October 15, 2025 • 54 mins
Road Trip Alert! Route 66 is referred to as the "Mother Road" due to its significance in American history. This iconic highway was established on November 11, 1926, and spans 2,448 miles and 8 states from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California. Just in time for the highway’s centennial celebration, "The Route 66 Cookbook" spotlights 66 dining spots and recipes along Route 66 compiled by Author Linda Ly. Before you plan your trip on Route 66, listen to this Fearless Fabulous You episode
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:20):
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Speaker 2 (00:41):
Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host,
Melanie Young, And this is a beautiful day here in
New Orleans, Louisiana, where I currently live. Really it's amazing here,
like there is no more humidity. And I just got
back from an incredible trip to Italy. As you know,
I travel a lot for work, which is I write
(01:04):
about wine, food and travel and get to go to
some amazing places. We are going to have a really
fun show today to talk about a place I've actually
never been and I want to go. We're going to
talk about the Mother Road. It's called Route sixty six.
It's one of the most historic routes in the United States.
It's called the Mother Road due to its significance in
(01:25):
American history. It's the iconic highway that cuts through the
center of the United States from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California.
It covers eight states and many many historic landmarks and
of course eateries, which we're going to talk about today.
What's neat is this iconic highway, Route sixty six we've
(01:45):
established on November eleventh, nineteen twenty six. It spans two
four hundred and forty eight miles, connecting, as I said, Chicago,
Illinois to Santa Monica, and the highway is celebrating its
centennial one hundred years. Considering that it has withstood the
test of time and all the super highways built around it,
that's pretty amazing. What's exciting for me is I turned
(02:08):
sixty six this year and one of my dreams was
to drive Route sixty six and celebrate my birthday Root
sixty six. That didn't happen because it's a long drive
and I can't do it myself, but I still want
to go to I'd love to do the drive, or
at least from parts of it to parts of it.
Because frankly, with all the global traveling I've done, I've
(02:29):
actually seen very little of the heartland of the United States.
And Route sixty six, the Mother Road, really cuts through
the heart of the United States. And what's neat about
it is you will see many landscapes and also meet
some really interesting people who shape America. And we're going
to talk about that today and helpfulling what your appetite
(02:49):
for travel, but also for food, because I have with
me the author of the Root sixty six Cookbook, which
is a cookbook that will take you from from Chicago
to Santa Monica with recipes and landmarks along the way
in interesting stories, facts and figures. Here's a photograph of
it as well. It's called Root sixty six, The Root
(03:10):
sixty six Cookbook, America's Mother Road and the best recipes
from its roadside restaurants. If you love road tripping like
I do, and you love to discover really cool places,
from cute and family owned to totally quirky, you're going
to love this book and you're going to love this show.
So buckle up because we're joined today by Linda Lee,
(03:31):
who is the author of the Root sixty six Cookbook,
Linda is an acclaimed author of many books, including the
New Camp Cookbook, The Backyard Fire Cookbook, the CSA Cookbook,
and the No Ways Vegetable Cookbook, and the National Parks Cookbook,
which I'm a big National Parks person, so I can't
wait to get that cookbook. She has an award winning
blog called Gardenbetty dot Com. It's kind of cool because
(03:55):
there's a lot of gardening in there. She lives in
ben Oregon on a huge piece of property. Is really
an expert on gardening. She raises chickens. She's like me,
she's really into no food waste. And lucky Linda got
the contract to write this book because frankly, it's the
dream book I would love to write on the dream
trip I love to take in the United States. So
(04:16):
I'm happy to welcome to Fearless Fabulous you, the author
of the Root sixty six cookbook, Linda Lee.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Welcome, Hi there, good morning.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Wow. I you know you see I got the map
behind me because I really did say to my husband David,
I want to go celebrate my sixty sixth birthday of
Rout sixty six. But we didn't because we were already
somewhere else when I came up with the idea. But
there's always time because there's plenty of it. And as
you have said, and you really exude in the book,
(04:47):
it's always time to travel and do it while you can.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Right, absolutely, And with Root sixty six, it's also constantly evolving.
So I feel like it's a trick that you can't
really do just once. You know, definitely I would have
to return to it because there are so many, so
many points of interest that I skipped or did not
have time for or you know. I mean there's a
lot to pack in in one trip.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, And I mean it's a slam book. It's not
like a big, fat book. And there's a lot of
America to cover. So I'm sure it was frustrating to
winnow it down because you have sixty six recipes from
the Midwest of the West Coast. What's the neat about
it is the culture's change, the recipes change with the states.
I'm curious, Linda, where did you grow up first? Let's
start with your background and what inspired you to become
(05:31):
a writer.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
I grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm a first
generation American. I live in Bend, Oregon now. But in
between all of that, I have also lived in Los
Angeles area or spent a significant part of my life,
and I also lived in New York, so I've kind
of been all over the country.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Have you been working as a writer and author all
this time or did you have another career in switch?
Speaker 3 (05:55):
I did have another career I started. I went to
school for graphic design communications, and that's what I actually
did for a long time before I started my blog,
was web development and graphic design. Got a little bit
burnt out on coding, felt like I needed to get
outside and work with my hands more so. When I
(06:15):
lived in LA I lived in this beautiful property that
was a quarter acre, which is kind of unheard of
for LA and it had already a garden that was
established on there. I had never gardened before in my life.
This was actually back in twenty ten, and I was
so intrigued what was growing in the backyard. So I
started my blog Gardened Betty as a way to share
(06:37):
what I was doing with my friends. With my mother
in law, I think they were the only people who
were reading it at the time. It was just a
diary and I did not think anything of it. And
very shortly that blog became my career. So I pivoted
to becoming a blogger, which is nice because it still
it still involves coding and design and the things that
(07:02):
I love. I'm very much a tech geek and I've
been working in tech since I was eighteen. But it
also allows me to get outside, which is my other love.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I think that's great that you were able to combine
both a passion and a profession that you know was
a good profession, because a lot of people blog, but
they don't make any money. It's not sustainable. They do
it on the side. It's just catch can It is
actually really hard to maintain and grow and develop a
blog and make it successful. What would you recommend to
(07:32):
all the people who were listening and watching, going wow,
how did you do that? Why can't I do that?
My subtack's not making any money, my blog's not Can
you know before we dive into the book, just some
words of wisdom.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
It's very hard to say because when I started in
twenty ten, blogging was still relatively new. The landscape has
changed a lot with AI and I mean just evolving
technology now. I mean when I started coding, I was
doing it by hand, and you now like you don't
need to ever do anything by hand. You can just
(08:08):
kind of drag and drop and click like it. You know.
They make things so easy now, but yet at the
same time, it makes it a lot harder for someone
to break into this industry. You know. There's a lot
more competition. You know, the way that people can sue
media is different now, so you really have to find
your audience. And I think for anybody who is entering
(08:30):
blogging or you know, influencing or you know, anything in
that realm right now, so much of that has to
focus on video, you know, because that's the way that
a lot of people consume. But I'm kind of old fashioned,
you know. I'm just I guess I'm just from this
different generation where I still love the written word. I
still love books, you know. I love to read actual
(08:53):
pages and not just look at my screen all day.
And I guess, like, because I've worked in media for
so long, when I am not working, I like to
be off of media, you know. And I think, like
for people who want to get into it, you really
do have to find a balance, because otherwise you had
burned up quite easily.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Oh I am so with you. I first of all,
I you know, we really only started doing video for Fearless,
Fabulous You and my other podcasts that Connect the Table
recently because we were doing it on Skype, and Skype
went out of business. And then my people who I
work with are like, well, you have no choice, You're
going You're going to be doing the video even though
we have audio.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
So it's been an adjustment.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
But you know what has been great because I think
my numbers are better, you know, even better because people
like to see. It's a challenge because I'm a written girl.
I love you know, books, I'm holding your book right here.
What people said be PDFs and publicists, I kind of
bristle because I really don't want to read a book
on a computer. I like to look at the book
and I have here, you know, a copy of the
(09:55):
Root sixty six cookbook, and I have like little you know,
I always like have little pieces of a napkin and
all the pages I want to talk about because that's
what I do. I support public libraries too. I support
them and everybody out there support your public library. It's
more than just books. They're amazing.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Do you have a great library?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
You go to I do well, we have we have
two and bend. We're still a relatively small town I
lived before. There's actually an amazing new library that is
about to open in the central, the center of town.
It's massive, so I'm pretty excited to check that out.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
But I tell you, in another career, I'd be a libraryan.
Now my library is like three blocks away. I go
there all the time. But would say it about library.
You could check out some you can check out crafts.
You can I donate all my mother's gift wrapping to
the craft place in shatn. You have a big library there.
There's cook where you can check you.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Library also, like you can check out tools like forest
passes and museum passes and things like that from our library.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yeah, we get the culture pass here in New Orleans,
and you know we can go to museums for free.
And I don't think people really realize that. Well, you've
written a couple of books, and this one is Quarto Publishing,
So are all of them with Quarto Publishing?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
They are, Yes, I've been since twenty thirteen. I've been
for a long time.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
They do a good job. I mean, I think you
know there are a couple of books out there by publishers.
I can spot them now and I go, okay, I
like them. When there's a few where I want to
like slap the publisher and say make the font bigger.
I won't say who that is, but I railed on
them the recently, so I couldn't read the book. So
this is a fun book. There have been other Root
(11:40):
sixty six cookbooks. If I google, so I want to everybody,
it's the Root sixty six Cookbook Best Recipes from every
sap Along Baby by Linda Lee. How when you did
research did you decide to differentiate and make this book
your imprint for this particular time, which is getting toward
the centennial of the Highway.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Well, this book. When I was pitched this book by
my editor, he was seeing it as I haven't. The
last book that I did was the National Parks Cookbook,
and it was different from the ones previous to that
because it really did involve me traveling to a good
(12:20):
part of the parks that I featured in the book.
And it's sort of like the recipes are divided between
my own original recipes as well as recipes that I
got from these iconic National Park lodges and restaurants. So
when we were thinking about how to structure the Rood
sixty six cookbook, you know, I had to travel. I
(12:45):
mean I had to travel a lot further, you know.
