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Boffo B&B breakfasts

At a Wisconsin cook-off, we find out which is best.

At B&Bs, every good innkeeper knows that the quickest way to a guest's heart is through the stomach.

Guest like hot tubs, too, though many don't use them. Elegant decor is appreciated, though many people (well, men) barely notice it.

But everyone eats — and remembers — a great breakfast. That's why B&B proprietors knock themselves out providing one for guests.

"It's the most important part of their day,'' says Marie Cimino of the Westby House Victorian Inn, near La Crosse.

That's true, says Pat Fischbeck of the Speckled Hen Inn in Madison.

"It's the breakfasts that bring them back,'' she says. "Pretty rooms and comfy beds are everywhere.''

This month, Fischbeck earned the cover photo on next year's Wisconsin B&B directory by winning the first annual Innkeeper Cook-off at the Wisconsin Bed & Breakfast Association conference, where I was one of three judges, with travel writer Mary Bergin and Lorry Erickson of the Cranberry Discovery Center in Warrens.

The Iron Chef-style competition, in which every dish had to include cranberries, was stiff. But Fischbeck's Wisconsin Breakfast Panini prevailed over the lovingly arrayed plates of waffles, stuffed French toast, quiche and scones.

Her little grilled triangles were delicious, savory with baby Swiss cheese, applewood-smoked bacon and crisp apple and served with homemade cranberry-cherry chutney and a clementine cunningly peeled and reassembled to look like a pumpkin. But one thing gave her an edge: The panini is portable, which means guests who have to leave early still get a nice breakfast.

"We just put it in a bag with some fresh fruit and a carton of yogurt, and off they go,'' Fischbeck said.

Cimino's Waffles with Cranberry Topping & Cinnamon Cream Syrup was the second highest-scoring breakfast entree, earning high points for the waffles' light texture and the topping's tart/sweet balance. Her edge came from her unusual cinnamon-laced syrup, made with evaporated milk.

But breakfast isn't just about food, the two innkeepers say. It's also the camaraderie, even when guests, especially male ones, think they don't want to sit down for breakfast with strangers.

"That's the second most important thing, the chance to meet new people,'' Cimino says. "Once they get comfortable in that setting, they find out what they have in common.''

"Even if, in the beginning, they think they want the privacy of their own place, they end up making friends and having a great time,'' Fischbeck said. "Sometimes you have to pry them away from the table at 11 because they're chatting back and forth.''

Fischbeck grows her own pumpkins for pumpkin-pecan muffins and corn for fritters. Her current favorite entree, she says, is curry-cumin popovers filled with scrambled eggs from her own chickens.

Cimino likes to make a BLT egg bake and a breakfast strudel made with ham, hash browns, chives, sweet peppers and puff pastry. She lists other recipes on her web site.

My most memorable breakfast came at a Wisconsin B&B, the now-gone Othala Valley Inn, on an organic sheep farm near Mount Horeb. That's where I first was served cold-filtered coffee, and I was so delighted and drank so much I practically bounced out of there. I asked for a kit for Christmas, and now I never go anywhere without my own little flask of home-steeped concentrated dark-roast coffee.

Like most B&B guests, I also pick up recipes. In May, we had such a good breakfast at the Scandinavian Inn in Lanesboro, Minn., that I asked Vicki Chambard Torkelson for her strawberry-rhubarb compote recipe, though it's the kind of thing I'll never make. I also asked for the recipe for the peaches-and-cream muffins we had at the Red Forest B&B in Two Rivers, Wis., in September, but I do plan to make those.

After 19 years in the business, Red Forest innkeeper Kay Rodewald is a pro: When she saw how much my husband liked the muffins, she gave us the leftovers to take home. Rodewald also keeps a cookie jar near the guest rooms and makes sure it's always full of homemade chocolate-chip cookies.

Good cooking isn't rocket science. But for innkeepers, it works just as well.

Last updated on December 4, 2008