FARGO — Andrea Baumgardner has been cooking professionally since the 1990s and been nominated for the prestigious James Beard Award twice.
She’s also been a voracious reader all of her life.
So when her sisters suggested she write a cookbook, she figured it was something she could do on the side in a short period of time.
That was five years ago.
Now, after years of tweaking recipes, testing recipes, writing and more writing, the book, “BernBaum’s: Recipes from Fargo’s Nordic-Jewish Deli,” is out.
“I knew nothing about what it is to write a recipe for real,” Baumgardner said. “I’ve done little articles here and there, but when it came back from the first copy editor with so many comments, I thought, ‘Oh. This is kind of hard.’”
Andrea Baumgardner, left, and Sarah Strong make rugelach dough on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025, in preparation for a dinner at Michele’s Table in Fargo.
Chris Flynn / The Forum
Baumgardner will sign copies of the book this Saturday at Stabo in Fargo. She recently hosted a dinner at Fargo’s Michele’s Table and has other appearances coming up at the Moorhead Library, Holland’s in Fargo and Molly Yeh’s restaurant Bernie’s in East Grand Forks.
She knows hard work. Upon graduating from the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco in the early 1990s, she had an externship at the famed Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, where Chef Alice Waters helped popularize the farm-to-table movement.
After spending the rest of the decade working in California restaurants, she returned home to Fargo to open The Hotel Donaldson restaurant in 2003. Three years later she went off on her own and opened the Green Market. That closed in 2013 and three years after that, she opened BernBaum’s with her husband Brett Bernath.
BernBaum’s owners, chef Andrea Baumgardner and her husband Brett Bernath, are pictured in the first location on Roberts Street.
Forum file photo
BernBaum’s combined her Icelandic and German heritage with his Jewish roots. It started as a lunch counter in his used mid-century modern furniture shop, serving bagels and soups in 2016 and quickly outgrew the space. The couple moved BernBaum’s from Roberts Street to Broadway and the business continued to grow.
In 2024 a confrontation between Bernath and an employee led to much of the staff quitting. The owners decided to close the shop as the long hours on her feet were taking a toll on Baumgardner’s health.
With the business closing, she had more time to work on cookbook.
“I think it ended up being a really good final project for me. I got to immerse myself in the food that was BernBaum’s and a lot of the photos from BernBaum’s and to think about it in a way that was constructive,” she said.
The book opens with the restaurant’s most popular feature, the bagels. It also includes the restaurant’s most popular dishes, recipes she was often asked about after BernBaum’s closed, like the Nordic lamb meatloaf and the fixings for the vegan Reuben.
“BernBaum’s: Recipes from Fargo’s Nordic-Jewish Deli” by Andrea Baumgardner
Contributed
And a good Jewish deli needed matzo ball soup. In the book, Baumgardner recalls the late Judge Myron Bright, a prominent Fargo Jewish figure, loudly passed a verdict on her early version.
“‘Ah, cannonballs.’ Oh no, I thought. Then just as authoritatively he said, ‘My mother’s were like cannonballs,'” she wrote.
Baumgardner first shared recipes with testers who would follow the instructions and give feedback. Scaling back those restaurant ready recipes down for a home cook took some getting used to.
One of the first things a cookbook editor told Jennifer Baumgardner, who published the book on her New York-based Dottir Press, was that people who cook professionally think people eat way more than they do and they make big recipes.
“Some of my first recipe testers wrote back to me and they were like, ‘I’m never going to eat this much of this pickle,’” Andrea said.
Her other sister. Jessica, helped guide the cookbook along with editing and rewrites.
BernBaum’s co-founder Andrea Baumgardner (left) is pictured with longtime dishwasher Pat McCoy who helped come up with a specialty dinner menu.
Contributed / Sarah Faith Strong
The book pays tribute to the Baumgardner and Bernath families for passing down recipes and inspiration, like her grandparents Effie and Skuli and his grandmother Mary. And of course there is her father, Dr. David Baumgardner’s signature MD Chili, a winter staple at the restaurant. The recipe reveals the secret ingredient to the rich taste, bittersweet chocolate.
