Travel extensively through the National Park System, and you’ll quickly come to realize that the parks' restaurants try to reflect the local culinary trends, or at least use local ingredients in crafting their menus. For instance, visit national parks in Alaska and you can pretty much count on salmon in the dinner offerings. Travel through the parks in the Rocky Mountains, and elk (and sometimes bison) will appear on the menus. Explore parks in the southwest, and you can almost predict that cacti will show up in some form.

You can be amazed at the menus that chefs in the National Park System roll out. Even more amazing is how they feed hundreds of people at meal time, and largely maintain consistency with what they put in front of you. This week we’re going to explain how you can mimic some of these chefs in your own kitchen. Our guest is Linda Ly, author of “The National Parks Cookbook.” We’ll see if we can inspire you with new home menus, from beverages and appetizers, to entrees and desserts.