Harvest Salad with Celery Seed Dressing is made by Sue Nichols, owner of Northern Michigan cafe and catering business at Riverfront Pizza and Specialties in Glen Arbor. She credits her passion-to-feed (feed customers, feed friends, feed family …) to her upbringing in a family of Southern cooks. While her culinary creations stay true to that cuisine’s home cooking, she says her menus have happily evolved to become lighter and healthier. Sue and her staff regularly haunt Leelanau County farm stands for fresh, local ingredients that inspire daily specials. For the pears in this harvest salad (a tasty addition to a holiday feast or a welcome reprieve from holiday indulgence), she simply heads out to the two ancient, still-bearing trees that grow on the banks of the Crystal River.

Get the recipe here.