Cooking time: 1 hour
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
2 cups dried navy beans
6 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
Dash pepper
2 pints half-and-half, about
2 slices bacon, fried crisp, crumbled
Homemade croutons
1. Soak the beans overnight in water to cover in a large kettle. The next morning, drain the beans and add enough fresh water to cover (about 6 cups).
2. Add the salt and pepper, cover and cook over medium heat until the beans are tender, 20 to 30 minutes or longer. Drain and mash the beans (enough so none is whole).
3. Heat the half-and-half and add the mashed beans and the bacon. If too thick, add more half-and-half. Taste and adjust seasonings. Serve hot in bowls with homemade croutons.
SOUR CREAM RAISIN PIE
Preparation time: 45 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Yield: One 10-inch pie
2 cups sour cream
4 medium egg yolks
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar, see note
4 heaping teaspoons flour, see note
1 1/2 cups raisins
1 baked single crust 10-inch pie shell
Meringue:
12 medium egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1. Stir the sour cream and the egg yolks together in a heavy medium saucepan. Add the granulated sugar. Dump in the flour, then the raisins and mix using a wooden spoon.
2. Cook over medium heat until the raisins are plump and the filling is glossy and thick (this takes about 5 minutes after mixture comes to a full boil, or just a little longer, depending on your burner).
3. Cool the filling slightly, then pour it into the cool crust. Heat oven to 400 degrees.
4. For the meringue, beat egg whites and cream of tartar in larger electric mixer bowl on high speed. Add the confectioners’ sugar and beat until it forms soft peaks.
5. Spread a layer of meringue onto the pie. Make a good seal over the filling. Spread until it meets the edge of the crust to keep the meringue from shrinking as it bakes. Repeat until all the meringue is used up, then gently swirl the top to make it pretty. Bake until the peaks are golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes. Let it cool. Eat immediately or keep in a cool room.
Tribune test kitchen notes: Use only sour cream in this recipe-do not substitute lowfat varieties or sour half-and-half. This recipe makes a very sweet pie, if desired the granulated sugar in the filling may be reduced to 1 1/4 cups. We used 7 level teaspoons of flour.
OATMEAL CAKE
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 50 minutes
Yield: 13- by 9-inch cake
1 1/4 cups boiling water
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup each: packed brown sugar, granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon each: baking soda, cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Brown sugar-coconut topping:
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup each: flaked coconut, chopped nuts
1 egg
3 tablespoons each: softened butter, milk
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Pour the boiling water over the oats, and let it stand for 10 minutes.
2. Cream the butter, sugars, vanilla and eggs together in large mixer bowl. Add the soaked oats, flour, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg; beat well.
3. Pour into a buttered 13- by 9-inch baking pan. Bake until your finger doesn’t leave a dent, 45 to 50 minutes.
4. For brown sugar-coconut topping, dump all the ingredients together in a bowl and, using your fingers, mix until crumbly.
5. Sprinkle on the cake and put under a broiler until bubbly, about 5 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. –
