Dive Diners and Seedy Motels

July 21, 2009March 31, 2023 / wvfurandroot / 10 Comments

Growing up, we did Route 66 from beginning to end a couple dozen times. At least. My dad, being the man he was, insisted that each run down the Mother Road be done faster than the time before. We did not sightsee. We did not stop and shop. We did not eat in restaurants or stay in hotels. We made time.

A lot of our meals were taken from vending machines in gas stations. Truck stops were a favorite. (To this day, I will choose a truck stop over a chain restaurant if I’m looking for home-style food.) My dad likes to joke that my brother and I learned early not to ask “are we there yet?” – but to ask “when will we need gas?”

The need for automobile fuel was the only earthly reason for stopping until Dad was so bleary-eyed he couldn’t see the road. It was then that we pulled into a motel. There was some discernment in our choosing, but not much. I don’t remember seeing a lot of loose women or ex-cons in the places we stayed, but we did not stay in anything even approaching the sanitized motels of today.

[Come to think of it I do have memories of Magic Fingers massage beds. Maybe at 6, I couldn’t recognize a woman of loose morals.]

It was a real treat to stay in the Wigwam Motel. I’m not sure, but I think we stayed in the Arizona Wigwam when the opportunity presented itself. But trust me, the Wigwam was pure luxury compared to our normal road digs. I’m pretty sure we only stayed there because otherwise I would whine for 500 or 600 miles – the Wigwam was my idea of the epitome of luxury accommodations.

Driving cross-country as often as we did, I became a connoisseur of diner cuisine. We usually ate at the closest eating establishment to the motel.

Somewhere along the way, I became a fan of patty melts.

There’s an art to making the perfect patty melt. I’ve never managed to make a perfect one, though God knows, I’ve tried. The absolute best patty melts are to be found in the places the Health Department shuts down for gross violations a couple times a year. The next best place to find a good patty melt is at the IHOP, but they’re inconsistent. Sometimes they’re greasy chin dripping, onion breath fabulous. Other times they’re better than what I do at home, but not much.

For the uninitiated, a proper patty melt consists of a good quality ground beef patty, grilled onions, American cheese, and rye bread all cooked in the same fashion as the traditional grilled cheese i.e. fried in butter. When done properly, it’s the perfect gestalt of heart-attack-on-a-plate and good eatin’.

Usually, they’ll offer you fries or onion rings (sometimes both) to go with your patty melt. I prefer hash browns. Real ones. Grated and grilled until crispy with tomato and onion mixed in. If you haven’t already discovered it, let me tell you that the Waffle House, hands down, has the best hash browns. IHOP is a distant second. The Waffle House also has patty melts but they’re inferior to IHOP’s. If I could get it all home hot, I’d order the IHOP patty melt and the Waffle House hash browns and just eat at home where I could moan, groan, drool, and roll my eyes all I wanted to.

I stopped at the IHOP tonight for a patty melt. I sat next to some folks who were evidently on a road trip. Dad poured over the map, Mom looked ready for a Valium, and the kids were fighting about how much room the other was taking up on the booth seat.

Nostalgia set in.

The patty melt was a disappointment tonight, but it was still damned good eatin’. You have to work pretty hard to screw up grilled onions, rye bread, cheese, and hamburger. I had the urge to find a seedy motel and check in, but it’s no fun alone. Sometime I should tell the story of the really seedy motel in Zanesville, Ohio, and what a fine time HMOKeefe and I had. There was a picture of Jesus on the wall, mold in the bathroom, iced vodka, and a plastic chair outside the door. Wish we had pictures.

Don’t ask about the time Boston Boy ordered shrimp in Richwood. Flatlanders. . .gotta love ’em.

[Hot Damn!!! There’s a Wigwam in Kentucky! Woo Hoo! I am so going to go there. Soon.]

Late Summer Lunches

June 27, 2009June 27, 2009 / wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

Late summer lunch.

Part of the reason summer suppers are so late is because summer lunches are.

On weekends, I usually graze during the day, but I developed a strong craving for a Panera Bread salad which would not be denied. I was in the midst of cleaning house – my personal grooming, clothing choice, and general appearance was unacceptable.