I mean, and living in Oregon, neither endpoint of ROUT
sixty six is close to where I am, so I
had to either drive and start in La first, or
drive and start in Chicago. So even though the mother
road is only about twenty four hundred miles, I drove
seven thousand miles. Was your mother of.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Two your mother of two adorable daughters? And the photographer
is the photographer? Is is Will Taylor? Your husband partner?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Yes? And he has photographed all of my books.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
All right, Well he's a good photographer. You're lucky you.
I was curious about how you broke this trip. I mean,
it's that's the reason I haven't done it, because my
husband doesn't drive, don't get me. And I drove. We
lived just so you know, I lived. We lived on
the road after we sold our house and did extended
road trip. So we just drove up and down the
East coast and here and here, and people are following us.
(13:37):
So obviously I have a thing about road trips. How
did you break this trip up and do your you know,
how many trips did you actually have to take to
travel sixty six? And how did you travel? Were you
in an suv? Were you in a camper? Just because
people are probably watching or listening to this, going that
sounds cool, How did you do it? What do you
need to do?
Speaker 3 (13:59):
So many years ago? I'd say probably ten at least
ten years ago when I lived in LA I have
actually driven with my then boyfriend now husband. We've done
small parts of Root sixty six before that were through
California and through Arizona, and so I was always familiar
with that, but I didn't really know the extent of
(14:19):
the road. You know, like when you're on like a
non Route sixty six road trip, you see the sign
on the road, You're like, oh, that's cool, I'm on
a historic highway. But then like, that's not your destination,
so you don't really think too much about it. And
when I was researching how to do this book in
the timeframe that I had for writing a cookbook, we
realized that since we have two young children there when
(14:42):
we did this last summer, they were five and eight
years old, we realized that we had to do it
over the summer, you know, which is a pretty when
you think about how long, how far you have to travel,
that's a short period of time to do it, and
we did it all in one shot because summer is
really the best time to see that country without running
(15:04):
into you know, snow or tornadoes, a lot that can
get you out there. We have a twenty four foot
RV and many winning we named Rwanda for Wanda Lust
and it's amazing because we did the whole trip in
the r V. So we drove from Oregon down to
(15:26):
LA where we did have a lot of friends and
so we spent a week there there. There's actually a
significant part of Route sixty six. It travels, you know,
California's obviously a very large state and going from the
coast to the inland border with Arizona, like there is
a lot to see there, and Root City six is
kind of hidden in plain sight within LA, you know,
(15:48):
because it wraps like it starts in Santa Monica, but
then it also goes through West Hollywood and like the
middle of LA and it goes through Highland Park, place
that you don't really think and then of course like
through the Inland Empire. So doing all of that takes
like a fair amount of time because I was trying
to devote time to really seeing these restaurants in person,
(16:14):
meeting with owners or chefs, you know, as much as
I could. And due to the nature of the trip,
we were only driving during the day for the most part,
trying to cover like a lot of ground, but also
trying to take our time, so most of the trip
we had to just wing it. You know. If I
had meetings planned, it really could not be planned or
(16:34):
scheduled more than two days in advance or three days
in advance, because I wouldn't know exactly when I was
getting to a particular point on our map. Yeah, and
I didn't want to I didn't want to rush us through,
you know, a place if it turned out to be
awesome and we wanted to spend more time there, you know,
(16:55):
or you know, I wanted to save time for like
spontaneous side trips. And we actually made it so that
we did not veer off more than like five miles
off for sixty six because otherwise there's so many side
trips that you can take, Like we skipped the Grand
Canyon on this one. Because it was too far, because
there's so much to see just in like that one
small part of Arizona that we are in.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Well, so the first tip with me to get an
RV or you can rent an RV. You can, you know,
you don't have to buy an RV because it's going
to be more affordable and easier to although RV's. You know,
people asked us if we were gonna get RV when
we were road tripping, and I'm not driving an RV.
I could barely drive my SPP. And two, parking in
RV is a big pia pain in the ass because
(17:37):
you got to go to a certain area. You can't
just like tool in the downtown and park your RV
in many places, I would think it'd be really hard
to I mean, this sounds like such an amazing endeavor
and something I would dream to do. I mean, I
think about the road trips I've taken, Oh, the book
I should be writing. Well, I think like the hardest
part is making appointments to see all these restaurants because
(17:59):
you know, you can't go during rush time, so you
can't just like tootle in at lunch and try to
get an interview. You can eat lunch, but then you
got to schedule it turn that downtime and it looks
like a lot of these places don't have a lot
of downtime, or maybe they do because of where they're located.
But I would I could see where it'd be hard
to just have a book schedule out and you kind
of wing it. But that kind of makes it fun, right.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
It does, you know, and sometimes it's hit or miss
because I would really want to visit a place, you know,
when we're in Oklahoma, I had a restaurant on my list,
you know, like I needed to go see, and it
turns out that they were on summer break for like
two weeks.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Restaurants. Was like, I can't understand, Like they would be
closed on like Sundays or I mean on Mondays or Tuesdays.
You know, that's kind of standard across the board. But
then I'd show up on like a Thursday and they're like,
oh no, we're we're on summer vacation because these a
lot of them are mom and pop restaurants, you know,
so they need their summer vacation. I was like, oh, well,
I can't, I'll be here in two weeks.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
So did you run into any where you know? Yes,
you're correct. Warm summer is a great time to do it,
although it could be baking hot in the Midland.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
It's very hot hot. It's sorry ever experienced.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, I went to Texas, so I'm from the I'm
from Tennessee and lived to New York and now we
live in New Orleans. When I went to Brian, Texas
to do a grape stop in August, I thought I
was gonna die because the Midwest heat is not the
New Orleans heat, is not the New York heat. It's
not the Tennessee heat.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
It's a different It's like.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
An oven heat. It's quite amazing. It's prairie heat that
my husband David said, did you have any bumps? I mean,
were there bumps along the road like weather or did
you get flat higher? Did you have to deal with
anything like that or was fairly.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
I would say that the toughest part of the trip
was going through the Inland Empire of California. So that's
when we were dry, living through like Riverside County, Sentai
County into Arizona like needles. It was I remember looking
at my weather app and it was one hundred and
twenty degrees and the Arvy is amazing, but it had
(20:18):
a little bit of trouble keeping the fridge and the
freezer cold, you know, while we were there and we
oh my gosh, I can't think. We were in Yurmo, California,
in the middle of nowhere, extremely hot, and we pulled
into a campground there to stop and you know, kind
of let the RV relax for a day, and we
(20:40):
were in the pool all day and the pool was
kind of once you were you know, once the temperatures
get to be that way, there's no such thing as
like a cool pool.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, and the girls were probably like, why are we
doing this? Mom? I just want to go swimming, because
you know, you got young girls, what are the.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Names, Gemma and Ember.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
And they're just adorable. In the book, you have a
really cute I can't show it, but there they are,
you and Jenna Ember, like at this big sign at
Illinois Route sixty six. So it's so cute. So you
went from California to Illinois, yeah versus Okay, so you
did it technically in reverse? Yeah you did. So we
did eight states, right, eight states over two thousand miles.
(21:21):
Let's talk about some of the stops, and because I
love the little storytelling, I thought the recipes were fine.
Some of them are really crazy resumes that has me dishes.
And I have to say one of the things I
loved is it seems like every single one of these
eating establishments has an amazing road sign or statue as well.
So it's not just the food.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
It's like the.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Landscaping of the photos. It's just incredible. The book actually
starts in Illinois, and you started in California. Which way
would you? Let's follow the book, so your your first
your first your first state is Illinois. Now here's what
I know. I have been to what actually one of
the restaurants in this book, the Burghoff. I actually looked
(22:06):
them all up on the James Spirit Awards, which I
started to see who else had become a classic? And
you know, there was only one, the Burghoff m none
of the others. I couldn't believe it. I could believe it,
even lou Mitchell's. So let's pick one. We'll pick one
from each state. And why was it really interesting? What
you want to share about it? And we have about
(22:27):
thirty minutes that were cool?
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Okay, okay, So in Illinois. I'm gonna go with something
that's a little less conventional, you know, because I feel
like I read sixty six. In Illinois, everybody goes to
the Berghoff and lou Mitchell's. They are the classics and icons,
like they've been there for decades, right. But what I
(22:51):
really enjoyed, and keep in mind that I started my
trip in reverse, you know, So I went through like
a phase of lots of corn dogs, hot dogs, hands
and yeah takes like my weight and milkshakes. So I
discovered this small town and you know, like sometimes like
(23:14):
I roll into like sometimes we roll into a town
and I'm not really sure what we're going to do there,
you know, it just so happens with like timing and
how far we've driven, how fast we've driven, we end
up in this town. We're still under sixty six. So
I was like, Okay, well what's around here? And that's
part of the discovery because a lot of these restaurants
don't have websites or any kind of web presence or
Instagram or you know, anything like that. And that's what
(23:38):
makes sixty six so fun, is the discovery once you're
actually on the road. So I found this Filipino street
food restaurant called Lola's. And I was so intrigued because
it is in the middle of nowhere, and it's not
the it's not a region in Illinois where you expect
(24:00):
find a lot of ethnic food, and it's a tiny town.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
So at theay of the town, what's the name of
the town, I'm looking at it right now. There were
some towns in here I never heard of. I mean,
you know, love was It's Crispy Chicken, Adoba Rings Pontiac.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Pontiac, Illinois.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Yeah, So when we pulled into downtown Pontiac, I found
this restaurant. You know, from the outside, it doesn't look
like much compared to others sixty six restaurants. You know,
there's no muffler men i'm outside, there's no big sign.
It's it's like a pretty it's in an old strip mall.
But we walked in and it was so cute inside,
(24:45):
and the owner, Anna, happened to be working there. And
a lot of times I don't introduce myself right away
because I just want to I just want to be
treated like a normal customer, you know, and enjoy the food.
And so when I walked in, we ordered some of
their main dishes, and the crispy Adobo chicken wings was
(25:11):
one of them. We also had a few other things
like noodles, pork belly. I mean, the food was absolutely amazing.
