Duncan Hines (13 page)

Wanting to visit some of their old haunts that were strung across middle America, the couple packed their bags two days later and drove 120 miles to LaGrange, Indiana, where they dined and spent the night before moving on the next morning. They spent the following day (21 May) in transit, driving 230 miles to Toledo, Ohio, where they had dinner that evening at one of Hines's most coveted restaurants, Grace E. Smith's Restaurant Service and Cafeteria, located at the intersection of Madison and Erie Streets. Hines said of this wonderful establishment, “This is the place that changed my attitude toward cafeteria food. It is owned and operated by Grace Smith, an outstanding person among America's most successful restaurant operators. It is located in a new air-conditioned building—has five attractive dining rooms on the ground floor, in which you can get table, counter, cafeteria and fountain service. The striking feature is the superior type of food—cream soups, juicy and tender meats, wide variety of salads, fresh vegetables, delicious home baked rolls, breads and top desserts. Their lemon pie alone will make you want to return again and again. All cooking done by women, supervised by Home Economics graduates. I never go through Toledo without stopping here for at least one meal.”
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A lengthy journey of 1,200 miles consumed the Hines' days on 22-23 May 1937. On the first day, they drove to Columbus, Ohio, to examine some potential restaurants for his guidebook as well as a recommendation for an inn. When Hines had completed his examination, the couple drove southward, through Cincinnati, Ohio, and Lexington, Kentucky, before finally spending the night in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, at that city's famous Beaumont Inn. That evening, in the Beaumont's spacious dining room, they
consumed heaping plates of fried chicken and hickory-smoked country ham, as well as several delicious beaten biscuits, before washing down their meal with generous portions of sweetened iced tea and pushing themselves away from the table. They spent their second day driving back to Chicago digesting the previous evening's sumptuous repast.

The couple did not venture onto America's highways again until 11 June when they drove 664 miles, first to one town and then another, before arriving in Gallatin, Missouri. Once there, they consumed a superb meal at another of their favorite haunts, Virginia McDonald's Tea Room. This restaurant, officially known as the McDonald Tea Room, located halfway between St. Joseph and Kansas City, Missouri, was an establishment the couple often pined for in their idle moments at home. Said Hines in his guidebook, “It would require more than one full page of this book to tell you of the many good things to eat prepared by Virginia Rowell McDonald.”
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12 June was spent driving 305 leisurely miles back home, long enough to gab the day away while savoring the after-effects of Mrs. McDonald's culinary skills. Hines and Florence did not take any long distance trips together again until 26 June, when they took a day trip to Chalet, Wisconsin, but the trip did not forfeit a memorable meal.

The Hines spent 1937's Independence Day in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, probably dining that evening once again at Mader's German Restaurant. The following day (5 July) they drove to the north side of Rockford, Illinois, and stayed overnight but not before sampling the cuisine at the Sausage Shop and Rathskeller; Hines apparently believed the drive worth the effort because he was extremely impressed with the establishment's variety, writing that for “years they have been specializing in 70 kinds of Milwaukee sausages and luncheon meats, and 70 kinds of imported and domestic cheeses, as well as serving them in at least 70 kinds of ways…in sandwiches.”
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Less than two weeks later (18 July) the Hines found themselves 70 miles away from home in Union Grove, Wisconsin, enjoying the surrounding scenery and food offered
there. The next week (24 July) they dined once again in Winnetka, Illinois at the Hearthstone House.

Seven days later (1 August) the Hines dined in splendor near their apartment at Chicago's Pa Petit Gourmet restaurant
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where they feasted on spaghetti, salad, and French onion soup. One week later (8 August) they had lunch in Barrington, Illinois, in an atmosphere that evinced anything but splendor. It was an outdoor restaurant and gift shop, located five miles west of town on Sutton Road; patrons who dined here were served on the lawn as they sat in folding chairs. Its owner called the establishment My Country Cousin.

