Gray Bros. Cafeteria, Mooresville IN

Keely aware of the irony, as my trusty sidekick at home nurses "the gout", I have continued my cross - country junk food fest here in Mooresville Indiana, with a plate of Hoosier Chicken.

Lunch at the Grey Bros Cafeteria is an experience in belt loosening midwestern goodness. I get in line after recovering from the oddly creepy sensation of entering a room filled with two hundred white people. (Remember, I live in Los Angeles, the most integrated city in America. We just don't have rooms full of white people.) It feels like an odd inversion of the scene in Animal House where they go to the black nightclub. It is odder still because I am the only one creeped out. (For those of you who may not know me personally, at this point I should confess to being Caucasian.)

Turning back from digression to digestion; Hoosier Chicken is fried chicken enrobed in a softball sized lump of chicken gravy. The gravy is so thick that calling it chicken pudding would really be more accurate. The crispy coating of the chicken sops up the gravy and becomes a deliciously soft chicken ambrosia. It has that unmistakable muted cafeteria taste, no sharp flavor's or unruly spices, but rich and delicious nonetheless. The slaw is mild and just slightly tart, flecked with a seed that manages to be simultaneously tasty and indiscernible. (Celery seed? Too small for Craway Seeds...)

The vegetables appear to come from the massive central cookery where all cafeteria veggies sold in the US are made. The only discernible difference to southern cafeteria / boarding house veggies is the absence of bacon fat.

I closed out the meal with a slab of butterscotch pie, and washed it down with endless glasses of unsweetened iced tea.

A totally delicious meal, and once again lunch keeps me full through breakfast the next day.

Arthur Bryant's BBQ, yet again...

It's a good eight hours after I had lunch at Arthur Bryant's, and I am STILL full.

I consider myself extremely fortunate among coastal dwellers, because this is the third (or fourth?) time I have been privileged to eat at Arthur Bryant's in Kansas City, MO. (Calvin Trillin calls this the best restaurant on the planet.)

The first time I went I was under-impressed. Gasp! Probably because I had the pulled pork, which is not really the thing here as Mr Bryant hailed from Texas originally. Not being a big brisket lover, and unable to eat ribs due to orthodontia; I opted for the burnt ends sandwich this time - and it was utterly spectacular. Smoky and sweet, with a crunchy richness and a lingering mildly hot finish.

Great people watching here - perhaps the most integrated place I've ever been in the Midwest. Everyone is slightly hushed, as befits a temple; united in awed reverence for the piles of smoky perfection slathered in the incredible sauce, which Jane Stern calls "nearly a soul food curry." It's not a bad description.

In line I stood in front of a six lucky culinary school students, on a field trip with their supervising chef. All of them asking her: "Chef, Chef" should I have the brisket, or the ribs?" etc. In a motherly style she coordinated their orders so between them they had combo plates which managed to include every single thing on the menu. I picked up on the culinary school vibe and said to the chef "Great field trip." and she positively beamed.

The only thing I regret is that it's a twenty hour drive from home...

Mom's Cafe, Salina Utah

Mom's Cafe - 10 E Main St, Salina Utah.

This is a spectacularly worthy detour off of I-70 in Utah, it's also the last good food (or any food except live rattlesnake) for the next 120 miles heading eastbound.

Salina looks like a Hollywood movie set of a cowboy town. Mom's sits square on the most prominent corner in town. Mom's has been dishing up breakfast and lunch to the ranchers in these parts for over seventy years.

This was my second visit to Mom's (My first was two years ago with my Dad.) This time I went whole hog - chicken fried steak slathered in cream gravy, a "scone" (which in Utah means a piece of fry bread.) , mashed taters, corn and sour cream blueberry pie for desert. The only thing that wasn't perfect was the taters which seemed to come out of a box, but I can forgive that, as the chicken fried steak was a revelation.

Urp! It's nearly ten hours later and I'm still full.

This pace is really, really good, and qualifies as what folks in my generation sometimes call a "Flo" restaurant. (A TV reference to the character Flo in the 70's tv show"Alice")

In a bit of nearly surreal synchronicity, just as I drove out of town I got a call from my roommate back in LA, who had just been diagnosed with gout. Gout?

Maybe it's good thing that I live seven hundred miles from Mom's.
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PS: This is my first ever mobile phone post.... Cool, huh?

Life's a Beach...