It is just the type of like home cooked food
that you crave when you've been on the road for
a while, even if you haven't been on the road
for as long as we have. It's just nice to
go into a restaurant where it feels like it's got
(25:31):
like such a great family vibe as far as the
people who are there, because it's you know, like Lois
is a place where it really depends on the locals,
not tourists, you know, which also makes it different.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
I have to think of a lot of these restaurants
are like that because they're in such small Amy Pontiac,
who's ever heard of it? Right? The one that caught
my eye was in Springfield, and it's the Morale Mushroom
Pie because it's mould Anner's restaurant. Oh my god, look amazing.
I mean, I know, i'd really have been in anywhere
except for so I learned a lot about these, you know,
(26:02):
tiny little places like Litchville jew Belts Bakery, and restaurant.
You know, never heard of some of these places. There's
a lot of pastry in the book too, by the way,
Yeah yeah, So then we go. Now that was Illinois.
There's some I thought the Buttersprits cookies look kind of fun.
And I haven't tried anything because I just got back
from Italy. But it was nice as I don't see
(26:24):
a lot of pasta here and right now I'm off
pasta for a while. But we these coleslaw look kind
of good. So then we go to Missouri. Okay, my
dad was from Saint Louis. You have a beautiful photo
of the arch. Thank you will, beautiful photo of the arch.
I went to Saint Louis quite a bit as a child.
I remember the Crown Candy Kitchen which is in the book,
(26:47):
and the Heavenly hash. I happened to remember that. What
is in the state. And you have something called the
heart stopping BLT. I'll let my husband. My husband can
eat that one. I don't lot to beating. I'm like,
you know either way. And then what I also liked
was they did this in Chadnooga where up the curly
(27:07):
queue dog in Brentwood and they cut the hot dog
up and they did this at this I think the
very quaint and Chattanooga and they cut the hot dog up.
But so it turns into a little circle to go
on the hamburger bud and I's famous Frank and I'm like, wow,
I remember that as a child.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Yeah. So that place, the Curly Queue Dog at Carl's
Drive In. We really love that place because it's this
very small drive in restaurant where it's kind of you
can enter the building from two sides because they have
a like booth seating counter seating and you only get
I think like eight seats on each side of this counter,
(27:47):
and then their kitchen is right in the middle and
from there they we sat next to Pam who is
dishing up all of the hamburgers, you know, and you
can like watch them make you or burger and then
they can serve. They have IBC root beer there and
they have the original formula that was given to them
decades ago. And so you're just sitting at this counter
(28:10):
eating the Curly Cue dog or like a smash burger
and it's so simple, but it's so fresh because you
can I guess it's because you're watching them doing it
and it's just so efficient, like they do what they do,
they do it really well. And it's one of those
places where people are like lined up at the door,
you know, like waiting for you to finish to like
(28:31):
claim one of those it's like sixteen seats, you know,
on either side of the building.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, it was very small. You probably can't make reservations
in a lot of these places. I think they're supposed
to just bad.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
You do. Yeah, a lot of them, I guess, like
in the book, like half of them would be very
casual fast places, in the other half are like really
nice sit down restaurants. And so you do have like
your pick, you know, of what you would like to try.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I like this one. We're on sixty six. It's in Cuba, Cuba, Missouri, right,
and the recipe is cream a chicken and walwai soup,
which sounds pretty basic and easy to make and it
looks delicious. The type of thing and it was. It
was called the four Way because it was a filling station.
(29:22):
A lot of these buildings were something else that maybe
they become eatery or they were part of something else.
Because I would think when you're on this historic road,
you got to do more than just serve food sometimes, right, Well, a.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Lot of you know, sixty six has evolved a lot
over time. You know, back when in the heyday, fifties
and the sixties, they were filling stations or motor courts,
like motor lodges, because they were catering to the needs
of the people who are traveling along sixty six. Right
nowadays you have the Interstate, you know, so people are
(29:56):
really driving on these freeways and not on not on this.
I mean, I don't even I wouldn't even call Root
sixty six a highway because some of it is just
so slow going.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
How many how many lanes is Route sixty six?
Speaker 3 (30:12):
It varies. You can be on just like one lane
and certain areas to mostly two lane, and then if
you're lucky, you'll be in like a nicer paved four
lane road. But some of Route sixty six have just
become like residential farm roads, you know. And they've preserved
certain areas of it where it's turned into like a
(30:33):
bike path or it's turned into a like a they
kept the like there's one section that is a preserved
brick road, red brick road, wow, And it is kind
of like just like it's you know, it's next to
the main road, but you can veer off onto this
red brick road if you'd like.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Are there parts of it? You know as you travel
Right now we're still in the Midwest. Does it change
and get more highway ish when you get out to
the far West.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Oh, definitely. Once you get into the far West in California,
it because like completely paved and you're going through a
city lots of stoplights.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
I noticed that in the book too, because I mean,
most of these towns I'd never heard of. They look
really small. This is the type of thing, Linda, that
Dave and I did when we were doing our year
and a half road trip. Because I have a few
of super highways, I hate driving them, so we go
off the highway, drive the small ones, and whenever we
see anything that looks interesting quirky of foody, you know,
like a family owned little bit, we would swerve in
(31:39):
and just have you know, I'm writing about it right now.
We would just have something to eat, photographic go I
want this place, you know, So this is really great.
So we're we're in the heartland. We're still a mis
Sorry I want.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
To say that, you know, like, depending on where you
live in the country, you can really start the route
from either end. But it's really nice starting from Cago
because Illinois they've really got it figured out as far
as the signage and marking all of the points of
interest good like they really they have a sixty six
Commission in Illinois and they really care about preserving the
(32:16):
road in the history there, and so you absolutely cannot
get lost. I did.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
There is a website. I mean because I did. There
is a sixty six because they're doing a centennial, so
there is a lot when you go on to do
your research. So I think that's helpful too if somebody
wants to really plan the trip. You know, I can
think of most sorts of marketing things I'd be doing
around this Carthage. I've heard of Carthage Mom. She strolls
(32:42):
Kansas I have never been to. I accidentally joined the
World War One Museum in Kansas City thinking I was
joining the World War Two Museum in New Orleans to
go to a great gas beef party. And I got
all dressed up to go to the gasbee party. And
as we're praying to go, I said David, check out
the parking lot because there's pre parking, and he went
on the website. He said, Melanie, this is in Kansas City,
(33:05):
and I realized I bought I literally bought a membership
to the World War One Museum. And I'm all dressed
up in my Gatsby gear to go to a party
that was in another state. So I keep saying to David,
we need to at least go to Kansas City because
I'm a member of the World War One Museum. So
the only thing I knew about Kansas City, besides the
(33:26):
cocktail scene in Kansas City and the Jay Rigger and
Strouds Choke your Own Chicken and barbecue. I'd never heard
of any of these places. So talk to me about
Kansas because really I don't know a lot about Kansas
They said, Dorothy.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
I feel a lot of people would probably echo that,
especially because Recissist six only goes through thirteen miles.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Of when it's a short chapter.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
There's still a lot to see. Either. They do a
good job of, you know, really leaning into that rich
sixty six esthetic. So you know, cars, the Pixar movie
that has all of the you know, there's like all
these little animated cars and it talks about preserving this
town called Radiator Springs. It's one of my favorite movies
(34:19):
because we watched it before you went on this trip.
So there is cars memorabilia on a lot of these
places to draw in visitors, and Kansas has lots of
uh they have like these model cars that mimic the
actual cars from the movie just kind of like puss
(34:39):
it up as like their city art along the roadway,
you know, which makes it really fun.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Yeah. So now, yeah, so at Kansas is this I'm
looking so where I go like this, everybody, I'm looking
at the book because I can't physically hold it up
because it's it's you know, Kansas is the sun Farmers.
I just want to say, right here, Linda, when I
was a little girl, I had a game board called
Game of the States, and I love that game board
(35:07):
more than any of my other game boards because I
learned about all the states and I planned road trips
and I'd saw Route sixty six. And my dad was
so proud of me that he this is a great
thing to do. Parents. He signed me up for every
Tourists Commission visitors Center in the United States to semi stuff.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
That's really wonderful.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
So I got like buckets of mail from every state.
It was a great way to learn geography. I could
cancer you why you're doing this. Did you have like
a reading list for the girls or anything. To make
this like an educational experience, we.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Had them create scrapbooks, okay, so we had like all
the different supplies for them in the RV, and every
place that we went, they would like we would collect
lots of memorabilia like receipts or stickers, stamps. A few
of these places, like in Illinois. In Illinois or Oklahoma,
they would have like grew sixty six passports you know
(36:04):
where you visit them participating museum or store or you know,
exhibit and they would give you like a little stamp
in your passport. So the kids did a lot of that.
They also we visited a couple of National parks and
they did the Junior Ranger Badge program like they did
in the way Arch, So they would in their scrap
books they would illustrate, you know, like what they did
(36:25):
that day, or like write down the names of the
places that they visited. We also had polaroid cameras so
I could like print the pictures up for them right away.
Where we were and they would just like paste into
the scrap book, all old style. So that was what
we did for them. And I had Cordos sent me
their other Root sixty six books that are being revised
(36:47):
and updated for the centennial, and so I followed a
couple of them that are written by an author named
Jim Hinckley, who is one of authorities on Root sixty six,
and I used his book his various books as well
as you know, just the maps on our phone to
sort of guide us along the way, you know, make
sure that we're staying on the right road, and also
(37:10):
you know, visiting places that should be visited.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
So the other books were helpful for you, because I
was wondering about that, because you know, when I went
on to Amazon and did some googling, the other books
kept pig and no, this isn't the right one, because
I have the book right here. So again it's the
Route sixty six cookbooks. Not to say that I have
never read the other words, but you new need to
distinguish that.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Yeah, there is another Root sixty six cookbook that was
published a while ago by Marion Clark. Yes, she has
since passed away, and I've looked at her book too,
before I started mind to see like her like what
she was covering, you know, which is how I was
able to differentiate my book from what was already written.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
You know, because she Yeah, how'd you do that? What
did you say? What were some things you thought you
needed to do or wanted to do?