Six days later (14 August) the couple found themselves in Crown Point, Indiana, in the dining room of Lamson's Tea Room, a restaurant opposite the court house; here they ate steak and fried chicken. The next day (15 August) they feasted at another of Hines's all-time favorite spots, the White Fence Farm in Lemont, Illinois. Hines spoke of this restaurant in his guidebooks in copious terms and drew an almost pastoral portrait of the function that country restaurants once served. Not only were restaurants as these once major destinations for travelers, but they also served a communal function as well, one that—in the sense described below—has evaporated with the passage of time. As Hines relates in his description of the White Fence Farm, “dining out” in the country was a singular, memorable experience for city dwellers.

One of Chicago's foremost citizens, Mr. Stuyvesant Peabody, had a theory that many people would enjoy a simple menu of superior food when served in an attractive atmosphere on a good-looking farm. It is evident that his theory [was correct], for more than forty-thousand came the first four months it was open, and now the place has been enlarged considerably. If you like good food, tasty sandwiches, rich Guernsey milk, homemade ice cream pies and about the best chopped steak sandwich you'll find anywhere, I am sure you will like this place to eat. One of the pleasant features is that while awaiting a table or after eating you can play shuffleboard, croquet, ping-pong,
pitch quoits, or simply sit on the terrace and enjoy the music of an exceptionally finetoned Capehart installation.
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One week later (21 August) the Hines journeyed to nearby Hinsdale, Illinois, about three miles west of LaGrange. There they enjoyed the cuisine of another of their favorite haunts, the Old Spinning Wheel Tea Room. Like the White Fence Farm, this, too, had a rustic, open-air, attraction about it. Wrote Hines, “No sophisticated city dweller can resist the urge of a low log cabin set far back of an old rail fence among the trees and flowers, a spacious lawn and comfortable rustic chairs where one, after a bountiful dinner, may sit and enjoy the twilight…. It is very inviting, and the steak or chicken dinner with hot corn sticks is served just as attractively as one would serve his guests in his own home.”
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The following day (22 August) the Hines dined once again at the Hearthstone House in Winnetka, Illinois. They refrained from old haunts on their next culinary tour. On 28-29 August they ate only in new restaurants. On their first day out they frequented the doors of the Pink Poodle, a restaurant 40 miles from Chicago; the following day they drove all day until they arrived in Goshen, Indiana to investigate another new dining facility called the Pine Tree Inn. No reports exist of what they found there, but it must not have passed muster because, like the Pink Poodle, Hines never mentioned it again.

The couple had primarily visited restaurants near their home since mid-July, but now that it was Labor Day weekend, it was time to take a long trip to a restaurant and lodge which, they were soon to learn, few could compare. On 4 September they packed their bags and headed for the Lowell Inn in Stillwater, Minnesota.
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Billed as “The Mount Vernon of the West,” the Lowell Inn was located in a little town of scarcely 8,000 people, 19 miles from Minneapolis, Minnesota. “I'd heard much that was good about the Lowell Inn long before I published my first book,” wrote Hines years later. “Because I was always on the lookout for good food and fine eating places, I wired Arthur Palmer, the proprietor, for a reservation. He wrote back immediately, saying that the bridal suite
was all ready for us.” When Hines and Florence arrived, they were staggered by the building's beauty. “Not only [was] the bridal suite” beautiful, Hines wrote, “but every room in the place had been redecorated and through it all could be seen the fine hand of a woman—a woman of extremely good taste.” Hines was always attracted to people who took care in looking after the smallest details and he soon met that “woman of extremely good taste,” Nelle Palmer. From her they learned the history of their hotel and their “fierce devotion to quality.”
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As they related their story, Arthur and Nelle Palmer made a great impression on Duncan Hines, one that blossomed into a friendship that lasted for many years.

