Tunnel Vision.

Video of passage through the Bobby Hopper Tunnel on I-540 -- Arkansas' only interstate tunnel. Just south of Winslow, AR.

Lunchland: Bobby's Country Cookin'.

There’s something to be said about comfort food… something that draws in lines of folks that stretch around a packed restaurant before noon on a weekday. That’s what I found when I dropped by Bobby’s Country Cooking Friday -- a line that was backed up to the door at 11am.

Sweet, Cool, Free.

A perfect little break in the summertime heat... made better by a taste of heaven. That's my impression of the Cave City Watermelon Festival, the big annual event celebrating the World’s Sweetest Watermelons the second weekend of August.

I’ve gone many times. The first time, it was to try out those sweet watermelons on their own ground. I’ve returned again and again to enjoy the atmosphere; the laid-back late summer soiree in Cave City Park where folks take their time and all the watermelon you can eat is free. I actually toyed with the idea of skipping last year's festival, worried that the heat would be too much for a (then) five month pregnant chick to handle… but the night before the big event the heat broke, and instead of 100+ degree temperatures in the shade the thermometer bobbed along in the 80s.

When I arrived and parked, the car show was in full swing -- teenagers who’d fixed up their family cars sharing the exhibit space with professionals and weekend garage monkeys. As I made my way towards the center of the park, I noticed children clambering over the playground as parents watched from a distance, chattering among themselves. Older gentlemen were sharing stories over the tractor display -- some tractors out-aging even the octogenarians in the crowd. The wind kicked up a little, and there was an almost felt sigh from attendees who welcomed the movement.

At the festival pavilion, attendees were handed a Dollar General bag that contained a couple of pens and a Mardi Gras beaded necklace with a big Cave City Watermelon Festival medallion. There was also a program, sharing what was coming up in the afternoon. The sacks, I came to find later, were for those watermelon rinds... a good idea, for sure.

The crowd was starting to thin out a bit, as many of the festival-goers took off for lunch. Some headed on foot down to Sonic, a few blocks away and a major sponsor for the event. Others headed back to their cars to grab a bite of lunch from coolers and picnic baskets. And some brought money to eat on site. Several of the local churches were offering cheap eats -- like the $2.75 burger at the Free Will Baptist Church stand. Drinks went for $1 for bottled water and 75 cents for soda.

For the more adventurous, there were some true festival foods. One booth offered a plethora of fried foods -- fried green tomatoes, fried pickles, ribbon fries, sweet potato fries, sour cream fries, deep fried Oreos, deep fried Twinkies, and Apple Dumplings -- presumably also deep-fried. Another offered the almost impossible to conceive of combination of Reuben sandwiches and frog legs. There was also an Ozark Kettle Corn vendor and the inflatable ice cream stand.



A steady stream of visitors passed by the wagon bearing the winners of the watermelon growing contests. Big, healthy, shiny melons of varying colors bore familiar names --Penn, Patterson, Wooldridge, Perkey. There are six families that continue the watermelon growing tradition around here, and it's always a tight battle to see who can bring home the ribbons in any given year.

I wandered on and checked out the stands. Vendors were selling jewelry, t-shirts, toys, sunglasses, bags -- all sorts of things. These were mostly small business people from the area. Up towards the gate at the northeast corner, members of the Cruisadors (a chapter of the Arkansas Baptist Bikers Association) were handing out water to the thirsty for free.

I stopped by one of the bank booths (there were three) and picked up a welcomed fan. While the air was much nicer than previously expected, a good fan helped move the air a bit more.

Across the park, the fire department had sat up a dunking booth. The guy in the booth was trading jabs with a guy who hadn't been able to sink him on six successive throws. A family came up, paid for their balls, and a young boy started his aim from the youngster's line. He threw two balls in rapid succession -- and down went the victim into the drink. He came up from the water laughing, apparently pleased at the dunking, and congratulated the young man.

The crowd was growing under the trees, as families brought out their chairs and set up for the day. The Gaylon Sandefur Band broke into their popular song, "Chicken Truck on Highway 25." That one drew quite a few chuckles.

