Into Amatos we go for ricotta pancakes before we hit the road to Chicago. Its bitterly cold (18 with windchill, overcast and reports of snow on the way) but once inside, our glasses fog with the warmth and we are greeted with the smell of maple syrup and coffee. Its just before 7 am but the cook from last night is behind the grill again. The waitress says "sit wherever you'd like" and we pick the booth in the corner, passing a priest at one table, a public utilities worker at another and two medical personnel from the health center across the street. After we sit down, a business man in a dapper looking wool coat comes in and the conversation goes something like this:
Waitress: "Hey Tim."
Dapper man named Tim "Good morning"
Priest "I saw your niece in here the other morning, Tim. She said she had a good trip."
Tim "Yes she did."
I feel like I'm in a Carson McCullers novel only without the gut wrenching angst.
In the middle of breakfast Sammy Amato comes in and announces to the patrons "These guys here are moving to Romania." Before this we had merely been a quartet of unkempt strangers but after the announcement we are suddenly people of interest. Sammy pulls a chair up to our table and he and Mihai, being fellow Butcher, Baker, and Sausage Makers, discuss various methods of cheese making.
Unkempt stranger
Sammy gives us some restaurant recommendations for Chicago and beyond and we dutifully note these since this man clearly knows good food. As we leave he volunteers to come with us as our cook and the patrons wish us safe journey and 'see you on the return trip back' and somehow I feel that if we were to show up for breakfast one year from now, we would more than likely find Tim, the priest and the utility worker tucking into triple berry ricotta pancakes just like today.
Out onto the road....
Its cold.
It looks pretty much exactly like the last 500 miles we've just driven through.
I mean no disrespect to Iowans or to the state of Iowa; I have been here several times and I know from past experience that it can offer some beautiful scenery and no doubt some great eats. Found within the boarders of this state are the birth place of John Wayne, the birth place of Tony Dean, and if you are still not convinced of its merits let me remind you of a certain bestseller/Meryl Streep/Clint Eastwood movie The Bridges of Madison County.
So it wasn't due to a lack of interesting places to see that kept us in the van and barreling through from Council Bluffs to Davenport it was just that quite frankly, it was below freezing, we were really tired of snacking on gas station food and we couldn't wait to get to Chicago and stretch our legs in the city. So here is Iowa, the abbreviated version:
Does it look cold? No? Well it was.
(but still pretty for all that)