Duncan Hines's mention of the Lowell Inn in the 1938 edition of
Adventures in Good Eating
really put it on the map as a coveted destination for travelers. In his guidebook, Hines praised the institution the Palmers had created, noting, “their Colonial Dining Room is furnished in authentic Southern Colonial reproductions and antiques. In the Garden Room [the dining room], there is a hewn stone fountain which pours forth sparkling spring water into an illuminated pool where guests may catch brook trout, which are then fried for them.”
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Hines jovially stated that catching the fish was great fun, and that the best part of fishing for them was that guests did not have to worry about the game warden.
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Hines was also impressed with the Lowell Inn's main dining room and its “lovely arched ceiling” but he was especially drawn to the food served there. It was not just the hotel's salad that mesmerized him; it was also their recipes for chicken, steak, and lamb chop dinners. The menu item that impressed him the most was the plate of hot rolls the inn served, the virtues of which he extolled in his book for decades to come. While the rolls were, in his opinion, the best to be found in America, his favorite dessert entree at the Lowell Inn was its pecan pie, which was, Hines stated with an air of finality, “the best I have ever encountered.”
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Another after-dinner entree of which he was most fond was the Lowell Inn's blueberry pie, which he said was excellent “because the berries are shipped specially
from South Carolina.”
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The Lowell Inn remained a restaurant Hines swooned over until the day he died.

On 5 September Hines and Florence spent their day driving through the Minnesota countryside before stopping for the night in Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin. On 6 September they drove through Milwaukee and on to Chicago, arriving home that afternoon. The last leg of their trip reminded them of another journey they had taken from Milwaukee to Chicago a few years before. Hines had promised a friend in Chicago
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that he would bring him several pounds of Limburger cheese. Before he left for Chicago, Hines carefully wrapped the foul-smelling edible so it would remain cool in his car. “It was a warm day, and that Limburger ripened in a hurry,” said Hines recalling the story a quarter century later. “The aroma lingered on long after I'd delivered the cheese, and finally I had to sell the car in self-defense.” He always wondered if the next owner ever got rid of the smell.
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Five days later (11 September) Hines and Florence dined again at the White Fence Farm. On 12 September they headed north and drove approximately 40 miles until they stopped in Walworth, Wisconsin, 2 miles southwest of Geneva Lake, to dine at Buckley's Tea Rooms, where the chicken, in Hines's estimation, was far above the average for what was usually served in tea rooms.

The couple waited until 19 September before visiting another Chicago-area favorite, one they had not recently patronized. On this day, they took a leisurely drive in the country, first to Lake Forest, Illinois, before heading to nearby Northbrook, where they sat down in Phil Johnson's, a large restaurant 21 miles north of Chicago on Waukegan Road. As usual, there was a crowd. In his guidebook Hines told readers about it, remarking that “from a modest beginning this place has grown until it now frequently serves 2,000 or more people a day. Their specialties are barbecued chicken and unusually good broiled steaks, served with a generous portion of excellent fresh French fried potatoes, bread and butter, and a slaw salad…. Their kitchen is immaculate…. A favorite place to take the entire family.”
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One week later (25-26 September) Hines and Florence traveled to both Monroe and Madison,
Wisconsin, to investigate more new restaurants; they spent the night there before returning to Chicago the following morning.

Hines and Florence remained dormant in their travels for a while, but after fourteen days they were ready to once again satisfy their wanderlust. On 9 October the Hines left for an extended four-day trip to Tennessee. It was on this occasion that their photograph was taken. The picture was of Hines standing by his car with Florence seated in the passenger seat, and it was one that he put in later editions of his guidebook. The couple drove to Nashville and stopped at Kleeman's, one of the few Southern restaurants that Hines really enjoyed, where one ate a “Supreme Toast Sandwich,” i.e., country ham and chicken on toast, while the other ate a “Sliced Chicken Egg Bread Sandwich,” another hearty concoction, over which was poured a delicious sauce. After consuming their minifeast, they continued their journey through the Volunteer State until they arrived at their destination of McMinnville, Tennessee; no record exists of why they went there, but they were probably visiting friends. The next day, 10 October, they made a quick day-trip to Bowling Green, Kentucky, to visit Hines's family, before heading off for nearby Glasgow, Kentucky, to investigate a potentially good eating facility there. They finally stopped for the day in Lexington, Kentucky, where they consumed supper at the best dining facility in town, the Canary Cottage.
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There they ate country ham and fried chicken served with homemade rolls and corn sticks.