Speaker 3 (38:00):
My book follows more or less a similar formula as
my other books, you know, Like we really focused on photography,
so everywhere that we went, like if we couldn't take
a photo of the food, then we really wanted to
capture the landscape, you know, because this is a road trip. Yeah,
and all of like the landscape, you know, where it's
(38:21):
like the muffler men, like which are those big giant figurines,
to like the storefronts, to the restaurants, the signposts, you know,
all of that is part of the landscape. And we
really wanted to like take people on like this little
adventure while they are going through the book. So even
if you are not buying it specifically for the recipes,
(38:42):
like we I wanted to present it as like, you know,
it's like a it's a history book and a travel
book as well, you know, because you could really follow
the follow along on like how these restaurants have evolved,
how the buildings have evolved as well, the owners who
have come and go, like the next generation that now
runs it, and how it's different. And even since this book,
(39:05):
I mean technically the book has not come out yet.
It comes out in two weeks. But since this book
has been printed, I know a couple of the restaurants
in the book are either for sale or you know,
on the verge of selling, just because of how, you know,
how things move so quickly in the restaurant business, and
(39:27):
especially like the landscape of Ride sixty six, it's.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Also and your your restaurant's going in and out of business.
You just hope, you know. And this is an evergreen show.
So two weeks is really negligible because people could be
listening to this show next year. So forget the two
weeks part. Just it's out. We're going to be in Oklahoma.
We're going to keep traveling. We're in Oklahoma. I know
nothing about Alahoma. But David, my husband, loves the Sooners,
(39:51):
not that he's ever been to Oklahoma. He just adopted
the Sooners because his college, au in American University, did
not have a football team. We watch a lot of sooners.
What is Oklahoma other than Oklahoma? Talk to me about Oklahoma.
You know, I was intrigued by this one dish which
I would never eat or cook, called calf fries.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Yeah. So Oklahoma serves a very hearty, stick to your
ribs kind of food, right. Yeah, that served up with
this beautiful hospitality that you know, we experienced all through
the Heartland with Oklahoma. One of the things that I
remember the most, because we did this trip from west
(40:39):
to east, was went through a period like once we
left the West coast, there was absolutely no water, no
body of water that we would want to get into,
Like we weren't going to swim in the Rio Grande now.
And you're going through like Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, so
(41:00):
it's really hot in summer. And I remember once we
reached Oklahoma, I found a campground that was on a
lake and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing.
I can't wait to get into the lake. And that
was like my first memory is we were in Arcadia, Oklahoma,
by the round Barn, right by the giant Neon lit
(41:23):
Route sixty six bottle on the road, and we went
swimming in our first lake, you know, on like that
whole trip, and from then on it got so great
because then we were getting into like a region that
had lots of water, you know. So I mean that's
always like my favorite memory of it.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Well, you know what, I like the in Oklahoma, and
we'll keep traveling along. I thought I liked it. The
green Chili apple pie from the Green Chili Kitchen. It
just sounds yummy, except there's no green chilis in it.
I was all excited, but it's just the name of
the place, the concept of having green chilies there and
the then.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
The apple pie. There is green chili in it, Oh
there is.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
I don't see it that chopped green chili, Bueno chop
green Chili.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
Green Chili Kitchen. They are one of the well I
think they were. I believe they were the first new
Mexican style restaurant in Yukon, Oklahoma, and they serve authentic
New Mexican fair there really delicious food.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
I just love the concept of green Chili's and that
kick with the apples. It just sounds like a great combo.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
Their Grandma's recipe.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Oklahoma, So Texas is a big state. Did it take
you forever to get through it. I mean, and this
is where the midpoint is for talking about how long
a tank? And where's the midpoint?
Speaker 3 (42:55):
So the red sixty six crosses the panhandle of Texas
point you know that you read about and all of
this D sixty six folklore is supposed to be in Adrian, Texas.
But I do have a small chapter in my book
that counters what the actual midpoint is. So it's funny
(43:15):
because when you get to Adrian, they have a white
line drawn on the road and there's a selfie stand
across the highway from the Midpoint Cafe, and they're like,
this is the mid Like you have officially reached the
middle of rout sixty six. You can take a picture
and it's actually really fun. And the Midpoint Cafe serves
up delicious pies. They are known as ugly crust pies
(43:38):
because that was their origin of how it started, but
nowadays the crust is actually quite beautiful.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Ugly crust pies naturally, I can't make a decent pie
crust period that makes.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
Us a lot. When I was making the pies too,
because I do make all of these recipes and then
I photograph them for the book. I was like, oh,
thank god, this ugly crust pie is I'm not the best.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
Of yesmmar, do you have to really baky?
Speaker 3 (44:03):
I like.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
I like the stuff that my husband does where he
just tosses stuff in baking. He's a science. You get
a follow the rules.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Yes, ugly crust pies, because my pie fit right in.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Well, the elvis of the crust pie really looks sloppy
and gooey. Ooh g. It'd be really big down here
in New Orleans and Tennessee and Tupelo. And it's you know,
a peanut butter and banana. I guess that's why it's
called elvis. Is there marshmallow here too? What looks like
it should be Marshmallo's. It's one of those big meringue
(44:36):
pies and oohy gooey that must have been fun to
make with Hershey's chocolate syrup, bananas, whip creep and peanut butter.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
Whoa, yeah, so what what I'll say? What's interesting about
the Midpoint Cafe? So, first of all, the midpoint is subjective, right,
because sixty six has changed a lot over the years,
and they wiped out like over one hundred miles. Also,
right around Santa Fe when they took out that segment.
So Adrian, Texas is when you're when you if you're
(45:06):
like a map geek and you're really plotting this out.
It's really not the midpoint. It's not the middle, but
it's close. It's like within fifty to one hundred miles
of what the middle of Route sixty six might be
in today's today's world, I guess. But at Midpoint. Their
Ugly Crest Pie was baked by this wonderful woman named Joanne,
(45:29):
and she when the when the Midpoint Cafe sold, she
moved on, you know, to like other jobs and other interests.
But when she retired as a retirement project, she decided
to open her own bakery. So she is in a
neighboring town of Vega. And so if you want the
(45:50):
original ugly Ugly Crust pie, you could go to her place.
Joanne is at what is she Mama Mama Joe's Pies
and Sweets, okay, And so you can sample her pies
and then go to the Adrian Cafe and okay, I
(46:10):
mean the Midpoint Cafe and Adrian and then try their
pies because that is like where the Ugly Crest.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
When that day and you drive across Texas, it's kind
of near Louisiana. I'm gonna look it out now. Okay,
we have three more states. We got to keep driving.
So New Mexico. I've been to Santa fe Man. When
you get to the New Mexico chapter, you get into
a lot of chili relinos. You really see the New
Mexican flavor in the and the and the South of
the border flavor here. Yeah, it's quite amazing until you
(46:41):
get to this weird thing called the tattooed lady and
the snoring dog literally has fruit loops on the on
that hot dog.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Can I say that I really love hot dog and
wants to make it a home.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
It's so weird. Okay, maybe they were sick of chili
rainos because it's a lot of Really there's a lot
of New Mexico and basoli Denlas reinos, Chillis reinos, Chillis reinos. Again,
you gotta like Mexico. I love Southwestern food. I wish there.
I don't think it exists in Louisiana. But the foot
(47:14):
loops is an odd addition to that hot dog. It's
the tattooed lady in the snowering dish. But you know,
to each their own.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
It is, you know, yes, don't knock it because it
is surprisingly good because you don't taste so much of
the fruity flavor, but you get that very nice crunch
that contrasts with all the other textures in that hot dog.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
Well, New Mexico's on my list to go revisit. It's
spent a long time and I'd love to do that
and road trip there. I'd like to road trip all
these places, but New Mexico very high my list. Okay,
two more states. Arizona. I love it, and you know
you've got winslow Arizona. I've been to Arizona a lot,
but not to any places you mentioned. What's weird is
you see stuff in here like savice, which you don't
(47:55):
think about in hallibutsavice which you don't envision in Arizona.
And of course my favorite, the Roadkill Cafe. Really rack
of raccoon, but that's not really raccoon.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
That is not real raccoon. But so the Roadkill Cafe,
it was really funny. When I was speaking with the owner,
they just wanted to come up with a fun concept,
you know that people would think about, and so their
whole menu has names like that like rack of Raccoon
and thumper, hit the bumper, chicken that almost crossed the road.
Like it's hilarious, right, like what they named all of
(48:29):
their different dishes. And she said, for a long time,
these menus, their actually venues, were getting stolen by these
tourists who wanted a souvenir, to the point where they're like, okay,
well now we're going to print extra menus and sell
them at our gift shop so you can really like
buy them and take them home, like please don't take
our menus. And she felt like it was, you know,
as payback because back in the day, like she would
(48:50):
like sneak like fun little souvenirs like that before she
was up a restaurant owner.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Well, I you know, I could see where people would be,
particularly in the era of social media. And you said,
a lot of people, a lot of these places don't
even have a social media account. Pity because they would
have been great for them to get free pr but
you know, everybody takes everything now and it's a little
more intrusive Arizona. Interesting fact because at the beginning of
each chapter you can have a little factoid, Arizona can
(49:15):
claim the longest uninterrupted stretch of the original highway between
Seligman and Kingmen. I love Arizona. I think that sounds
neat because I would think one of the challenges is
modernization and also a bunch of cuts. You know, you're
going to maintain this very old road. Budget cuts are problem,
and modernization and strip malls and developers are the constant,
(49:40):
you know, monster at the door.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
Right, Yeah, definitely. I mean yeah, when you travel Route
sixty six and a lot of these small towns, you
know there is a I mean there was like a
sign that I saw in one of the towns where
it was like f the interstate. Yeah, you know because
in the history, when you're research into what happened torout
(50:03):
sixty six, like the building of like I forty I
forty four, like that is what really caused the downfall
of a lot of these towns that became they became
ghost towns. Yeah, took away a lot of their business
and their traffic and like their populations.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
It makes me sad that it's happening all over the place.
And again I travel, my heart sinks when I hit
the strip mall section of every place. We call it
the industrial section, and you just and during we traveled
during COVID, there were so many places around the business.