Local and national chefs also get shoutouts for recipes that were adapted at BernBaum’s as well as shoutouts to the staff for what they brought to the restaurant.
(Barb Lamb’s Orange Rolls recipe was given to Andrea from my cousin Peter Kelley who worked with her for years, but my mom would want you to know she got the recipe from Virginia Boulger.)
There are also lots of pictures of BernBaum’s interior, staff and patrons, taken by former employee Sarah Strong, including shots of Andrea’s vintage toy ovens which lined the south wall of the restaurant. Visitors wrote notes and left drawings in the ovens and those were used to decorate the inside of the book, underscoring how the restaurant created its own sense of community.
Now that the book is out, she’s been excited to see old customers, co-workers and friends show up for events.
“There were people I saw who came in from out of town, who I had worked with at the Hodo 25 years ago, which is really heartwarming. It was all kind of overwhelming the whole day. All in a really positive way,” Andrea said. “It was great to see people. It was great to hear some people’s stories (about the food) because I think what’s always attracted me to restaurants is people connecting to the food or people feeling fed, feeling like they got something out of something you produced. Getting to hear that always for me is like an A+ day.”
Patrons enjoyed wine and a meal at a special BernBaums dinner.
Contributed / Sarah Faith Strong
She’s often asked if she has plans on opening a new restaurant.
“I miss parts of it a lot. And then parts of it, I don’t miss at all. But it’s hard, it’s a hard thing as you age,” she said. “I’m kind of a natural introvert, but I do like meeting people and connecting with them. I’ve always felt like the restaurant was kind of like the perfect conduit for me to meet people. I miss that. This whole year has been figuring out how I connect with the community. I think I really did it through my work. And I allowed my work to be all encompassing. Now I have to be more intentional.”
Since BernBaum’s closing, Andrea has done some restaurant consulting and now works for a private foundation.
She’s found a new way to serve the community while keeping her cooking skills sharp.
Andrea Baumgardner chops dill for a recipe on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025, at Michele’s Table in Fargo.
Chris Flynn / The Forum
“What’s really fun is volunteering at Churches United. I just come in and they tell me to make 10 pounds of pasta or something. It’s just a great experience because I think the same thing you feel in a restaurant. It feeds me. I love what they do,” she said.
She got involved by tagging along when her parents’ church group volunteered. They made the MD Chili.
David Baumgardner was a regular helper in the BernBaum’s kitchen, either making the chili or helping with the flax seed crackers and was at Andrea’s first book signing with her mom, Cynthia, handing out rugelach from the cookbook. At the event, book buyers recognized him and after having Andrea sign the book, asked for his autograph as well.
“That’s awesome,” she said. “Jennifer said the other day, ‘I think the most pictures of anyone are of Dad are in there.’ That’s okay. He’s worthy.”
What: Andrea Baumgardner book signing
When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 29
Where: Stab Scandinavian Imports, Fargo
Info: Admission is free. The book costs $49.95.
dottirpress.com/bernbaums
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Andrea Baumgardner’s favorite cookbooks
One of my favorite cookbooks is “The River Cafe Cookbook” by Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray. These two women opened this sort of rustic Italian-ish restaurant in London. The cookbook is very simple recipes, but I always was just so taken with the art direction of it.
I love “Prune: A Cookbook” by Gabrielle Hamilton, not because I cook out of it so much. I just love her voice in it because it’s really kind of like a grumpy chef. I like the way she brought a commercial kitchen sense. And she is just like a tremendously good writer. I just read her memoir that isn’t even cooking-related. James Beard Award-winning chef and she’s a great writer. How does she get to be all this?
I’ve always loved “The Zuni Cafe Cookbook” by Judy Rogers. When I was going to school in San Francisco, it was like a place where I’d go if my parents came to town or family friends or something. If you read that book, you just totally get a sense of what’s informed her and what’s important to her. I find that really exciting.
I like all the people who write for Food52. I like Sam Sifton in the New York Times. I think Allison Roman is a really good writer.
Dining and Cooking