I decided to do take-out.

Arriving home with not just lunch, but tomorrow’s breakfast (sour dough and strawberry granola yogurt), the patio beckoned.

Mexican Glass. African tea.

While I do now and again, I hate eating out of and with plastic. We are, allegedly, civilized people. Plastic is depressing. Any meal is greatly improved by resting on a nice plate and eaten with real cutlery.

I transferred the salad to a favorite Spanish glass plate, buttered the bread, and poured my newest iced tea experiment.

[ Note: I did forego the linen napkin as the laundry is already piled up to the ceiling and I’m economizing.]

Using a green tea/roibos blend, I made sun tea earlier today and I’ll be doing so again. The color is gorgeous, the taste is crisp and clean, and it looked beautiful in an old Mexican glass goblet. If that’s not enough, it’s jammed pack with antioxidants and all sorts of cancer prevention substances. Next time, I’ll add orange slices.

: Color, Texture, Sweet, Tangy

The salad was amazing. Romaine, field greens, shredded chicken breast, pecans, strawberries, dried apples, red onion, and tomatoes with a strong Italian dressing, fresh ground pepper and a bit of sea salt all made for a vivid, tasty meal. The tea complemented it perfectly. I donned sunglasses and lazily read until I realized the words weren’t registering.

I put the book down and gazed into space – lost in the beauty and breeze of the day. This lunch tasted like what early summer feels like – warm and cool, sweet and tangy, bright and vivid.

I’m full. Dinner is likely to be very late tonight.

Late Summer Suppers

June 23, 2009June 25, 2009 / wvfurandroot / 8 Comments

Feng Sushi

It’s 10:15 and I just finished eating dinner.

I love late summer suppers.

This time of year, I’m too busy in the garden after work to think much about food (or laundry or housecleaning or bill paying or much of anything). When the sun starts slipping, I settle into the lawn chair with a glass of something and ponder the universe until the solar lights come on.

It’s about then that it occurs to me that I’m hungry.

My childhood was punctuated by late summer suppers. I inherited the after-work gardening gene from the folks. We ate late from about March to October. Daylight hours were spent outside.

In 1973, my father went through a spell where he was determined to perfect his spaghetti sauce – we all thought it was already perfect, but he wasn’t satisfied. We had spaghetti every twelve minutes or so. Fortunately, we liked spaghetti.

Daddy did this and Daddy did that – the sauce got better and better. But it also got later and later. As a starving teenager, by the time plates were set on the table, I was ready to chew on the formica.

That spaghetti – hot summer day cooling into a nice evening, sweat drying, ice tea glasses dripping, and the mosquito coil sending up spirals of smoke – digging into a steaming plate of perfect, tangy pasta with even better garlic bread – Lord, it was good.

The fullness of a heavy pasta and the exhaustion of an active day, the contentment of a good meal when ravenous – all of it engendered a sense of well-being that no psychotropic drug can mimic.

Today was hot. I’m making a point of trying to remember to eat, so on the way home from work, I stopped at the Kroger for something light. I ended up with California roll sushi, melon, strawberries, and Merlot. I also procured my father’s birthday cake – in this case, cheesecake. I ate dessert first (by several hours) and just now finished dinner.

We’ve all read that slogan – eat dessert first! I never do. But tonight? Tonight, I did. It’s a fine way to ingest the daily calories.

As I sit here thinking about 1973 and the following years, I’m awash in memories of all the late summer suppers I’ve had – at tables, on decks, at campsites, in restaurants. The joy of eating seems maximized in the summer – vegetables and fruits are fresh, the iced tea is cold, and, after the sun goes down, coffee is a miracle.

A few years ago, there was the naked lobster dinner. Last year, there was the rooftop North African dinner. Two weeks ago, there was the steak dinner (with art) on the deck. I’ve had roasted venison by campfire, grilled trout by candlelight, and hamburgers under a yellow, bug light. Dessert has been s’mores, cheesecake, a mango, and, on one memorable occasion, banana splits sitting on the side of a hill watching interstate traffic outside of Morgantown.

I love late summer suppers.

Tell me about yours.