It was just really upsetting. Okay, then we got to
go to California. This is the last day, and the
stop you started there were ending there. And I love
(50:38):
Santa Monica. I've been there a lot. I knew, you know,
like tail of the Pop. I knew about Mels Drive in.
I had some plates and cups from there actually, and
I love Grandma's Chicken supermo. That is something I planned
to make because I love a good chicken soup. But
what was interesting about California is and you get into
(50:58):
the Asian you know, throughout all these the recipes were
all to reflect the heritage of immigrant in the immigrants
to settled there where it was German or Filipino or Italian,
and here you're seeing a lot of Asian influence and
multi Asian too, not just you know, because Asian Asia, right,
(51:19):
Asian fusion. So talk to me about that, which is
also where you live, so you can talk about also
how it's changed since you live there.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
So what I really loved about the whole drive is that,
you know, like the food changes so much depending on
the region that you're in. And I touch on this
in my writing in the book, is that so much
of the food when people think of read sixty six
and I did too, And before I began this trip,
I was thinking, it's all like I pictured Americana like
(51:48):
American food as you know, your hot dogs and your
bolts of chili and your hamburgers and things like that.
And I, you know, the more I looked into it,
like Americana really like Americana really envelops all of the
people that came to this country and settled it and
you know, brought their recipes, brought their cultures from where
(52:12):
they came from, and then they incorporated into where they
live now. You know. So when you look at Americana,
I mean the like all of that great Southwestern food
in New Mexico, like that is, like the chilerinals like
those are Americana, and in California, like I have the
(52:33):
the spicy seafood soup that's at the al right right, mushrooms.
I mean, there was just a lot of interesting dishes
that reflect yeah, and the people who came here, like
the chefs, the families that settled here and they've been
here now for like generations, and they brought that food
with them and now it's just firmly woven into like
(52:53):
the fabric of that community.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
Well, I think it's great. I think it's been a
great road trip with you.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
Today.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
We've got top it off because all great trips have
to come to an end and we have to wrap
it up. But we've been talking with Linda Lee. The
book is the Root sixty six cookbook, the best recipes
from every stop along the way. I hope I've wetted
your appetite for not only food but travel, because this
really is a travel book for me. First, a little
bit of history, a little bit of culture, travel book one.
(53:21):
If we have the book up, let's put it up
again and I'll do a wrap. Great, this is the
book take the trip because and Linda, thank you. I
want to thank you for sharing your enthusiasm with me
today on Fearless Fabulous. You listen, everybody up. I hope
you'll take a trip, have some adventure, step out of
your comfort zone, because life is too short just to
(53:42):
sit on your butt all day and dream about doing
things you want to do.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
Just do it.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
Because, as I always like to say it every show
and every show. You have a choice in life. Choose
to live on your terms and none on terms set
by you by other people. Always choose fearless and fabulous,
and always stay curious and ready to hit the road.
So may all your future journeys be a good one. Congratulations,
(54:08):
Thank you so much. Thank you for joining me. Thank
you everybody for joining me. I can't wait to plan
my next road trip. Never know where I'll be hitting
the road. Thank you,
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(00:20):
be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
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Speaker 2 (00:41):
Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host,
Melanie Young, And this is a beautiful day here in
New Orleans, Louisiana, where I currently live. Really it's amazing here,
like there is no more humidity. And I just got
back from an incredible trip to Italy. As you know,
I travel a lot for work, which is I write
(01:04):
about wine, food and travel and get to go to
some amazing places. We are going to have a really
fun show today to talk about a place I've actually
never been and I want to go. We're going to
talk about the Mother Road. It's called Route sixty six.
It's one of the most historic routes in the United States.
It's called the Mother Road due to its significance in
(01:25):
American history. It's the iconic highway that cuts through the
center of the United States from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California.
It covers eight states and many many historic landmarks and
of course eateries, which we're going to talk about today.
What's neat is this iconic highway, Route sixty six we've
(01:45):
established on November eleventh, nineteen twenty six. It spans two
four hundred and forty eight miles, connecting, as I said, Chicago,
Illinois to Santa Monica, and the highway is celebrating its
centennial one hundred years. Considering that it has withstood the
test of time and all the super highways built around it,
that's pretty amazing. What's exciting for me is I turned
(02:08):
sixty six this year and one of my dreams was
to drive Route sixty six and celebrate my birthday Root
sixty six. That didn't happen because it's a long drive
and I can't do it myself, but I still want
to go to I'd love to do the drive, or
at least from parts of it to parts of it.
Because frankly, with all the global traveling I've done, I've
(02:29):
actually seen very little of the heartland of the United States.
And Route sixty six, the Mother Road, really cuts through
the heart of the United States. And what's neat about
it is you will see many landscapes and also meet
some really interesting people who shape America. And we're going
to talk about that today and helpfulling what your appetite
(02:49):
for travel, but also for food, because I have with
me the author of the Root sixty six Cookbook, which
is a cookbook that will take you from from Chicago
to Santa Monica with recipes and landmarks along the way
in interesting stories, facts and figures. Here's a photograph of
it as well. It's called Root sixty six, The Root
(03:10):
sixty six Cookbook, America's Mother Road and the best recipes
from its roadside restaurants. If you love road tripping like
I do, and you love to discover really cool places,
from cute and family owned to totally quirky, you're going
to love this book and you're going to love this show.
So buckle up because we're joined today by Linda Lee,
(03:31):
who is the author of the Root sixty six Cookbook,
Linda is an acclaimed author of many books, including the
New Camp Cookbook, The Backyard Fire Cookbook, the CSA Cookbook,
and the No Ways Vegetable Cookbook, and the National Parks Cookbook,
which I'm a big National Parks person, so I can't
wait to get that cookbook. She has an award winning
blog called Gardenbetty dot Com. It's kind of cool because
(03:55):
there's a lot of gardening in there. She lives in
ben Oregon on a huge piece of property. Is really
an expert on gardening. She raises chickens. She's like me,
she's really into no food waste. And lucky Linda got
the contract to write this book because frankly, it's the
dream book I would love to write on the dream
trip I love to take in the United States. So
(04:16):
I'm happy to welcome to Fearless Fabulous you, the author
of the Root sixty six cookbook, Linda Lee.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Welcome, Hi there, good morning.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Wow. I you know you see I got the map
behind me because I really did say to my husband David,
I want to go celebrate my sixty sixth birthday of
Rout sixty six. But we didn't because we were already
somewhere else when I came up with the idea. But
there's always time because there's plenty of it. And as
you have said, and you really exude in the book,
(04:47):
it's always time to travel and do it while you can.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Right, absolutely, And with Root sixty six, it's also constantly evolving.
So I feel like it's a trick that you can't
really do just once. You know, definitely I would have
to return to it because there are so many, so
many points of interest that I skipped or did not
have time for or you know. I mean there's a
lot to pack in in one trip.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, And I mean it's a slam book. It's not
like a big, fat book. And there's a lot of
America to cover. So I'm sure it was frustrating to
winnow it down because you have sixty six recipes from
the Midwest of the West Coast. What's the neat about
it is the culture's change, the recipes change with the states.
I'm curious, Linda, where did you grow up first? Let's
start with your background and what inspired you to become
(05:31):
a writer.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
I grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm a first
generation American. I live in Bend, Oregon now. But in
between all of that, I have also lived in Los
Angeles area or spent a significant part of my life,
and I also lived in New York, so I've kind
of been all over the country.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Have you been working as a writer and author all
this time or did you have another career in switch?
Speaker 3 (05:55):
I did have another career I started. I went to
school for graphic design communications, and that's what I actually
did for a long time before I started my blog,
was web development and graphic design. Got a little bit
burnt out on coding, felt like I needed to get
outside and work with my hands more so. When I
(06:15):
lived in LA I lived in this beautiful property that
was a quarter acre, which is kind of unheard of
for LA and it had already a garden that was
established on there. I had never gardened before in my life.
This was actually back in twenty ten, and I was
so intrigued what was growing in the backyard. So I
started my blog Gardened Betty as a way to share
(06:37):
what I was doing with my friends. With my mother
in law, I think they were the only people who
were reading it at the time. It was just a
diary and I did not think anything of it. And
very shortly that blog became my career. So I pivoted
to becoming a blogger, which is nice because it still
it still involves coding and design and the things that
(07:02):
I love. I'm very much a tech geek and I've
been working in tech since I was eighteen. But it
also allows me to get outside, which is my other love.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I think that's great that you were able to combine
both a passion and a profession that you know was
a good profession, because a lot of people blog, but
they don't make any money. It's not sustainable. They do
it on the side. It's just catch can It is
actually really hard to maintain and grow and develop a
blog and make it successful. What would you recommend to
(07:32):
all the people who were listening and watching, going wow,
how did you do that? Why can't I do that?
My subtack's not making any money, my blog's not Can
you know before we dive into the book, just some
words of wisdom.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
It's very hard to say because when I started in
twenty ten, blogging was still relatively new. The landscape has
changed a lot with AI and I mean just evolving
technology now. I mean when I started coding, I was
doing it by hand, and you now like you don't
need to ever do anything by hand. You can just
(08:08):
kind of drag and drop and click like it. You know.
They make things so easy now, but yet at the
same time, it makes it a lot harder for someone
to break into this industry. You know. There's a lot
more competition. You know, the way that people can sue
media is different now, so you really have to find
your audience. And I think for anybody who is entering
(08:30):
blogging or you know, influencing or you know, anything in
that realm right now, so much of that has to
focus on video, you know, because that's the way that
a lot of people consume. But I'm kind of old fashioned,
you know. I'm just I guess I'm just from this
different generation where I still love the written word. I
still love books, you know. I love to read actual
(08:53):
pages and not just look at my screen all day.
And I guess, like, because I've worked in media for
so long, when I am not working, I like to
be off of media, you know. And I think, like
for people who want to get into it, you really
do have to find a balance, because otherwise you had
burned up quite easily.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Oh I am so with you. I first of all,
I you know, we really only started doing video for Fearless,
Fabulous You and my other podcasts that Connect the Table
recently because we were doing it on Skype, and Skype
went out of business. And then my people who I
work with are like, well, you have no choice, You're
going You're going to be doing the video even though
we have audio.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
So it's been an adjustment.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
But you know what has been great because I think
my numbers are better, you know, even better because people
like to see. It's a challenge because I'm a written girl.