There aren't really any bad seats out on the lawn -- the park is set out well, with the bandstand placed on the edge of the natural bowl. The wind lolled through the crowd, bringing with it the ruffle of the air sock from the Sno-Cone concession, the scent of syrup and funnel cakes and fried onions, and the dull roar of a hundred different conversations. People would come out, set up their chairs and coolers, and then walk off -- completely unconcerned about whether someone might come along and disturb their possessions. There's a sense of trust that's assumed and sacred at these small-town festivals, and I am thankful for it.

There was a pause in the music, as James Mack Street took the stage for the quilt raffle. As the quilt was brought out for display, the audio guy played a pre-recorded announcement, thanking the sponsors for the event. And they do deserve that thanks -- unlike many other festivals, the Cave City Watermelon Festival is entirely free. The parking is free, the car show is free, the concerts and the contests and everything else -- everything, that is, except the vendor's wares -- but that's to be expected, these people have to make a living, after all.

I decided to wander around and catch a little more of the action. And I noticed that the refrigerated truck had arrived. I wandered up and joined the small crowd of people who were trading comments with the guys and boys gathered at the back.
Four o'clock was approaching, and the growers decided it was a good time to go ahead and open up. The crowd could feel the rush of cold air as the door was hauled open. Tables were set up in a "U" shape and accoutrements like plastic forks and table salt were set out.

The line was already forming, people anticipating the cool bounty about to be laid out. But there was no real rush. People continued their conversations. Some parents carried babies and toddlers on their hips or shoulders. Stories were shared.

Without much ado, one of the growers turned around and motioned at the boys who'd crawled up inside the truck. The boys started handing out melon after melon in a pass-line to the growers at the front. Three or four of them pulled out big clean knives and took to splitting the melons up quickly and efficiently in all sorts of sizes.

There was a stir to one side, where the first of the yellow melons had been popped open. The sweet aroma of melon was pervasive, but not too strong -- after all, this is watermelon we're talking about. The line moved steadily and swiftly, as people came up and grabbed their slice and went back to sit down and consume theirs. Some folks propped themselves up next to the nearby tractors to take in their share and be ready to come back for more.

I gratefully took a crescent-shaped slice of the yellow melon and wandered back through the line on my way to my seat. A couple of the guys were joshing with a boy who was wandering back to the concert field with three giant slices all by himself. The band had even sat down to enjoy melon themselves. There was a strange calmness, a feeling of fraternity out there on the field -- with the quiet sounds of munching and slurping and what-have-you. There were people sitting at pavilion tables carefully exhuming seeds with spoons, and a whole family munching and spitting the seeds a bit further down the way.

Me? I'm a flicker. I sat down in my chair, put my slice on my lap, and used my fork to flick away the seeds on the outside. You can spot festival veterans -- they’re the ones that bring wetted down washcloths in zip-top bags and paper bags for their laps.

All this watermelon -- and it's a lot of watermelon, dozens and dozens of the best of the crop -- is donated by the growers. All of it. Not a dime changes hands. They all work together, and get their selections up on the refrigerated truck. As far as I know, there's never been a watermelon-less festival, and if it keeps up this way there never will be.

Mr. Street got up on stage again to remind everyone to bring their rinds to the truck behind the bandstand and not throw them in the trashcans -- since 55 gallon drums of melon rinds would be far too heavy for the sanitation folks to handle. I had eaten my melon down to the rind, and couldn't resist tucking my fork behind my ear and going back for another slice. The back of the “rind truck” was already a third of the way full by the time I tossed in my contribution and headed back up to the line.

I'd been about 120 yards back when I joined the line, but less than five minutes later I was back at the front, and I picked up another colossal slice before heading back to my seat. I watched the melon auction as I enjoyed the second slice. The top melon went for $250, while others went way over the $100 mark. All the money raised went to Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

By this point, I was satisfied and rather saturated, too. The red melon I'd consumed as my second slice had not only been sweeter, it had been juicier, and my shorts were soaked with melon juice. It didn't matter. The breeze joined the moisture to bathe me in Mother Nature's air conditioning, and I was feeling fine.

I decided to take off shortly thereafter, having a two hour drive to make back to Little Rock. As I wandered past the refrigerated truck one more time, I noticed a couple of the growers in deep conversation with others. One young man was asking 20 questions about how to grow melons, and how to make them sweet. I overheard the response -- "it ain't hard if you live up here."

