Nilsson shot all of The Nordic Baking Book’s imagery. Photo: erik olsson

For course number 10, Nilsson serves a steamed fillet of perch, a freshwater fish not typically celebrated in fillet form in the context of fine dining. Amid the buzz of the kitchen, if Nilsson sees that a candle goes out on a special one-top table set a few feet from the grill, he’ll relight the candle over and over again. “I want it to burn all the time,” he says, smiling.

Over the past decade, Nilsson hasn’t limited his focus to cooking at Fäviken, despite its considerable demands. In addition to working on an encyclopedic writing project on the cuisine of his region, he published the Fäviken cookbook in 2012, four years into his run at the restaurant. In it, he revealed some of the distinct ways in which he combines contemporary culinary thinking with an older way of life. There’s a method in Fäviken for aging vinegar in the burnt-out trunk of a spruce tree and a treatise on why Nilsson prefers using “a loudly creaking, hundred-year-old, hand-turned ice cream maker” tableside in his dining room to serve a dessert of milk sorbet with whisked duck eggs and raspberry jam. Nilsson knew Fäviken was the kind of monograph that a singular, fine-dining restaurant like his must produce as part of its raison d’être, but he was also keenly aware that a book like that exists mainly to look at and not to use.

Nilsson calls the act of writing “very enjoyable,” and he wanted his follow-up book to be more practical and populist. He suggested a chronicle of the history of Swedish cuisine to Phaidon, his publisher. The recipes would not come from any restaurants of international acclaim. Rather, Nilsson would source them from families, villages and mom-and-pop operations from throughout Sweden. Nilsson would drive across the country collecting recipes and photographing landscapes and portraits. But Phaidon proposed something more ambitious: a volume that would cover traditional cuisine from the entire Nordic region, from Greenland to Finland and everywhere in between.

KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL Interior of a traditional north Sweden mountain farmhouse, summer 2014. Photo: magnus Nilsson

At first Nilsson resisted, bitter that his own proposal wasn’t given an automatic green light. As he thought about it further, however, the opportunity to explain how an entire region eats—how his region eats—was one that he couldn’t turn down. In 2015, after years of travel, research and writing, Nilsson published The Nordic Cookbook, 767 pages of dishes such as mutton and herring casserole from Finland, boiled pilot whale from the Faeroe Islands and Swedish Christmas ham. Nilsson shot dozens of the images in the book himself (some of them became a stand-alone book of photos published by Phaidon in 2016 called Nordic: A Photographic Essay of Landscapes, Food and People).

“Before The Nordic Cookbook, if you looked up Nordic food online, you would get 1,000 articles about Noma, 700 about Fäviken and 500 about Frantzén,” says Nilsson, “and then you would find a handful of articles about gravlax, meatballs and herring.” He’s proud to have sold more than 100,000 copies of a book that he believes has expanded the global understanding of Nordic cuisine beyond the dishes and the current crop of fine-dining establishments that merely draw the most attention. “I think it’s very important to document regional variations,” Nilsson says, “because otherwise social media will make the information far too streamlined.”

While The Nordic Cookbook may seem like a complete work, Nilsson felt something was missing. “We couldn’t fit all the baking that should have been in there,” Nilsson says, “but, at that trim size, the book could not have possibly been any bigger.”

Crisp waffles. Photo: magnus Nilsson

Nilsson immediately started the three-year process of putting together the 450-recipe, 575-page Nordic Baking Book, published in October. It’s the first of his cookbooks for which he’s done all the food photography himself. His wife, Tove—a graduate student in clinical psychology, who recently gave birth to their fourth child—did much of the recipe development in their home kitchen near the restaurant.

Pulling up to a friend’s farm in Mörsil, about 30 minutes from Fäviken and a few minutes from his home, Nilsson explains the significance of baking culture in the region and how it rivals any in the world. When he grew up nearby in Östersund, he says, it was expected that seven kinds of sweets would be put out during one of the day’s several coffee breaks. In Sweden such a break is called fika. (“It’s like a nap, with eating,” Nilsson says.) The elaborate regional culture of desserts includes cookies (there are 15 shortbread recipes alone in the book) as well as spiced cakes and buns, which draw from Scandinavia’s centuries-long history of bringing cardamom and cinnamon home from trade routes in warmer territories.