I love you know, books, I'm holding your book right here.
What people said be PDFs and publicists, I kind of
bristle because I really don't want to read a book
on a computer. I like to look at the book
and I have here, you know, a copy of the
(09:55):
Root sixty six cookbook, and I have like little you know,
I always like have little pieces of a napkin and
all the pages I want to talk about because that's
what I do. I support public libraries too. I support
them and everybody out there support your public library. It's
more than just books. They're amazing.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Do you have a great library?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
You go to I do well, we have we have
two and bend. We're still a relatively small town I
lived before. There's actually an amazing new library that is
about to open in the central, the center of town.
It's massive, so I'm pretty excited to check that out.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
But I tell you, in another career, I'd be a libraryan.
Now my library is like three blocks away. I go
there all the time. But would say it about library.
You could check out some you can check out crafts.
You can I donate all my mother's gift wrapping to
the craft place in shatn. You have a big library there.
There's cook where you can check you.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Library also, like you can check out tools like forest
passes and museum passes and things like that from our library.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yeah, we get the culture pass here in New Orleans,
and you know we can go to museums for free.
And I don't think people really realize that. Well, you've
written a couple of books, and this one is Quarto Publishing,
So are all of them with Quarto Publishing?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
They are, Yes, I've been since twenty thirteen. I've been
for a long time.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
They do a good job. I mean, I think you
know there are a couple of books out there by publishers.
I can spot them now and I go, okay, I
like them. When there's a few where I want to
like slap the publisher and say make the font bigger.
I won't say who that is, but I railed on
them the recently, so I couldn't read the book. So
this is a fun book. There have been other Root
(11:40):
sixty six cookbooks. If I google, so I want to everybody,
it's the Root sixty six Cookbook Best Recipes from every
sap Along Baby by Linda Lee. How when you did
research did you decide to differentiate and make this book
your imprint for this particular time, which is getting toward
the centennial of the Highway.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Well, this book. When I was pitched this book by
my editor, he was seeing it as I haven't. The
last book that I did was the National Parks Cookbook,
and it was different from the ones previous to that
because it really did involve me traveling to a good
(12:20):
part of the parks that I featured in the book.
And it's sort of like the recipes are divided between
my own original recipes as well as recipes that I
got from these iconic National Park lodges and restaurants. So
when we were thinking about how to structure the Rood
sixty six cookbook, you know, I had to travel. I
(12:45):
mean I had to travel a lot further, you know.
I mean, and living in Oregon, neither endpoint of ROUT
sixty six is close to where I am, so I
had to either drive and start in La first, or
drive and start in Chicago. So even though the mother
road is only about twenty four hundred miles, I drove
seven thousand miles. Was your mother of.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Two your mother of two adorable daughters? And the photographer
is the photographer? Is is Will Taylor? Your husband partner?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Yes? And he has photographed all of my books.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
All right, Well he's a good photographer. You're lucky you.
I was curious about how you broke this trip. I mean,
it's that's the reason I haven't done it, because my
husband doesn't drive, don't get me. And I drove. We
lived just so you know, I lived. We lived on
the road after we sold our house and did extended
road trip. So we just drove up and down the
East coast and here and here, and people are following us.
(13:37):
So obviously I have a thing about road trips. How
did you break this trip up and do your you know,
how many trips did you actually have to take to
travel sixty six? And how did you travel? Were you
in an suv? Were you in a camper? Just because
people are probably watching or listening to this, going that
sounds cool, How did you do it? What do you
need to do?
Speaker 3 (13:59):
So many years ago? I'd say probably ten at least
ten years ago when I lived in LA I have
actually driven with my then boyfriend now husband. We've done
small parts of Root sixty six before that were through
California and through Arizona, and so I was always familiar
with that, but I didn't really know the extent of
(14:19):
the road. You know, like when you're on like a
non Route sixty six road trip, you see the sign
on the road, You're like, oh, that's cool, I'm on
a historic highway. But then like, that's not your destination,
so you don't really think too much about it. And
when I was researching how to do this book in
the timeframe that I had for writing a cookbook, we
realized that since we have two young children there when
(14:42):
we did this last summer, they were five and eight
years old, we realized that we had to do it
over the summer, you know, which is a pretty when
you think about how long, how far you have to travel,
that's a short period of time to do it, and
we did it all in one shot because summer is
really the best time to see that country without running
(15:04):
into you know, snow or tornadoes, a lot that can
get you out there. We have a twenty four foot
RV and many winning we named Rwanda for Wanda Lust
and it's amazing because we did the whole trip in
the r V. So we drove from Oregon down to
(15:26):
LA where we did have a lot of friends and
so we spent a week there there. There's actually a
significant part of Route sixty six. It travels, you know,
California's obviously a very large state and going from the
coast to the inland border with Arizona, like there is
a lot to see there, and Root City six is
kind of hidden in plain sight within LA, you know,
(15:48):
because it wraps like it starts in Santa Monica, but
then it also goes through West Hollywood and like the
middle of LA and it goes through Highland Park, place
that you don't really think and then of course like
through the Inland Empire. So doing all of that takes
like a fair amount of time because I was trying
to devote time to really seeing these restaurants in person,
(16:14):
meeting with owners or chefs, you know, as much as
I could. And due to the nature of the trip,
we were only driving during the day for the most part,
trying to cover like a lot of ground, but also
trying to take our time, so most of the trip
we had to just wing it. You know. If I
had meetings planned, it really could not be planned or
(16:34):
scheduled more than two days in advance or three days
in advance, because I wouldn't know exactly when I was
getting to a particular point on our map. Yeah, and
I didn't want to I didn't want to rush us through,
you know, a place if it turned out to be
awesome and we wanted to spend more time there, you know,
(16:55):
or you know, I wanted to save time for like
spontaneous side trips. And we actually made it so that
we did not veer off more than like five miles
off for sixty six because otherwise there's so many side
trips that you can take, Like we skipped the Grand
Canyon on this one. Because it was too far, because
there's so much to see just in like that one
small part of Arizona that we are in.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Well, so the first tip with me to get an
RV or you can rent an RV. You can, you know,
you don't have to buy an RV because it's going
to be more affordable and easier to although RV's. You know,
people asked us if we were gonna get RV when
we were road tripping, and I'm not driving an RV.
I could barely drive my SPP. And two, parking in
RV is a big pia pain in the ass because
(17:37):
you got to go to a certain area. You can't
just like tool in the downtown and park your RV
in many places, I would think it'd be really hard
to I mean, this sounds like such an amazing endeavor
and something I would dream to do. I mean, I
think about the road trips I've taken, Oh, the book
I should be writing. Well, I think like the hardest
part is making appointments to see all these restaurants because
(17:59):
you know, you can't go during rush time, so you
can't just like tootle in at lunch and try to
get an interview. You can eat lunch, but then you
got to schedule it turn that downtime and it looks
like a lot of these places don't have a lot
of downtime, or maybe they do because of where they're located.
But I would I could see where it'd be hard
to just have a book schedule out and you kind
of wing it. But that kind of makes it fun, right.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
It does, you know, and sometimes it's hit or miss
because I would really want to visit a place, you know,
when we're in Oklahoma, I had a restaurant on my list,
you know, like I needed to go see, and it
turns out that they were on summer break for like
two weeks.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Restaurants. Was like, I can't understand, Like they would be
closed on like Sundays or I mean on Mondays or Tuesdays.
You know, that's kind of standard across the board. But
then I'd show up on like a Thursday and they're like,
oh no, we're we're on summer vacation because these a
lot of them are mom and pop restaurants, you know,
so they need their summer vacation. I was like, oh, well,
I can't, I'll be here in two weeks.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
So did you run into any where you know? Yes,
you're correct. Warm summer is a great time to do it,
although it could be baking hot in the Midland.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
It's very hot hot. It's sorry ever experienced.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, I went to Texas, so I'm from the I'm
from Tennessee and lived to New York and now we
live in New Orleans. When I went to Brian, Texas
to do a grape stop in August, I thought I
was gonna die because the Midwest heat is not the
New Orleans heat, is not the New York heat. It's
not the Tennessee heat.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
It's a different It's like.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
An oven heat. It's quite amazing. It's prairie heat that
my husband David said, did you have any bumps? I mean,
were there bumps along the road like weather or did
you get flat higher? Did you have to deal with
anything like that or was fairly.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
I would say that the toughest part of the trip
was going through the Inland Empire of California. So that's
when we were dry, living through like Riverside County, Sentai
County into Arizona like needles. It was I remember looking
at my weather app and it was one hundred and
twenty degrees and the Arvy is amazing, but it had
(20:18):
a little bit of trouble keeping the fridge and the
freezer cold, you know, while we were there and we
oh my gosh, I can't think. We were in Yurmo, California,
in the middle of nowhere, extremely hot, and we pulled
into a campground there to stop and you know, kind
of let the RV relax for a day, and we
(20:40):
were in the pool all day and the pool was
kind of once you were you know, once the temperatures
get to be that way, there's no such thing as
like a cool pool.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, and the girls were probably like, why are we
doing this? Mom? I just want to go swimming, because
you know, you got young girls, what are the.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Names, Gemma and Ember.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
And they're just adorable. In the book, you have a
really cute I can't show it, but there they are,
you and Jenna Ember, like at this big sign at
Illinois Route sixty six. So it's so cute. So you
went from California to Illinois, yeah versus Okay, so you
did it technically in reverse? Yeah you did. So we
did eight states, right, eight states over two thousand miles.
(21:21):
Let's talk about some of the stops, and because I
love the little storytelling, I thought the recipes were fine.
Some of them are really crazy resumes that has me dishes.
And I have to say one of the things I
loved is it seems like every single one of these
eating establishments has an amazing road sign or statue as well.