The tables and the ground beneath were strewn with seeds and a few wayward slices that had slipped from grasp. Further on, the playground was full of happy, sticky children, playing under overcast skies.

If you find yourself with a couple of free hours this weekend, it would do you good to head up to Cave City. Pick yourself up a couple of melons -- take one home, take one to your friends to share. But don't wait too long -- watermelon season doesn't last forever.

Old Restaurant Still Serves Arkansas Food.

Arkansas’ oldest same-family-owned restaurant isn’t a barbecue shack, or a hamburger joint, or even a steak place. It’s a cafeteria.

That may sound pedestrian, especially in this age of Luby’s and Ryan’s and sorts. But when you’re talking about Franke’s, you’re not talking about institutional food. You’re talking about some of the finest Arkansas cuisine to grace a menu.

Franke’s didn’t start out as a cafeteria. It was first a bakery, sort of a hole in the wall joint that served up doughnuts and such downtown in 1919 by C.A. Franke. Five years later, the first cafeteria under the name was opened at what’s now Capitol between Main and Louisiana.

There were (and still are) other locations. The one I remember from my youth was in University Mall next to Osco Drug, across from Montgomery Ward’s. It was there from before I was born until right before the Mall was sold off and demolished. I can remember standing in the Nut Hut and looking across through the windows at all the diners in the fancy wood-paneled-and-curtained dining room, thinking how fancy everyone was.

There is still a location downstairs in the Regions bank building… during the times in my life where I worked temp jobs to supplement my fledgling radio career I’d grab my tray and join the masses, picking up roast beef and peas and egg custard pie to consume before returning to the dredgery of my day.

These days, though, there’s no University Mall, and I tend to haunt West Little Rock more than downtown. Which is fine, since there’s a Franke’s on Rodney Parham in the Market Street Shopping Center. From the exterior, it’s unimposing; inside, it’s well-appointed and clean, just as fancy if not fancier than most of your mid-range restaurants. And best of all, it’s reverently quiet.

It’s still a cafeteria -- not a buffet. You head to the end of the line, grab a tray and cloth-wrapped utensils, and choose the dishes you would like with the help of smartly attired attendants. And there’s all sorts of foods. In the salad section alone you could get lost without a guide. Sure, there’s the traditional restaurant-style lettuce and cucumber and tomato salad with dressing you can order up; there are also a plethora of Arkansas-friendly salads, too -- like carrot salad, marinated salad with onions and tomatoes and cucumbers (strangely similar to Indian Kachumber salad, but I digress), blackeye pea and pepper salad, Ambrosia salad, green bean salad, pea salad… and at least six types of congealed salad. There are beets and peaches and okra of varying sorts.

Entrées vary by the day, but there’s usually always roast beef and ham and fried chicken and roasted chicken and hamburger steak. I’ve seen chicken croquettes and baked catfish and fried catfish and pepper steak with onions and cabbage rolls and pork chops. More sides than you can shake a stick at -- cabbage with ham, green beans with bacon, corn in oh so many preparations, rice, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, umpteen types of beans and peas, carrots, mac and cheese… and if you’re really lucky, sweet potato casserole. Or even better, eggplant casserole. There are white bread rolls and wheat bread rolls and regular cornbread and Jalapeno cornbread full of corn and pepper bits.

And then there’s pie. The one thing that about 95 percent of all Arkansas restaurants I have visited have is some variation on pie -- fried, meringue, cream, berry, whatever. Franke’s has more pie than you can shake a spoon at, more than you can eat in a week, more than you can conceive of in a sweet luscious dream. There’s pecan and sweet potato and sometimes pumpkin and egg custard (which is famous) and lemon meringue and brownie pie and that’s just some of the hot ones. There’s banana cream, chocolate cream, lemon cream, coconut cream, cinnamon cream, strawberries and cream, and heaven knows what other types of cream. And cobbler.

Dropped by the other day with a couple of traveling companions who’d never been. I believe they were expecting something closer to the retail buffet experience. Instead, we sat down after choosing what we wanted and watching it be plated up for us… and enjoyed one heck of a fine dinner.

One chose the hamburger steak with onions, with a hearty slice of Texas toast and carrots that weren’t too mushy and some of that cool pea and pimento salad. The other went for a roasted and herbed chicken leg quarter with mac and cheese and a wheat roll and a traditional salad.