Like its predecessor, The Nordic Baking Book— which also ventures into breads, sandwiches, porridges and pancakes—aims to document traditions that may be phased out by modern convenience. “It’s mind-blowing to write books like this and to run that incredible restaurant,” says Olia Hercules, a London-based cookbook author whose own books chronicle the foodways of Ukraine and the Caucasus and who has stated that she hopes to write a sprawling Nilsson-style book about the cuisine of Eastern Europe. “People get excited about these recipes,” she says. “They suddenly remember what’s been, and they start trying their traditions again.”

Norway’s Vega Archipelago, May 2014. Photo: magnus Nilsson

One recipe in The Nordic Baking Book shows how a community in Iceland bakes rye bread in the ground using geothermal energy. “Each family gets their own hole,” Nilsson says. Another recipe documents the age-old method for making wood-fired flatbreads, which Nilsson’s own family follows twice a year as they have in previous generations. “I’ve never done this before by myself,” Nilsson says, getting ready to make a batch. “Usually it’s collaborative, a production line. I do the rolling.”

The wheat dough Nilsson is working with includes golden syrup, aniseed, fennel seeds and coriander seeds. He divides it and then rolls out a portion on a wooden peel until it’s flat and around 18 inches in diameter. Nilsson finishes off the rolling with a special studded pin that prevents the dough from pocketing like a pita when it bakes.

FAMILY MATTERS Nilsson’s mother, Anki Lundstedt Nilsson, cutting cardamom cake, winter 2015. Photo: magnus Nilsson

Before putting the dough into the oven, Nilsson uses a soft brush to sweep any remaining flour off its surface, explaining that excess flour will burn and result in a bread that’s the wrong shade of brown. After baking for 20 seconds at around 800 degrees, the flatbread is done, but Nilsson is critical of his first attempt. “This is not big enough, not thin enough and not round enough, but it is acceptable for the first of the day,” he says, putting it off to the side. “When I manage to make one that’s perfect, we’ll taste it with a shameful amount of butter.”

Nilsson’s next try draws a satisfied smile. At Fäviken, his own vision dominates. But here, history sets the tone. “A flawed bread tastes the same as a perfectly round one, but it’s not the same,” he says, buttering the flatbread. “There’s a feeling of importance to know it’s done how it’s always been done. There’s a feeling of importance to know it’s done right.” •

“It’s hot in Alabama in September,” says Mr. Turner, 64, senior vice president of Greenbrier Rail Services, a company that makes freight railcars and equipment.

When the Turners hit the road—which is quite often—they travel with all the luxuries of a five-star hotel. In the world of motorhomes, Class A models that measure 40 to 45 feet are among the most lavish. New, fully loaded Class As off the lot start at about $250,000, and customized coaches can reach $3 million. Because of the price, Class A buyers are typically retirees or those nearing the end of their careers.

Mr. Turner, who paid about $525,000 for his Tiffin, retired once, but returned to the Portland, Ore.-based company at the request of the CEO. When he travels for work, he likes to take the RV, and his wife Susan, 63, and Labrador retriever Buddy typically come along for the ride. But they take plenty of personal trips to visit friends and extended family, as well as motoring to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and to the Florida Keys. In all, they put 10,000 to 15,000 miles on their motorhome each year.

Getting there isn’t cheap—most Class As get roughly 8 miles per gallon in good conditions. “If you have to worry about MPGs, don’t get an RV,” Mr. Turner says. “You’re spending $300 to $400 every tank of gas. It’s a small mortgage for some people.”

Mr. Turner plans to retire full time in a few years. The couple—he was 15 and she was 13 when they started dating—hopes to spend six to eight months taking their RV up the West Coast from Southern California, across the country to northern Maine, then down the East Coast back to Birmingham.

Alabamans Susan and Rick Turner inside their 45-foot-long Tiffin Zephyr. Photo: Caleb Chancey for The Wall Street Journal

Recent retirees Doug and Dani Stiebeling found their happy place in Petoskey, Mich. The couple’s full time home is in Orlando, Fla., but they wanted a summertime destination to escape the Florida heat. In June they paid $250,000 for a 42-foot 2014 Itasca Ellipse, and drove it to Hearthside Grove, a luxury motorhome resort in Petoskey exclusively for Class A models. Their wooded lot, purchased in “the $250,000 range” measures one-fifth of an acre and includes a paved driveway with electrical, water and sewer hookups. Like many of the lots at Hearthside, the Stiebelings also have a 200-square-foot bungalow on their property where guests can stay when they visit.

The Stiebelings, along with their dog Pumpkin and cat Sammi, make Hearthside Grove their home base for much of the season, which runs from mid-May to mid-October. They hitch a car to the back of their motorhome to use for trips to the grocery store and other errands.