So it's not just the food.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
It's like the.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Landscaping of the photos. It's just incredible. The book actually
starts in Illinois, and you started in California. Which way
would you? Let's follow the book, so your your first
your first your first state is Illinois. Now here's what
I know. I have been to what actually one of
the restaurants in this book, the Burghoff. I actually looked
(22:06):
them all up on the James Spirit Awards, which I
started to see who else had become a classic? And
you know, there was only one, the Burghoff m none
of the others. I couldn't believe it. I could believe it,
even lou Mitchell's. So let's pick one. We'll pick one
from each state. And why was it really interesting? What
you want to share about it? And we have about
(22:27):
thirty minutes that were cool?
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Okay, okay, So in Illinois. I'm gonna go with something
that's a little less conventional, you know, because I feel
like I read sixty six. In Illinois, everybody goes to
the Berghoff and lou Mitchell's. They are the classics and icons,
like they've been there for decades, right. But what I
(22:51):
really enjoyed, and keep in mind that I started my
trip in reverse, you know, So I went through like
a phase of lots of corn dogs, hot dogs, hands
and yeah takes like my weight and milkshakes. So I
discovered this small town and you know, like sometimes like
(23:14):
I roll into like sometimes we roll into a town
and I'm not really sure what we're going to do there,
you know, it just so happens with like timing and
how far we've driven, how fast we've driven, we end
up in this town. We're still under sixty six. So
I was like, Okay, well what's around here? And that's
part of the discovery because a lot of these restaurants
don't have websites or any kind of web presence or
Instagram or you know, anything like that. And that's what
(23:38):
makes sixty six so fun, is the discovery once you're
actually on the road. So I found this Filipino street
food restaurant called Lola's. And I was so intrigued because
it is in the middle of nowhere, and it's not
the it's not a region in Illinois where you expect
(24:00):
find a lot of ethnic food, and it's a tiny town.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
So at theay of the town, what's the name of
the town, I'm looking at it right now. There were
some towns in here I never heard of. I mean,
you know, love was It's Crispy Chicken, Adoba Rings Pontiac.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Pontiac, Illinois.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Yeah, So when we pulled into downtown Pontiac, I found
this restaurant. You know, from the outside, it doesn't look
like much compared to others sixty six restaurants. You know,
there's no muffler men i'm outside, there's no big sign.
It's it's like a pretty it's in an old strip mall.
But we walked in and it was so cute inside,
(24:45):
and the owner, Anna, happened to be working there. And
a lot of times I don't introduce myself right away
because I just want to I just want to be
treated like a normal customer, you know, and enjoy the food.
And so when I walked in, we ordered some of
their main dishes, and the crispy Adobo chicken wings was
(25:11):
one of them. We also had a few other things
like noodles, pork belly. I mean, the food was absolutely amazing.
It is just the type of like home cooked food
that you crave when you've been on the road for
a while, even if you haven't been on the road
for as long as we have. It's just nice to
go into a restaurant where it feels like it's got
(25:31):
like such a great family vibe as far as the
people who are there, because it's you know, like Lois
is a place where it really depends on the locals,
not tourists, you know, which also makes it different.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
I have to think of a lot of these restaurants
are like that because they're in such small Amy Pontiac,
who's ever heard of it? Right? The one that caught
my eye was in Springfield, and it's the Morale Mushroom
Pie because it's mould Anner's restaurant. Oh my god, look amazing.
I mean, I know, i'd really have been in anywhere
except for so I learned a lot about these, you know,
(26:02):
tiny little places like Litchville jew Belts Bakery, and restaurant.
You know, never heard of some of these places. There's
a lot of pastry in the book too, by the way,
Yeah yeah, So then we go. Now that was Illinois.
There's some I thought the Buttersprits cookies look kind of fun.
And I haven't tried anything because I just got back
from Italy. But it was nice as I don't see
(26:24):
a lot of pasta here and right now I'm off
pasta for a while. But we these coleslaw look kind
of good. So then we go to Missouri. Okay, my
dad was from Saint Louis. You have a beautiful photo
of the arch. Thank you will, beautiful photo of the arch.
I went to Saint Louis quite a bit as a child.
I remember the Crown Candy Kitchen which is in the book,
(26:47):
and the Heavenly hash. I happened to remember that. What
is in the state. And you have something called the
heart stopping BLT. I'll let my husband. My husband can
eat that one. I don't lot to beating. I'm like,
you know either way. And then what I also liked
was they did this in Chadnooga where up the curly
(27:07):
queue dog in Brentwood and they cut the hot dog
up and they did this at this I think the
very quaint and Chattanooga and they cut the hot dog up.
But so it turns into a little circle to go
on the hamburger bud and I's famous Frank and I'm like, wow,
I remember that as a child.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Yeah. So that place, the Curly Queue Dog at Carl's
Drive In. We really love that place because it's this
very small drive in restaurant where it's kind of you
can enter the building from two sides because they have
a like booth seating counter seating and you only get
I think like eight seats on each side of this counter,
(27:47):
and then their kitchen is right in the middle and
from there they we sat next to Pam who is
dishing up all of the hamburgers, you know, and you
can like watch them make you or burger and then
they can serve. They have IBC root beer there and
they have the original formula that was given to them
decades ago. And so you're just sitting at this counter
(28:10):
eating the Curly Cue dog or like a smash burger
and it's so simple, but it's so fresh because you
can I guess it's because you're watching them doing it
and it's just so efficient, like they do what they do,
they do it really well. And it's one of those
places where people are like lined up at the door,
you know, like waiting for you to finish to like
(28:31):
claim one of those it's like sixteen seats, you know,
on either side of the building.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, it was very small. You probably can't make reservations
in a lot of these places. I think they're supposed
to just bad.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
You do. Yeah, a lot of them, I guess, like
in the book, like half of them would be very
casual fast places, in the other half are like really
nice sit down restaurants. And so you do have like
your pick, you know, of what you would like to try.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I like this one. We're on sixty six. It's in Cuba, Cuba, Missouri, right,
and the recipe is cream a chicken and walwai soup,
which sounds pretty basic and easy to make and it
looks delicious. The type of thing and it was. It
was called the four Way because it was a filling station.
(29:22):
A lot of these buildings were something else that maybe
they become eatery or they were part of something else.
Because I would think when you're on this historic road,
you got to do more than just serve food sometimes, right, Well, a.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Lot of you know, sixty six has evolved a lot
over time. You know, back when in the heyday, fifties
and the sixties, they were filling stations or motor courts,
like motor lodges, because they were catering to the needs
of the people who are traveling along sixty six. Right
nowadays you have the Interstate, you know, so people are
(29:56):
really driving on these freeways and not on not on this.
I mean, I don't even I wouldn't even call Root
sixty six a highway because some of it is just
so slow going.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
How many how many lanes is Route sixty six?
Speaker 3 (30:12):
It varies. You can be on just like one lane
and certain areas to mostly two lane, and then if
you're lucky, you'll be in like a nicer paved four
lane road. But some of Route sixty six have just
become like residential farm roads, you know. And they've preserved
certain areas of it where it's turned into like a
(30:33):
bike path or it's turned into a like a they
kept the like there's one section that is a preserved
brick road, red brick road, wow, And it is kind
of like just like it's you know, it's next to
the main road, but you can veer off onto this
red brick road if you'd like.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Are there parts of it? You know as you travel
Right now we're still in the Midwest. Does it change
and get more highway ish when you get out to
the far West.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Oh, definitely. Once you get into the far West in California,
it because like completely paved and you're going through a
city lots of stoplights.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
I noticed that in the book too, because I mean,
most of these towns I'd never heard of. They look
really small. This is the type of thing, Linda, that
Dave and I did when we were doing our year
and a half road trip. Because I have a few
of super highways, I hate driving them, so we go
off the highway, drive the small ones, and whenever we
see anything that looks interesting quirky of foody, you know,
like a family owned little bit, we would swerve in
(31:39):
and just have you know, I'm writing about it right now.
We would just have something to eat, photographic go I
want this place, you know, So this is really great.
So we're we're in the heartland. We're still a mis
Sorry I want.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
To say that, you know, like, depending on where you
live in the country, you can really start the route
from either end. But it's really nice starting from Cago
because Illinois they've really got it figured out as far
as the signage and marking all of the points of
interest good like they really they have a sixty six
Commission in Illinois and they really care about preserving the
(32:16):
road in the history there, and so you absolutely cannot
get lost. I did.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
There is a website. I mean because I did. There
is a sixty six because they're doing a centennial, so
there is a lot when you go on to do
your research. So I think that's helpful too if somebody
wants to really plan the trip. You know, I can
think of most sorts of marketing things I'd be doing
around this Carthage. I've heard of Carthage Mom. She strolls
(32:42):
Kansas I have never been to. I accidentally joined the
World War One Museum in Kansas City thinking I was
joining the World War Two Museum in New Orleans to
go to a great gas beef party. And I got
all dressed up to go to the gasbee party. And
as we're praying to go, I said David, check out
the parking lot because there's pre parking, and he went
on the website. He said, Melanie, this is in Kansas City,
(33:05):
and I realized I bought I literally bought a membership
to the World War One Museum. And I'm all dressed
up in my Gatsby gear to go to a party
that was in another state. So I keep saying to David,
we need to at least go to Kansas City because
I'm a member of the World War One Museum. So
the only thing I knew about Kansas City, besides the
(33:26):
cocktail scene in Kansas City and the Jay Rigger and
Strouds Choke your Own Chicken and barbecue. I'd never heard
of any of these places. So talk to me about
Kansas because really I don't know a lot about Kansas
They said, Dorothy.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
I feel a lot of people would probably echo that,
especially because Recissist six only goes through thirteen miles.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Of when it's a short chapter.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
There's still a lot to see. Either. They do a
good job of, you know, really leaning into that rich
sixty six esthetic. So you know, cars, the Pixar movie
that has all of the you know, there's like all
these little animated cars and it talks about preserving this
town called Radiator Springs. It's one of my favorite movies
(34:19):
because we watched it before you went on this trip.
So there is cars memorabilia on a lot of these
places to draw in visitors, and Kansas has lots of
uh they have like these model cars that mimic the
actual cars from the movie just kind of like puss
(34:39):
it up as like their city art along the roadway,
you know, which makes it really fun.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Yeah. So now, yeah, so at Kansas is this I'm
looking so where I go like this, everybody, I'm looking
at the book because I can't physically hold it up
because it's it's you know, Kansas is the sun Farmers.
