Crescent Dragonwagon

Author, Innkeeper, & Chef
Dairy Hollow House Inn
Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Current Projects

Along with being an innkeeper and chef, Crescent Dragonwagon is a cooking teacher, award-winning children's book writer, and author of four cookbooks including The Dairy Hollow House Cookbook. Dairy Hollow House is tucked into the Ozark Mountains in the Victorian-era resort town of Eureka Springs. It is here that Crescent and her husband Ned Shank are responsible for making Dairy Hollow House "an inn with the finest restaurant in the region" (Gourmet Magazine).

The restaurant at Dairy Hollow House Inn is famed for a unique cuisine built on traditional country ingredients. Although dinner is no longer served nightly, eight special event dinners a year are prepared for guests and dedicated locals. Everything is seasonally fresh and absolutely from scratch. Guests also enjoy a delicious breakfast each morning brought to their room in a split-oak basket by one of the enthusiastic and friendly Dairy Maids.

The folks at Dairy Hollow House feel that Thanksgiving is the consummate country inn holiday, so of course the next special event dinner is "Thanksgiving at the Inn." Two seatings are available for those fortunate enough to have made advance reservations. Dinner begins with "the relish plate redefined" which includes inn-made pickles, olives & relishes, country hummous, pickled eggs, toasts & crackers, followed by an appetizer of assorted seasonal mushrooms, caramelized onions & garlic over crisp sesame pastry. A crisp Fall salad of local organic greens proceeds Pumpkin Tomato Bisque soup, along which is served assorted homemade rolls, muffins and inn-made preserves. After cleansing their palettes with inn-made Cranberry-Burgundy Sorbet, guests choose from either organically raised turkey with a sage & dried fruit dressing or Herbed Lentil Croquettes with a mini stuffed pumpkin. The entree is accompanied by several special potato and vegetable side dishes, and a selection of scrumptious inn-made desserts, including a Pumpkin Tart Brulee is sure to send everyone into "I've eaten way too much, but it was all so incredibly delicious" land.

Crescent and Ned run Dairy Hollow House with loads of care, dedication and attention to detail. The food is luscious and the style is laid-back luxurious. Everything is done attentively and from scratch in the Innkeeper/Chef/Author's personal interpretation of contemporary regional cuisine.

• Dairy Hollow House Inn is located at 515 Spring Street in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
• For information/reservations please call (800) 562-8650 
  

Recognition

Crescent's first award winning cookbook was The Dairy Hollow House Cookbook (co-authored by Jan Brown and originally published by Macmillan in 1983). Named one of the 10 best cookbooks of the year in 1986 by the L.A. Times, The Dairy Hollow House Cookbook (which sold over 30,000 copies) covers everything from breakfast to dessert. Crescent's most recent cookbook is Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread: A Country Inn Cookbook (Workman Publishing, 1992).

Featuring classic breads baked from scratch and both simple and innovative soups, over 250,000 copies have been sold. Friendly and advice-filled, this book was nominated for both the Julia Child and the James Beard Cookbook awards, and was named one of the 10 best cookbooks of the year by the Washington Post and USA Today.