What's the point of seeing the USA in your Chevrolet if you only eat at fast food chains? You have an Egg McMuffin, you've had the only one they've got. Once in a while you should step out of your comfort zone and grub like the locals. In Cincinnati, you can get your chili five ways. Five! (Top that, Ronald McDonald.) In case you're wondering, at Skyline Chili it goes like this: make your basic Cincinnati chili (directions on the postcard, courtesy of Cin-city resident Yvonne Witt.) Put it naked in a bowl: there's your first way. Served over spaghetti, that's 2-way. Chili over spaghetti, topped with grated cheddar cheese: 3-way. Put chopped onions on that, you got your 4-way. Here comes the twist: the 5-way is the same as the 4-way, adding kidney beans to your chili. Got that? If you're too hungry for Skyline's higher math, you can always just order the Coney topped with chili, cheese and onions. Don't forget the Altoids!
February, 1993: Marge Schott, owner of the Cincinnati Reds, is fined $25,000 and banned from daily operations of the baseball team for -- oh, let's just say she used some colorful language about some of her employees, shall we? May, 1993: my friends Joy and Liz stop at Skyline Chili: "Saw Marge Schott drowning her sorrows in some 5-way chili," Liz writes. Wow, 5-way and a Marge Schott sighting: that's livin' la vida Cincinnati!
Can there be anything better than chili from "the chili capital of the USA?" It's just possible. Later in that same trip I get my answer from Liz herself: this North Carolina card features a recipe for Tar Heel pie. Of course, you can't go too wrong with a recipe calling for a cup of chocolate chips and a stick of butter. Add some chopped pecans (how else would you know you were in the south? Oh, yeah -- that whole stick of butter), flour, sugar, vanilla, eggs, and ... brown sugar, too. Sweet. I should try this someday, just before a trip to the dentist. A note from Liz: "better than Cincy chili?" She was south of the Mason-Dixon line when she wrote it. Thank goodness Marge Schott had no comment.
Cincinnati chili and tar heel pie: that should hold you till breakfast. And for breakfast? If you're driving through Morgantown on your way to the Andy Warhol museum in Pittsburgh, skip that Egg McMuffin again, and sample the cornmeal pancakes, "favored since early West Virginia." (No butter stick this time -- basically just cornmeal, milk and eggs. Pour on the griddle, and flip just once. Then help yourself to the butter and syrup, and your choice: sausage or bacon.) Joy and Liz sent this card on a trip to Pittsburgh in July 1998: "old Ukranian ladies, families, pierced and tattooed kids" along E. Carson St. My bet is there's got to be a postcard with a great recipe for pierogi somewhere along the Strip. Gotta find it, or just wait long enough: Joy and Liz will send it some day ...
1 comment:
I agree with you , stay away from fast food joints. I've had some of my best meals during all my travels in little, out of the way, off the beaten path restaurants and diners. From excellent Mexican in New Mexico,Bar-B-Q in Texas,Po-Boys in Louisiana and "fry bread" and lamb stew served on the Rez in Tuba City, Az, served home style, which included a family member of the owner joining us at the table just to talk and hear news from the "outside world". Great memories Mark.......Rick
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