Longtime chef Laurel Lather offers ‘Nostalgic Feast’

By Jill Callison, for Pigeon605

Torund Bryhn met longtime Sioux Falls restaurateur Laurel Lather in the summer of 2020, shortly before Lather announced her intentions of closing The Market in the Harvester Building and retiring.

Bryhn, a native of Norway now living in the Twin Cities, was taking a road trip that put her in Sioux Falls for almost six weeks. The Market’s exterior appealed to her, and she stepped inside.

The well-traveled wine lover’s first surprise came when she saw some of Europe’s best wines inside a restaurant and shop in the middle of the Midwest.

Bryhn also hosts a podcast, and after visiting with Lather, she asked her to take part so Lather could share her philosophy of food and of life. Bryhn also sampled Lather’s cuisine and took some of her recipes to make in her own temporary kitchen.

“I was so impressed with her food,” Bryhn said. “Her sauces were incredible. And I mentioned to her that I had this publishing house.” She is the publisher of St. John’s Press.

With Bryhn’s help, Lather started a blog on Facebook, What’s on My Palate. Over the winter months, working at a speed startling to the publishing industry, Lather compiled her memories and recipes into a manuscript she presented to Bryhn in April. Titled “Nostalgic Feast,” the cookbook/memoir arrives Thursday and will be distributed Friday.

Its very cover is designed to tell people this is no ordinary cookbook, Lather said. Instead of displaying a large picture of Lather or one of her prepared recipes, it shows merry people gathered around a long table, enjoying food, wine and each other’s company. Look closely, and you might identify some of the customers and wait staff who made The Market the unique experience it was.

“Food needs to be emotional,” Lather said, explaining the decision behind the design. “You don’t just sit down to eat to eat. It has emotion around it, and it has to be comfortable for you to make.”

Lather’s experience with food began with her grandparents, Dick and Helen Czarnecki of Hancock, Wisconsin. Her single-parent father served in the Air Force, and when he was gone, she stayed at their fishing resort and spent every summer there, helping out.

“My grandfather was a big gardener, and I was exposed to it and fell in love with it right away,” she said.

While her grandmother ruled the kitchen, one of Lather’s early memories is making scones with her grandfather as a surprise. She shares the story — and the recipe — in “Nostalgic Feast.” But Helen Czarnecki receives her due in the book.

“The first thing I made with her was the chicken and homemade noodles in the book, and it’s still one of my favorite things to make,” Lather said. When she fed others in her restaurants, she was too busy to make the noodles often. In the year since she retired, Lather estimates she has made the dish four times.

Her favorite place at the resort was her grandmother’s herb garden. Helen Czarnecki encouraged her granddaughter to use fresh herbs liberally in her recipes and to become comfortable in the kitchen. Even her name — Laurel — is an herb, the bay leaf. Her favorite herbs are rosemary, thyme and dill.

“Rosemary’s kind of been my trademark,” Lather said. “In the restaurant, we garnished with a sprig of rosemary, and in the book, we used rosemary sprigs for decoration. In the summertime, it’s bright. In the winter, it adds almost a piney flavor to foods.”

Little surprise then that’s Lather’s first business, which she opened at 22, was setting up a greenhouse where she could grow and sell herbs. A year later, she opened a bulk grocery and local produce shop, The General Store.

Selling dry herbs meant a thin profit margin, however, and when her husband at the time became ill, Lather needed to bring in a higher income. She began working in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, restaurants and making a name for herself. No matter where she lived however, she continued to grow herbs, even if just in pots on an apartment windowsill.

Her pursuit of an associate degree in restaurant management led her to participate in the Wisconsin Restaurant Association’s Student Culinary Competition. In “Nostalgic Feast,” Lather tells of perfecting — over a hot plate in her hotel room — the required use of aspic, a savory jelly.

“I spent the evening in my room, doing any prep I could beforehand. Using a hot plate, I practiced by making miniature versions of the dish,” she writes. Her efforts were successful: She was one of the top three finishers in the competition. “It gave me confidence,” she said.

Fast forward to 1991, when Lather moved to Sioux Falls. It was time for a change, she said, and one of the bartenders at the restaurant where she worked had grown up in this area.

“He was telling me about the downtown area, how it needed businesses,” she said. “On a road trip, I checked it out and thought it would be a good place.”

Lather and her husband, Doug, first opened Food N’ Fermentation at 212 S. Phillips Ave. as a retail store with gourmet goods, cheeses and wines. When the Phillips Avenue Bakery a couple of doors down closed, it gave her the chance to expand. After four or five years there, the Lathers moved to North Phillips Avenue to be in position for the projected expansion of Phillips to the Falls.

Then came the economic downturn of 2008. The Lathers closed Food N’ Fermentation and took a break before opening The Market farther south again on Phillips Avenue.

“Once again, I wasn’t going to cook,” Lather said. “But people still wanted me to cook, and I had two hot plates and a couple of crockpots and a storage room we had turned into a small kitchen. My husband would bring in the grill once in awhile.”

Eventually, The Market moved to the Harvester Building. Lather describes that as her favorite location for a restaurant. Had the COVID-19 pandemic not occurred, she said, The Market likely still would be open today.

But she doesn’t look back. Through the cookbook, Bryhn said, Lather will continue to change people’s lives through food and creating greater connections.

“While interviewing her, this guy comes in who had driven six hours just to have lunch at The Market,” Bryhn said. “Patrons came back and back and back, creating a community. And that’s important, especially after COVID: How do we create these bonds? She has an amazing love of food and a lot of people to create food for.”

When Lather started writing her book, she set up an office space. Eventually, she found herself sitting on the couch with a bottle to wine and her cats around her, letting it all go.

“It was a great emotional release,” she said. “I hope for people to find out what I was all about, how I got there — it will be an inspiration for people. All those dishes you loved at my place, now you can make them. Cooking is easier than some people think. To me, it’s baking that’s so precise. You won’t see many baked goods in the book at all.”

“Nostalgic Feast” served as a steppingstone for Lather as she entered, well, not retirement, but a life outside a restaurant kitchen. Lather hope it inspires others in their mid-60s — any age, really — as they move into the future.

For herself, once promotion of the cookbook is over, Lather’s ready to start a new challenge, one she will talk about later. No matter what it is, she said, remember this:

“I’m still out there, making people happy with food.”

Get cooking

If your garden includes flowers, it’s likely marigolds are among them. Not only do they bring bright color there, but the petals can add a peppery taste to food, Laurel Lather said. Use them in this cheese soup from Lather’s cookbook, “Nostalgic Feast,” and you might not have to add pepper at all.

Marigold Cheese Soup

6 tablespoons butter

1 white onion, minced

2 stalks celery, minced

2 carrots, minced

2 tablespoons flour

½ teaspoon dry mustard

1 quart chicken or vegetable broth

4 ounces brie, sliced

4 ounces shredded Swiss

4 ounces shredded cheddar

1 cup heavy cream

½ cup marigold petals

Salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a large stockpot, and saute the vegetables until soft. Stir in the flour and dry mustard, cooking for another 2 minutes while continuously stirring. Gradually add the broth, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, fold in the cheese, and stir until melted. Add the cream and marigolds, and continue to cook to desired consistency; do not allow to boil. Salt and pepper to your taste. Serves 6.

Laurel Lather’s cookbook, “Nostalgic Feast,” can be ordered at nostalgicfeast.com. It also will be available in bookstores after Friday. Her publisher, St. John’s Press, is scheduling upcoming book signings.