I went for what I consider to be real Arkansas home cookin’ -- smothered hamburger steak, butter-baked Lima beans (too bad they didn’t have any butter beans or purplehull peas that day), Jalapeno cornbread, eggplant casserole and marinated salad. Way too much to eat, but just a jaunt down memory lane. Any bit of that meal coulda been served up to me by either side of my southwest Arkansas family years ago. This is the sort of food that I was raised on.

Of course we had dessert. One companion’s lemon meringue pie was a beautiful homemade construction with a huge head of meringue that blended well with the baked lemon custard below. I get so nervous sometimes when I see the day-glow yellow lemon filling in meringues at places; to see it here, a gorgeous egg-yolk yellow with savor and heft and not that overbearing-oh-dear-Lord sweetness is comforting.

My other companion didn’t even bother to offer me a taste of his custardy-rich chocolate cream pie, go figure.

I shouldn’t complain. I went for one of the house favorites, not the egg custard but the cinnamon cream pie, layers of ever-richer cream and custard on top of a loose brown sugar and crumb crust. The top layer is almost completely beaten cream with a touch of cinnamon, but each layer below more custard is folded in. Rich as all heck, too -- and begging for a cup of hot coffee.

And that’s the thing at Franke’s -- service doesn’t end when you pass through the register section at the end of the tray line. A porter will come take your tray as soon as you sit down, so you’re not left trying to find a place for it on your table. They’ll even carry your tray for you if your hands are full or if you need help. A kind waiter will drive a cart by every once in a while with refills on coffee and tea and take-home boxes. Other waiters will check on your soft drink. And there is no rush. Take your time. Enjoy your conversation. You can pay up when you leave.

There is one disappointing thing to me… I took my daughter with us, and if you don’t count her I was easily the youngest person in the restaurant the afternoon we went. I don’t know why there weren’t more members of my generation there -- I hope it was just a fluke. But I’d hate to see something happen to this 90 year old local restaurant franchise, especially if folks stop coming. They don’t know what they’re missing.

Lost Sandwich.

For centuries, man has searched for the almost forgotten lost city of Atlantis. Sure, there have been references through works of literature over the millenniums, but the urge to seek out this subject of our dreams comes more from our cultural longing and traditions, a latent image, a memory to recreate.

Strangely enough, I can understand this urge… when it comes to a certain sandwich from my childhood. Sound silly? Let me tell you about it.

Back when I was a young’un, from time to time my mom and I would head out to the Otter Creek area. And there was this place we’d stop on Stagecoach Road to get a bite to eat to take home with us.

And it was there, back in the early 1980s, that I had this amazing combination of ingredients, of Genoa salami and ham, of white cheeses and French bread, and especially of this green concoction that tantalized me at such an early age. That very first… muffaletta.

It wasn’t from some high-class joint or a coffee shop or even a regular restaurant. It was from this little service station in a white building. And for a couple of years there, it was that special treat meal I was always surprised and excited about.

Of course, we grow up and the world moves on. Somewhere along the way, the whole area grew up and developed, and what used to be on the outskirts of town became an intown location. After my own travels and return to Little Rock I looked around for the place with those great sandwiches, but not recalling the name of the business or exactly where it was located, I figured it had become a victim of passing time.

I’m glad I was wrong.

One afternoon recently I found myself cutting across town for an evening’s engagement, and I found myself along that section of Stagecoach Road. And I spotted that little white building. At first I shrugged it off -- but then the big red sign confirmed it. I had found my Atlantis.
Dropped in just to check and see if it was the same place -- and yes, it had to be, been there since 1971. I was in no position to grab dinner at that point, so I made a mental note to stop in when I could.

And when I did, I was happy to discover I didn’t have to completely obliterate that childhood dream.

See, something happened between here and there. When I was a kid, I was blessed with having no allergies. But as I aged I changed, and when I was 19 I discovered that I was becoming allergic to pork. That allergy’s pretty bad now, though I hope it will ease as I age further.
So here I had the chance to experience the muffaletta again, but no way to do so safely myself. And though I could replicate the taste of things like ham and salami with turkey, that seemed like way too much to ask.

