By John Carlson—
Years ago, in another lifetime when I answered to the name Chowhound, I was paid to eat while writing restaurant reviews.
This was not because I had a discriminating palate. Sure, I had eaten at some of Indy’s best restaurants, including St. Elmo Steak House, where slurping its infamous, fiery shrimp cocktail sauce was akin to undergoing electro-shock therapy. Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse was another favorite of my fellow nutcase Mark Di Fabio and mine, with our long-suffering wives Nancy and Barb providing the adult supervision.
But my favorite joint in East Central Indiana was the Workingman’s Friend tavern just a ways west of Indy’s zoo. In that century-old, ma-and-pa place I fell deeply in love with its classic double cheeseburgers. This gustatory romance marked me as a guy who didn’t need to spend lots of money to be a happy eater.
In other words, I worked cheap.
Anyway, having spent some time in the hospital this summer, and repeatedly eaten three squares a day from its kitchen, it struck me that I could provide some welcome food guidance for fellow and future patients/diners.
So here goes …
How’s the cheese tortellini with marinara sauce?
Beats me.
Oh. So, ummm, how’s the whole grain penne with meat sauce?
Haven’t tried that either.
OK, as a veteran food reviewer, I can sense when my readers are about to sneer, “This frickin’ knucklehead’s worthless!” and go fetch themselves some vending machine Doritos. So tell you what, how’s the hospital’s warm apple crisp?
FANTASTIC!!!
Should reincarnation prove to be true, and my dear Grandma Millie suddenly show up as a line cook in IUH/Ball Memorial Hospital’s kitchen, she’d be throwing the warm apple crisp together from an old family farm recipe. The apple slices are softly cooked and sweetly coated with crunchy little doodads attached. Truth is, I ordered it every lunch and dinner. Get a nurse to smuggle you in some vanilla ice cream, and it’d be a killer combo!
But Chowhound, you ask, isn’t breakfast the most important meal of the day?
Sure, and for that reason, Cream of Wheat sounds very … uhhh … tempting. But there’s also the blueberry pancake and the chocolate chip pancake! I mean, c’mon. What’s to discuss? Then there are three variations on French toast (ooo–la–la!!!) plus made-to-order breakfast sandwiches and omelets. Ordering one of those? Remember, salsa makes everything taste even better. Just don’t go ape and smear salsa on your pancakes and French toast.
What do I usually eat?
An order of scrambled eggs and home fries, which I smoosh into an icky, lumpy, crimson mess with the salsa. It tastes great, even though when I’m done mixing this concoction, it looks like something found stuck to the wheels of a gurney down in the emergency room.
What DOESN’T look like emergency room wheel gunk is the hummus tomato flatbread. Spread with some really good hummus, it’s artfully topped with tomato and cucumber slices that leave a hint of summer freshness in your mouth. This effect may surprise folks who’ve never spread bread with any filling that hasn’t previously mooed, clucked or squealed.
But let’s face it, my fellow carnivores. If you hadn’t spent years chomping quarter-pound hot dogs buried under avalanches of spicy chili and melted cheddar, you wouldn’t be ordering dinner from a hospital.
Other good stuff here? Fruit cups and yogurt, with the sweet red grapes being my particular favorites.
There are also lots of yummy vegetables if you’re, you know, someone who’s into that sort of thing.
But now we’re nearing “crunch time.” How is the burger? Not bad! I always order mine with mayo, tomato, onions and seasoning. Should the folks at Workingman’s Friend worry about it killing their double-cheeseburger business?
Nah. But I like it.
And of course there’s fancy fish, the culinary high-point of any red-blooded Hoosier guy’s balanced diet. Crappie? Not by any stretch of the imagination! They’ve got grilled lemon salmon and cod with lemon sauce. True, I prefer my lemon served under meringue in a pie. But that’ll work on fish as soon as the Dan’s Fish Fry dudes pull up outside the ER hauling a deep-fryer, a tub full of beer batter and twenty or thirty gallons of tartar sauce.
But now it’s time for the big reveal!
Drum roll, please.
What’s my favorite meal from IUH/Ball Memorial Hospital’s kitchen?
Ta-da! Early on I discovered the hot (well, warm) roast turkey sandwich on plain white bread with mayo, onion and tomato … and it spoke to me. What it said was, “Eat me!” No, it’s not the most beautiful sandwich I’ve ever seen. Still, during my time there I snarfed down a load of these tasty bad boys, along with bowls of my reincarnated grandma’s apple crisp and those little chocolate pudding cups most of us refuse to admit we crave.
But that’s not the end of it.
Keep in mind, I never got around to trying the homemade pot roast with tomato gravy, which sounded good, nor early on did I order the turkey avocado flatbread. With turkey, tomato, lettuce and avocado-infused mayo, it sounded like ladies’ bridge club fare. No way I was gonna chance surrendering my “man card” by eating that sissy stuff. But then I thought, who am I trying to kid?
I ain’t that mucho of a macho guy anyway, I decided, and ate one. It was darned good, plus plenty big enough to invite passersby into your room to share.
By the way, feeling like some lackadaisical jerk of a food reviewer, for my last meal there I went ahead and ordered the aforementioned whole grain penne with meat sauce, too. Turned out I should have been eating it all along.
Oh yeah, and I think the kitchen service coffee rocks!
Go figure.
John’s weekly columns are sponsored by Beasley & Gilkison, Muncie’s trusted attorneys for over 120 years.
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A former longtime feature writer and columnist for The Star Press in Muncie, Indiana, John Carlson is a storyteller with an unflagging appreciation for the wonderful people of East Central Indiana and the tales of their lives, be they funny, poignant, inspirational or all three. John’s columns appear on MuncieJournal.com every Friday.
