Down on the Farm

DATELINE OHIO: Faithful readers of this blog have surely (I hope!) noticed my lack of postings this past week. I have traveled to Ohio for a family reunion/vacation and discovered, to my horror, the lack of not only high-speed Internet access, but the lack of ANY Internet. I am writing this entry in the hotel lobby of a Comfort Inn, where my sister and her husband are staying.

Ohio remains, to me, very beautiful and, at least in July, idyllic. A day or two ago I was actually sitting outside on a lawnchair watching chipmunks skitter by and enjoying the American flag flapping in the gentle breeze, when from a nearby church I heard a tune I couldn't quite place at first...and then it came to me: "Amazing Grace." Ah, the charms of small-town Ohio....

But Ohio also has its flaws. My biggest pet-peeve with Ohio is with the food. Ohio has more 18-hole golf courses than any other state. It also has, much to my disgust, per-capita more fast-food restaurants than any other state. They are EVERYWHERE. For every one homestyle-type restaurant with charm and character such as Pickle Bill's, there are at least 20 fast-food places. The list goes on and on. McDonalds, Arby's, Burger King. Pizza Hut, Panda Express, Subway. Togo's, Applebee's, Ruby Tuesdays. Etc., etc., etc. So I succumbed. But doing so, I went way old-school: Bob Evans Restaurants, founded in 1948 by Bob Evans himself.

Here's the story: Bob Evans was a hog farmer. In 1948 in Gallipolis, Ohio, he opened up a 12-stool diner. He didn't like any of the sausage he could buy, so he ended up making his own. Not only did he use the "nasty bits", as Tony Bourdain would say, he also used the hams and tenderloins. The sausage took on a life of its own. Truck drivers said it was the best they'd ever had. They began to buy big packs to take with them. Pretty soon, Evans expanded. Today, there are 579 Bob Evans Restaurants in 18 states. The local legend has it (which I think has some truth to it) that restaurants could never be located further than a day's drive from the sausage plant in southwest Ohio, to ensure the freshest sausage. Anyway, growing up as a kid, Bob Evans Farms, The Home of Homestyle, was an occasional brunch splurge.

The food: Decidedly old-school, with a specialty of biscuits and "a fresh cup of creamy sausage gravy." It tastes decadently artery-clogging good. The blandness of the fluffy biscuits goes perfectly with the bite of the sausage. I ate my fill with several cups of black coffee, two eggs over easy, and a stack of home fries slathered in grease. Yes, it was fast-food. But at least it had two things I seek out in restaurants/food/wines: character, and a good story behind it.

Oh, yeah: Bob Evans died less than a month ago, on June 21, 2007, at the age of 89.