I ordered a muffaletta to take home, along with an Italian Beef sandwich. Six inch lengths of said sandwiches are $4.59, and come wrapped in first that flimsy waxed paper and then heavy white butcher paper, taped shut for the ride home, just like I remembered. I also picked up a couple of No-Bakes (that unique cocoa and oatmeal stovetop cookie) for $1.09 and a fried apple pie for $2.09.

Getting home, I unwrapped the still-warm sandwiches and photographed them -- after all, you know me, I shoot everything I eat. And then my companion had the chance to try this sandwich I’d been raving about over all this time. And happiness was shared.

Meanwhile, I was enjoying my own happiness -- the Italian beef sandwich, with big chunks of juicy pulled beef with its own topping of Olive salad. That salad that came out of a Mason jar with no label, that concoction that brought back memories of a lost time before. Unlike other versions I’ve had elsewhere (including the French Quarter), this version comes up crunchy and sweet, not too tart. It was a revelation.

The No-Bakes, by the way? Pretty darn good, too.

I know Stagecoach Grocery serves up a lot of other stuff, too -- po’boys and big burgers and plate lunches. It’s a gas station, and has all sorts of things you’d find in a convenience store too -- but to me, being able to enjoy that green goodness again is just about enough. I’ve done gone and found my own Atlantis. Pretty darn awesome.

You’ll find Stagecoach Grocery at 6024 Stagecoach Road in Little Rock. Phone number’s (501) 455-4157.

Barrow Flower House.

I'm not sure which is stranger -- all the plastic flowers on and around this house on Barrow Road in Little Rock, or the fact that there's a "For Sale" sign on the tree right next to the house.

Burgers are great at the Wagon Wheel.

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 The family dining experience… hometown restaurants that include ads for local businesses on their menu, where trophies and plaques for school sports dangle on walls and there’s sometimes even an item on the menu named after a school mascot. Many of these places bear a lot of merit. Others are simply intown way stations of food, a place to eat when one does not want to venture forth outside of city limits.

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Wagon Wheel Restaurant in Greenbrier is a good family sit-down with a wipeboard on the wall advertizing the day’s specials and the choice of vegetables. There’s a cooler case with meringue-piled pies within easy eye distance, tempting from afar. The restaurant is loud with the buzz of conversation and alive with a varying cast of regulars and road-weary travelers looking for a place to light and hover for a bit.

Fortunately, good sustenance can be found in such a location. The restaurant offers a fine selection of breakfast items and dinners. But on one particular Monday, we were craving burgers… big ones, hand patted ones, and we were not disappointed.

More on the jump.

Of course, one of my companions had to choose the namesake burger for the place, the Wagon Wheel Delight ($5.25 with fries). It sounded odd to me, a burger of sour cream, mushrooms, and green onions, but it was indeed a delight and worthy of a place of honor on the menu.

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I chose the Cowboy Delight (also $5.25 with fries) and was delighted with a long sesame seed roll filled with plenty of hand patted and seasoned ground beef, Monterrey Jack cheese, and sautéed peppers and onions. I opted out of the offered mustard but ended up with pickle on my burger (also comes standard) but this was not an unwelcome thing. In fact, it gave the burger an unexpected tang that was pretty decent. The accompanying fries were big almost unseasoned planks of hand cut potato that sat up and begged for ketchup.

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My other companion was the bravest… going for the Hotty Burger ($4.25 without fries) and adding on an order of onion rings ($1.95). His fat burger patty was smattered with pepper jack cheese and jalapenos and plenty of them. It was fun to watch him start to redden and sweat as he savored the peppery goodness. The onion rings, by the way, were similar to some I have experienced lately where the batter includes what tastes suspiciously like French onion soup mix. Here it works okay in a cornmeal and flour batter with chunks of hand-cut onion sections.

I wanted the pie… I really did… or shall I say my eyes did, because my belly wasn’t having any more of it. Too much food! I was only disappointed when I saw one of the waitresses change a selection on the wipe board from “Ham” to “Country Fried Veal.” THAT would have really been interesting.

Oh, we also tried the squash, and were very happy with the salted and battered deep fried rounds. Within the batter the squash was mush, but good flavored mush.

You’ll find the Wagon Wheel Restaurant on the right side of the road as you head up Highway 65 into Greenbrier. (501) 679-5009.

Pickin' & Grinnin'.