“There is so much to do in northern Michigan,” says Mr. Stiebeling, 65, who retired in April after a 35-year career selling medical devices and artificial skin to burn centers. “The water is so clean, and there’s trout fishing, golfing, restaurants galore—and not the typical chain restaurants. They’re ma-and-pa places.”

If they ever decide to take longer trips, they can put their Hearthside lot in the rental pool, allowing other Class A owners to lease their space and bungalow for $100 to $175 a night. Leasing their lot won’t necessarily keep the fuel tank filled, but it could defray the property taxes and insurance on their lot, as well as a rental fees to store their motorhome when not in use.

The Stiebelings put about 6,000 miles on their Itasca each year but plan to take longer trips down the road. They recently stopped at Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania, where they stayed at a campground. But many national parks limit RVs of this size. (Look for parks and campgrounds that say “big-rig accessible.”) And wherever they go, Mr. Stiebeling does the driving. “She has driven it, but it makes her palms sweat a little bit,” he says of his wife, Dani, who is 58.

Living in such close quarters could lead to domestic squabbles, but the Stiebelings’ RV has three “slides” that can increase the floor space to almost 400 square feet when they’re expanded, giving them their own space.

If anything, the RV life allows couples to spend quality time together and share experiences on the road. “We enjoy going places and seeing things together,” says Mr. Turner. “I’m 64. I want to maximize the time I have with my wife.”

Spending time with his wife, Linda, was one of the main reasons Nicholas Grimaldi purchased his 45-foot 2017 Entegra Anthem.

The Grimaldis live in Port Jefferson Station, N.Y., and are retired from the family’s canvas and upholstery business. Mr. Grimaldi, 64, also works for an insurance company in claims, and he had Wi-Fi installed in his RV so he could work while on the road.

But the real driver behind the decision to buy is Linda Grimaldi’s bucket list of destinations—the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore and Minnesota to see the aurora borealis. “Because of my wife’s medical condition, she can’t fly. She has a hard time breathing,” he said. In the RV with portable oxygen, “we can go out and not skip a beat.”

Mr. Grimaldi says a “great deal” made a Class A motorhome possible. This summer, he paid $302,000 for an unsold 2017 model with an original sticker price of over $500,000.

“It’s all about timing in life. I always wanted to buy one. I never thought I’d be able to swing it,” he says. “Never give up. If I can do it, anyone can.”

Resorts for Motorcoaches

When they’re not on the road, many Class A motorhome owners camp at luxury resorts that offer basic hookups, lavish amenities and an active social calendar. Here’s a sampling of three resorts exclusively for Class A owner:

Las Vegas Motorcoach Resort

Las Vegas

Lots: 407 total, with 41 currently on the resale market

Price range: $88,000 for an unimproved lot, to $379,000 for lots with ‘palapas,’ shelters typically with kitchens and entertaining spaces

Amenities: Clubhouse, pool, tennis/pickleball, fitness center, putting green

Social scene: Monthly movie parties as well as scavenger hunts, poker parties, barbecues.

Desert Shores Resort

Indio, Calif.

Lots: 141 total, with on the resale market

Price range: $300,000 to $600,000. Every lot includes a villa, a 1,200- to 1,800-square-foot structure with a great room, kitchenette and bathroom.

Amenities: Dog park, clubhouse, pool, fitness center; financing through Wells Fargo .

Social scene: Dancing, Jeep excursions and an annual ‘Casita Crawl,’ in which some owners serve cocktails to other members.

Hearthside Grove Motorcoach Resort

Petoskey, Mich.

Lots: 165 total with another 17 under construction; 45 lots currently listed

Price Range: $99,000 to $923,000 for lots with bungalows, outdoor entertaining space and water/fire features

Amenities: Clubhouse, pool, theater, tennis/pickleball court, fitness center, business center, laundry facilities.

Social life: Cooking classes, billiards tournaments, movie screenings, and manufacturer-motorcoach parties

Write to Beth DeCarbo at beth.decarbo@wsj.com

Tight-leafed evergreens traditionally supply the raw material for scissor-wielding sculptors. But Molly Wood, a landscape designer who also owns a garden shop in Costa Mesa, Calif., experiments with plants such as geraniums, lavenders and rosemary to create a less-dense take on the classic lollipop shape, known as a standard. “I wanted a plant that’s looser, more natural.” She adds yellow reindeer moss or crushed coral around the plant’s base for texture and contrast. Handmade clay containers, like those from Double M Pottery (photo at right), lend warmth and originality. “Sometimes, I go a bit quirky, a little Alice in Wonderland,” she added. “I took an old funky jade succulent, a real grandma houseplant, and pruned off the side shoots to make it into a three-foot-tall, round tomato shape on a fat green stem.”

