My Favorite Recipes - Meet Pastor Dennis and Marion Bay, Selbu

After 32 years serving as pastor to the Lutheran community of southwest Whitman County, the Rev. Dennis Bay will have to find a new identity in his upcoming retirement.

“Someone called the other day and asked for Dennis. I had to think for a second before I realized I was Dennis,” said Pastor Bay. “After so many years I’ve just been Pastor Bay. I may have to get used to Dennis again.”

Since 1979, Pastor Bay has presided over funerals, weddings and Sunday services at the domed Selbu Lutheran Church on Mud Flat. He will give his last sermon to the Selbu congregation next Sunday, Aug. 14.

Pastor Bay and wife Marion, who has long served as the librarian at the LaCrosse school, plan to move to the Puget Sound to be nearer their grown children.

Perhaps he stuck around so long because the Pastor Bay moniker allowed him to use initials (PB) fitting of his favorite food--peanut butter.

The peanut butter fanatic used to craft his own peanut butter ice cream and has used the nutty paste to adorn everything from hamburgers to spaghetti.

“Just a touch for the flavor,” he said.

His favorite peanut butter concoction is peanut butter pie. He first came across it at a stop in Chehalis when he was on a gospel team tour of the Northwest. The group stopped in at the Kit Carson Restaurant for dinner. Afterwards, the waitress asked who was interested in dessert.

“Out of the blue, I told her I wanted peanut butter pie for dessert,” he said. “And they had it!”

In fact, the pie was so good, he got the recipe.

Over the years, Pastor Bay has collected peanut butter pie recipes at every roadside diner he and his family came across. He keeps those recipes tucked in the same file where he keeps his sermons.

“I can’t tell you how many of them I’ve tried over the years,” he said. “And if I have to be honest; the one I liked best was my wife’s.”

While the pie did not make the table of the annual Selbu smorgasbord - not exactly traditional Norwegian fare - it did show up at the annual bazaar.

Pastor Bay remembered the Selbu smorgasbord fondly, with the Norwegian flags, traditional vests and dolls decorating the church. Half-Norwegian, his eyes filled with mischievous pride when remembering the proud day he got to sneak a Danish flag into the festivity.

The Bays drove into Selbu in 1979, with Dennis fresh out of his studies at the Lutheran Bible Institute in Seattle.

Pastor Bay recalled ricketing down the Mud Flat Road (he reported at that time it was the county’s only church on a dirt road) before rounding a corner and seeing the stunning architecture of the domed Selbu church.

“It was just ‘Wow!’” remembered the Wisconsin native.

Though immediately awed by the church’s architecture, Pastor Bay said the warmth of the Selbu congregation gave him a life-long love for his work.

“I’m just so thankful for all those I’ve met and got to know all these years,” he said. “I’m really thankful for the body of Christ that’s out here keeping this small church so strong.”

While living in the remote country of Selbu meant a lot of dirt road driving (“We should have bought stock in Les Schwab”), Pastor Bay was quickest to recall memories of his family’s life right next to the church.

There was the moose cow that showed up for several Mothers’ Days, and the bull that visited Selbu on Fathers’ Day, the Selbu children visiting his home to see some-30 parakeets hatch from eggs and the cantankerous owl that perched outside their bathroom window.

Along with his church duties, Pastor Bay also coached the LaCrosse junior high baseball team for 22 years, spent 12 years working the 10-yard chains at Tigercat football games and led a Bible study for the past 12 years at Hill-Ray in Colfax.

He and Marion now plan to live with their son, Joshua, in the Northgate neighborhood of Seattle. The couple also has three grown daughters; Rebekah, Deborah and Amy.

Recipes:

PB’s Peanut Butter Pie

1/2 C peanut butter

1/3 C powdered sugar

1 large container of Cool Whip

1 graham cracker or pre-baked pie crust

Cream together peanut butter and powdered sugar. Mix together with about twice as much Cool Whip. Fold into enough of the rest of the Cool Whip to fill crust. Chill for at least 2 hours.

Bake Sale Cinnamon Bread

(makes 2 - 8” loaves)

2 C very warm water

2 T sugar

2 pkgs yeast (1 heaping T)

2T oil

2 t salt

5-7 C bread flour

Cinnamon mixture:

2 T cinnamon for every cup of sugar

Proof yeast in water with sugar. Add oil and salt. Mix in flour and knead about 5 minutes. Shape into ball, place in Pam sprayed bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise for about an hour. Punch down and cut into 2 pieces. shape into balls and cover and let rest on counter for about 10 minutes. Roll into rectangle, the width of the pan length, and sprinkle with cinnamon mixture. Roll up as tightly as possible and pinch to seal final edge. Pinch ends and turn under. Place in sprayed pan. Allow to rise until double (about an hour) and bake in 375°F oven for 25 minutes. (golden brown and sounds hollow to tap)

Selbu Smorgasbord Frukt Suppe

(Fruit Soup)

2 C large pearl tapioca

8 C water

1 # pitted prunes

1 # raisins

12 oz. frozen grape juice

1/2 C lemon juice

2 C sugar

1 T ground cinnamon

10 oz. frozen blueberries

10 oz. frozen strawberries cut in pieces

Soak tapioca in water overnight (8 hours).

Bring mixture to a boil stirring constantly and cook on low heat for about an hour, until most of the tapioca beads are colorless.

Remove from heat.

While mixture is cooking, cut prunes into a large pan and add raisins.

Cover with water and boil until softened.

Add (including juice) to cooked tapioca mixture.

Dilute frozen grape juice concentrate to 1 quart (you will not be adding all the water the can suggests).

Add this and the lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon to the tapioca mixture.

Stir until sugar dissolved.

Add blueberries and strawberries.

Suppe is best if refrigerated for several days before eaten to allow flavors to blend.

This is good eaten alone or even on cottage cheese.