There are some foods you just can’t replicate in a grocery store environment. Sure, you can purchase watermelon nearly year-round now, and big swollen hard peaches and even quarts of blackberries from retailers who drag them in from all over the world.

But you really can’t replicate the taste and feel of a handpicked Arkansas blackberry.

There’s something about crawling down into a briar patch with your pants tucked into your socks, tick repellant worn thicker than a teenage boy wears Axe spray, big hat to keep the sun from burning your scalp. Like going fishing or hunting around these parts, there’s a costume to be donned, and it may look damn silly but I guarantee generations before you did the same thing -- or not, and paid for it with briar-ripped skin and chigger bites.

Went up with a couple of friends on an early July day to a patch west of Alread, out on land that never sees an orange glow in the sky from civilization. The heat, thankfully, had broken, and we hustled out around 9am to start filling baskets and bags and buckets.


The wet weather had apparently delayed the season, same as it’s delayed peaches in the groves and watermelons in the fields. But there were still plenty to be culled from the briars.
Some were the bigger wild blackberries, on erect vines that wound themselves around sassafrass saplings and honeysuckle bushes and underbrush. Others were the smaller dewberries, little harder berries that could be flicked off vines that hugged the ground. We carefully tugged off the darkened ripe berries from in-between green and red ones, hoping for another day of berry harvesting later on.

After the patch was exhausted, we went out on the backroad for a while and spotted patches. We’d drive along and park further and further up the road, hopping out to fill up a few more bag’s worth and then retreating for a few moments to the air conditioned comfort and a good swallow of water.

Along the way, we also spotted immature wild muscadines, a personal favorite of mine from my picking days. There were all sorts of moths and butterflies out, and from time to time we’d leave a patch alone because of hornets or wasps making themselves known.

This is the sort of picking that I remember from childhood, hopping into the back of a pickup truck with cousins and pickle buckets and paint buckets and heading out onto rarely used country roads to find brambles. It was always a team operation then -- and when you finished picking the berries that were reachable by the road, you backed the pickup into the briar patches and picked from the safety of the truck bed. I can remember the blackberry stains on sunburned skin, the heat of the metal beneath my feet as I’d reach over and grab a briar and pulled it in so I could reach berries. There was a certain plopping sound as berries were dropped into buckets. Older members of the search party could manage to make it sound like a typewriter, quickly grabbing vines with gloved hands and thumping berries off with a flick of a middle finger and thumb.

We’d take our bounty back to the house, where womenfolk past the berry-picking-for-fun age would take our bounty and wash it and sort out leaves and bad berries and ticks. Then quart by quart they were packed away in plastic containers and stuck in the freezer, or boiled with sugar and other makings by the gallon on burners on the stove, bound for jam. Us kids were rewarded for our efforts with small bowls full of berries topped with sweetened condensed milk. There was always something about road berries and that little bit of gravel grit that always managed to make it past the washing.

There was also the glory of Sunday after church blackberry cobblers, the once piping hot crust congealed a bit in places where the blackberry essence had popped through. The pairing for this was usually just fresh milk but sometimes we were lucky enough to have one of those big gallon sized tubs of ice cream to get a dip from, and the adults would have theirs with coffee.

Well, I ended up being a city girl, and I don’t spend much time out in patches or rural gardens or fields. But one taste I wanted to share with my daughter was that thorny-picked Arkansas blackberry that still very much reminds me of South Arkansas red clay dirt and dusty afternoons in the sun.
We took in our bounty, divided it up and washed it.

After our lunch, I held my six month old daughter Hunter in my lap and offered her a berry. My friend Leif had the camera ready for the big moment. We were expecting what most parents may expect from their young child -- a dribble of blackberry juice down the chin, the shock of tartness crossing a young face. Instead, it was as if I had held the little berry in front of a vacuum. She sucked it right in, thought about it a moment, and started clamoring for more.

Berry after berry she inhaled, until my other friend Lara decided to make the shot we were seeking a little easier. She found a very plump berry and mashed it a bit, so that the juice ran down Hunter’s fingers when she reached out for it. The juice didn’t deter her at all, and she ate a good share before she stopped clamoring for more.

I’ve talked with farmers who show up at the Certified Arkansas Farmers Market in Argenta about blackberries and the picking thereof… and they tell me today that cultivated blackberries have no thorns. Somehow, that feels like cheating.