An example of old-school finickiness. The craft of topiary dates to at least ancient Rome.

Denise Fasanello, a New York florist, interprets topiary even more loosely, winding button ferns or creeping fig around a round, metal armature to create a leafy, obstreperous ball. “I wanted to break up that standard lollipop shape and make it wilder, more forestlike,” she said, “because isn’t that what you crave in an apartment?” She adds moss or pebbles, and maybe a bit of twine as the underdressing because “it nudges the idea of being in nature a bit further.” To create a dramatic tablescape, Ms. Fasanello plants three topiaries of different heights in a low ceramic bowl and places it atop a wooden slab. “It’s a good option for clients who are tired of standard houseplants.”

Garden designer Desiree Lee learned topiary at the 4,000-acre Oak Spring Farm of Bunny Mellon, the late American heiress and horticulturist credited with popularizing the form in the U.S. in the 1960s. “We had one greenhouse just for ’topes, where I learned to stretch and shape a plant into that tall shape with a ball at the top,” said Ms. Lee, who’s based in Upperville, Va. Anything that will create a woody stem works, she said: scented geranium, thyme, heliotrope, fuchsia. Pick a young plant with a strong main stem, pot it and attach it to a stake with twist-ties so that it grows straight and tall. Then remove bottom stems and start to clip the top part every couple of weeks so it begins to assume a frowzy globed shape. Vining plants like ivies and some ferns, which don’t feature a woody stalk, can be wound up a support and then trained in a round wire plant armature, available at any craft store. When you strip the leaves of the vine around the supporting pole, what’s left resembles a stem.

Experiment with a sturdily stalked plant first. “Just pot it up and start training the lead stem,” said Ms. Lee. “You can really try making ’topes with almost anything that won’t bend under the weight at the top. Try it. See what will happen. We’ve all done that.”

Mâcon and Mâcon-Villages are two of the broadest appellations within the Mâconnais district, a Burgundy subregion named for its principle city, Mâcon. This place is closer to Beaujolais in both climate and spirit than it is to the Côte-d’Or. Vineyards in the Mâconnais have never been ranked in the same way those in the Côte-d’Or are, with premier- or grand-cru status; the better wines tend to come with the name of one of 27 designated villages appended to the name on the label—for example, Mâcon Milly-Lamartine or Mâcon-Verzé. There is even a town named Chardonnay—for which the grape was supposedly named—hence Mâcon-Chardonnay.

Chardonnay is the key grape of the Mâconnais and the source of the vast majority of its wines, including its most famous ones, Saint-Véran and Pouilly-Fuissé. The latter actually enjoyed some popularity back in the 1970s and ’80s, though most of the Mâconnais wines available stateside at that time weren’t very good.

Back then in Mâcon and Mâcon-Villages, few grape growers made their own wines; instead they sold their fruit to winemaking cooperatives more interested in quantity than quality. The appellations are only just beginning to overcome their low-rent reputation, thanks to the new generation of winemakers who have taken control of their family vineyards, with a focus on making their own quality wines.

The Mâconnais appellations got a further boost from Dominique Lafon, winemaker and scion of Domaine des Comtes Lafon, the famed Meursault estate that produces some of the priciest, most sought-after wines in the world. In 1999, Mr. Lafon went south to Mâcon and the village of Milly-Lamartine, where he bought an estate and renamed it Domaine des Héritiers du Comte Lafon.

Domaine des Héritiers du Comte Lafon and Domaine Olivier Merlin, in La Roche-Vineuse, became talent hubs over the years, nurturing and launching some of Mâcon’s best winemakers. There are many connections between the two domaines. For example, Domaine des Héritiers du Comte Lafon winemaker Caroline Gon was introduced to Mr. Lafon thanks to Olivier Merlin, who also employed her future husband Frantz Chagnoleau…who was working at Domaine Olivier Merlin when they met. The couple started their own winery in 2010 with help and encouragement from Mr. Merlin and Mr. Lafon, as well as local winemakers Nicolas Maillet, Jean-Philippe Bret and Jean-Guillaume Bret. “It’s a little world here in the Maconnais, and everyone knows each other and helps each other,” wrote Ms. Gon in an email.

