FOOD

Some recipe favorites from Lynn's Paradise Cafe

Jere Downs

Louisville

Lynn's Paradise Cafe has been closed two years this month, and owner Lynn Winter's been taking some heat for not selling the colorful property while a less prosperous Barret Avenue struggles on.

The cafe long known for its rich food and kitschy boutique has morphed lately into a more jaundiced reality show. Some neighbors have waged pickets in front of the cafe. Unknown vandals knocked the head off a hippo statue Friday and pushed a pink concrete pig onto its side.

Winter remains at an undisclosed location in Southern California, where she said she is still recovering from the 2013 closure of the cafe amid a dispute over pay and tips. Asked what recipes she would offer up to Louisville readers still mourning her loss, Winter called out the "bourbon ball French toast," "black bean chili" and "Hot Brown."

RECIPES

Bourbon ball French toast was the focus when famed New York City chef Bobby Flay hosted a breakfast throw down featuring Lynn's Paradise Cafe on the Food Network in 2008.

"I just really put my heart and my soul into that one," Winter recalled in a telephone interview Thursday. "It sold wildly. How can you beat real custard and real good bourbon?"

"It's decadent," former Lynn's chef Lindsay Roberts said of the breakfast delicacy in 1997. Instead of syrup, a bourbon custard sauce is poured over the conventionally cooked French toast recipe. A native of Frankfort, Roberts is partial to using Ancient Age, which is distilled in the state capital.

All of the recipes Winter named were easily located in the archives of The Courier-Journal, where food writers have celebrated her cuisine for decades. Since the weather's still cold and some of us are still adding to our layer of winter fat, I included the meatloaf, the crab queso and the macaroni and cheese.

The latter was featured by Oprah Winfrey in 2003 in a contest for the best macaroni and cheese. While it didn't win, former Lynn's Paradise Cafe chef Lori Pritchett said at the time it was an honest, affordable version.

"We opted out of making a really fancy macaroni and cheese," Pritchett said in 2003. "We decided to stay Southern and homey."

In honor of the approaching Super Bowl, I also offer the ultimate dip, the crab queso. For an authentic feel, wow football fans with blue corn tortilla chips and they will feel like they are back on Barret Avenue.

Winter, for her part, wants everyone to know she is earnestly seeking a buyer for the property that's been maintained, painted and kept so clean it looks like it could reopen any moment.

"I am doing a lot of writing to help me figure out what happened to Lynn's," Winter said. "I am highly motivated to get that thing into somebody else's hands. I'm trying to make the best of it."

Jere Downs can be reached at (502) 582-4669, Jere Downs on Facebook and @JereDowns on Twitter.