There are other well known Côte-d’Or names producing wines in Mâcon, including the highly regarded Maison Joseph Drouhin. Under the direction of winemaker Véronique Boss-Drouhin, the winery produces a basic Mâcon-Villages bottling as well as two village-specific wines: Mâcon-Lugny Les Crays and Mâcon-Bussières Les Clos.

I discovered the 2016 vintage of the latter at DB Bistro Moderne in Manhattan and was so impressed by its lithe acidity and floral nose, I wanted to buy a few bottles retail. Alas, that was impossible. Raj Vaidya, head sommelier for Daniel Boulud’s Dinex Group, told me the restaurant group had received an exclusive on sales in the U.S.

Ms. Boss-Drouhin told me she particularly loves the location of the Bussières Les Clos vineyard, a high-altitude site that “gets both sunshine and air,” so the fruit ripens evenly and well. Although the Drouhins make multiple Mâcon bottlings, they don’t own vineyards there—yet. “It is definitely an area we like very much,” said Ms. Boss-Drouhin. “Unlike in the Côte-d’Or, the prices are still reasonable.”

Does the Mâconnais of today—with its fraternal-minded winemakers and affordable prices—resemble the Côte-d’Or of 50 years ago, before the wines became stratospherically priced and the top domaines were purchased by billionaires? I put this question to Becky Wasserman-Hone, an American wine exporter who has lived in Burgundy for five decades and helped bring some of its best wines, including those of Domaine des Comtes Lafon, to the attention of wine drinkers in the U.S.

Ms. Wasserman-Hone didn’t find much similarity between the two places—she noted that the Mâconnais doesn’t have grand-cru vineyards, though she further acknowledged that it has much young talent and promising terroirs. “Mâcon is news these days,” she wrote and further pointed out that her son, Peter Wasserman, is holding tastings of Mâcon wines in the U.S. to help spread the word.

I reached Mr. Wasserman as he was preparing to leave for a wine seminar in Los Angeles. He splits his time between New York and Burgundy, and has seminars scheduled in cities across the U.S. this year and next. In each he presents 8-10 wines from the Mâconnais to wine professionals, usually in groups of 20-30, mostly on behalf of the nonprofit Wine Education Council. He said he hopes to “change people’s minds on the Mâconnais,” as it has “not gotten its due and needs champions.” Audiences, he said, have been “googly eyed” at the quality of the wines.

Of the 14 Mâcon bottles I tasted, only a few were duds. By and large the wines were very good and the prices reasonable. In addition to the five featured below, there were a few others of note: the minerally 2016 Bret Brothers Mâcon-Villages ($28), the lively 2016 Louis Jadot Mâcon-Villages ($13) and the light-bodied, charming 2016 Cave de L’Aurore La Fleur de Lys Mâcon-Villages Chardonnay ($15).

Perhaps the best way to sell Mâcon wines is to emphasize their excellent price-quality ratio. Their producers have more than earned a moment of attention and praise.

OENOFILE // Mâcons Making Waves

Photo: F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal

1. 2016 Domaine Lapalus Mâcon Milly-Lamartine, $15 A light, lively and very dry “vin de soif” (thirst-quenching wine) from a small, quality-focused domaine whose wines were only recently imported to the U.S. An excellent wine for the price.

2. 2016 Julien Guillot Mâcon Cruzille Aragonite, $42 Sourced from a biodynamic old-vine Chardonnay vineyard with a limestone and aragonite (calcium carbonate) soil, this is a powerful, structured Mâcon-meets-Puligny-style white with an intensely mineral finish.

3. 2017 Des Héritiers du Comte Lafon Mâcon-Villages, $24 Winemaker Caroline Gon produces a number of Mâcon bottlings. This, her most basic one, is a textbook Mâcon: crisp and bright wine with a bracing acidity and a cool, stony finish.

4. 2017 Domaine Frantz Chagnoleau Mâcon-Villages Clos Saint Pancras, $21 Domaine des Héritiers winemaker Caroline Gon and her husband, Frantz Chagnoleau, produced this fresh, vibrant Mâcon marked by aromas of citrus at their jointly owned domaine.

5. 2016 Domaine Olivier Merlin Mâcon La Roche Vineuse Vieilles Vignes, $32 Olivier Merlin, master of Mâcon, turns out wines of purity and elegance in the village of La Roche-Vineuse. This old-vine bottling has weight, richness and a firm mineral edge.

Email Lettie at wine@wsj.com.