I just want to say, right here, Linda, when I
was a little girl, I had a game board called
Game of the States, and I love that game board
(35:07):
more than any of my other game boards because I
learned about all the states and I planned road trips
and I'd saw Route sixty six. And my dad was
so proud of me that he this is a great
thing to do. Parents. He signed me up for every
Tourists Commission visitors Center in the United States to semi stuff.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
That's really wonderful.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
So I got like buckets of mail from every state.
It was a great way to learn geography. I could
cancer you why you're doing this. Did you have like
a reading list for the girls or anything. To make
this like an educational experience, we.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Had them create scrapbooks, okay, so we had like all
the different supplies for them in the RV, and every
place that we went, they would like we would collect
lots of memorabilia like receipts or stickers, stamps. A few
of these places, like in Illinois. In Illinois or Oklahoma,
they would have like grew sixty six passports you know
(36:04):
where you visit them participating museum or store or you know,
exhibit and they would give you like a little stamp
in your passport. So the kids did a lot of that.
They also we visited a couple of National parks and
they did the Junior Ranger Badge program like they did
in the way Arch, So they would in their scrap
books they would illustrate, you know, like what they did
(36:25):
that day, or like write down the names of the
places that they visited. We also had polaroid cameras so
I could like print the pictures up for them right away.
Where we were and they would just like paste into
the scrap book, all old style. So that was what
we did for them. And I had Cordos sent me
their other Root sixty six books that are being revised
(36:47):
and updated for the centennial, and so I followed a
couple of them that are written by an author named
Jim Hinckley, who is one of authorities on Root sixty six,
and I used his book his various books as well
as you know, just the maps on our phone to
sort of guide us along the way, you know, make
sure that we're staying on the right road, and also
(37:10):
you know, visiting places that should be visited.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
So the other books were helpful for you, because I
was wondering about that, because you know, when I went
on to Amazon and did some googling, the other books
kept pig and no, this isn't the right one, because
I have the book right here. So again it's the
Route sixty six cookbooks. Not to say that I have
never read the other words, but you new need to
distinguish that.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Yeah, there is another Root sixty six cookbook that was
published a while ago by Marion Clark. Yes, she has
since passed away, and I've looked at her book too,
before I started mind to see like her like what
she was covering, you know, which is how I was
able to differentiate my book from what was already written.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
You know, because she Yeah, how'd you do that? What
did you say? What were some things you thought you
needed to do or wanted to do?
Speaker 3 (38:00):
My book follows more or less a similar formula as
my other books, you know, Like we really focused on photography,
so everywhere that we went, like if we couldn't take
a photo of the food, then we really wanted to
capture the landscape, you know, because this is a road trip. Yeah,
and all of like the landscape, you know, where it's
(38:21):
like the muffler men, like which are those big giant figurines,
to like the storefronts, to the restaurants, the signposts, you know,
all of that is part of the landscape. And we
really wanted to like take people on like this little
adventure while they are going through the book. So even
if you are not buying it specifically for the recipes,
(38:42):
like we I wanted to present it as like, you know,
it's like a it's a history book and a travel
book as well, you know, because you could really follow
the follow along on like how these restaurants have evolved,
how the buildings have evolved as well, the owners who
have come and go, like the next generation that now
runs it, and how it's different. And even since this book,
(39:05):
I mean technically the book has not come out yet.
It comes out in two weeks. But since this book
has been printed, I know a couple of the restaurants
in the book are either for sale or you know,
on the verge of selling, just because of how, you know,
how things move so quickly in the restaurant business, and
(39:27):
especially like the landscape of Ride sixty six, it's.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Also and your your restaurant's going in and out of business.
You just hope, you know. And this is an evergreen show.
So two weeks is really negligible because people could be
listening to this show next year. So forget the two
weeks part. Just it's out. We're going to be in Oklahoma.
We're going to keep traveling. We're in Oklahoma. I know
nothing about Alahoma. But David, my husband, loves the Sooners,
(39:51):
not that he's ever been to Oklahoma. He just adopted
the Sooners because his college, au in American University, did
not have a football team. We watch a lot of sooners.
What is Oklahoma other than Oklahoma? Talk to me about Oklahoma.
You know, I was intrigued by this one dish which
I would never eat or cook, called calf fries.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Yeah. So Oklahoma serves a very hearty, stick to your
ribs kind of food, right. Yeah, that served up with
this beautiful hospitality that you know, we experienced all through
the Heartland with Oklahoma. One of the things that I
remember the most, because we did this trip from west
(40:39):
to east, was went through a period like once we
left the West coast, there was absolutely no water, no
body of water that we would want to get into,
Like we weren't going to swim in the Rio Grande now.
And you're going through like Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, so
(41:00):
it's really hot in summer. And I remember once we
reached Oklahoma, I found a campground that was on a
lake and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing.
I can't wait to get into the lake. And that
was like my first memory is we were in Arcadia, Oklahoma,
by the round Barn, right by the giant Neon lit
(41:23):
Route sixty six bottle on the road, and we went
swimming in our first lake, you know, on like that
whole trip, and from then on it got so great
because then we were getting into like a region that
had lots of water, you know. So I mean that's
always like my favorite memory of it.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Well, you know what, I like the in Oklahoma, and
we'll keep traveling along. I thought I liked it. The
green Chili apple pie from the Green Chili Kitchen. It
just sounds yummy, except there's no green chilis in it.
I was all excited, but it's just the name of
the place, the concept of having green chilies there and
the then.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
The apple pie. There is green chili in it, Oh
there is.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
I don't see it that chopped green chili, Bueno chop
green Chili.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
Green Chili Kitchen. They are one of the well I
think they were. I believe they were the first new
Mexican style restaurant in Yukon, Oklahoma, and they serve authentic
New Mexican fair there really delicious food.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
I just love the concept of green Chili's and that
kick with the apples. It just sounds like a great combo.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
Their Grandma's recipe.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Oklahoma, So Texas is a big state. Did it take
you forever to get through it. I mean, and this
is where the midpoint is for talking about how long
a tank? And where's the midpoint?
Speaker 3 (42:55):
So the red sixty six crosses the panhandle of Texas
point you know that you read about and all of
this D sixty six folklore is supposed to be in Adrian, Texas.
But I do have a small chapter in my book
that counters what the actual midpoint is. So it's funny
(43:15):
because when you get to Adrian, they have a white
line drawn on the road and there's a selfie stand
across the highway from the Midpoint Cafe, and they're like,
this is the mid Like you have officially reached the
middle of rout sixty six. You can take a picture
and it's actually really fun. And the Midpoint Cafe serves
up delicious pies. They are known as ugly crust pies
(43:38):
because that was their origin of how it started, but
nowadays the crust is actually quite beautiful.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Ugly crust pies naturally, I can't make a decent pie
crust period that makes.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
Us a lot. When I was making the pies too,
because I do make all of these recipes and then
I photograph them for the book. I was like, oh,
thank god, this ugly crust pie is I'm not the best.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
Of yesmmar, do you have to really baky?
Speaker 3 (44:03):
I like.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
I like the stuff that my husband does where he
just tosses stuff in baking. He's a science. You get
a follow the rules.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Yes, ugly crust pies, because my pie fit right in.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Well, the elvis of the crust pie really looks sloppy
and gooey. Ooh g. It'd be really big down here
in New Orleans and Tennessee and Tupelo. And it's you know,
a peanut butter and banana. I guess that's why it's
called elvis. Is there marshmallow here too? What looks like
it should be Marshmallo's. It's one of those big meringue
(44:36):
pies and oohy gooey that must have been fun to
make with Hershey's chocolate syrup, bananas, whip creep and peanut butter.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
Whoa, yeah, so what what I'll say? What's interesting about
the Midpoint Cafe? So, first of all, the midpoint is subjective, right,
because sixty six has changed a lot over the years,
and they wiped out like over one hundred miles. Also,
right around Santa Fe when they took out that segment.
So Adrian, Texas is when you're when you if you're
(45:06):
like a map geek and you're really plotting this out.
It's really not the midpoint. It's not the middle, but
it's close. It's like within fifty to one hundred miles
of what the middle of Route sixty six might be
in today's today's world, I guess. But at Midpoint. Their
Ugly Crest Pie was baked by this wonderful woman named Joanne,
(45:29):
and she when the when the Midpoint Cafe sold, she
moved on, you know, to like other jobs and other interests.
But when she retired as a retirement project, she decided
to open her own bakery. So she is in a
neighboring town of Vega. And so if you want the
(45:50):
original ugly Ugly Crust pie, you could go to her place.
Joanne is at what is she Mama Mama Joe's Pies
and Sweets, okay, And so you can sample her pies
and then go to the Adrian Cafe and okay, I
(46:10):
mean the Midpoint Cafe and Adrian and then try their
pies because that is like where the Ugly Crest.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
When that day and you drive across Texas, it's kind
of near Louisiana. I'm gonna look it out now. Okay,
we have three more states. We got to keep driving.
So New Mexico. I've been to Santa fe Man. When
you get to the New Mexico chapter, you get into
a lot of chili relinos. You really see the New
Mexican flavor in the and the and the South of
the border flavor here. Yeah, it's quite amazing until you
(46:41):
get to this weird thing called the tattooed lady and
the snoring dog literally has fruit loops on the on
that hot dog.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Can I say that I really love hot dog and
wants to make it a home.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
It's so weird. Okay, maybe they were sick of chili
rainos because it's a lot of Really there's a lot
of New Mexico and basoli Denlas reinos, Chillis reinos, Chillis reinos. Again,
you gotta like Mexico. I love Southwestern food. I wish there.
I don't think it exists in Louisiana. But the foot
(47:14):
loops is an odd addition to that hot dog. It's
the tattooed lady in the snowering dish. But you know,
to each their own.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
It is, you know, yes, don't knock it because it
is surprisingly good because you don't taste so much of
the fruity flavor, but you get that very nice crunch
that contrasts with all the other textures in that hot dog.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
Well, New Mexico's on my list to go revisit. It's
spent a long time and I'd love to do that
and road trip there. I'd like to road trip all
these places, but New Mexico very high my list. Okay,
two more states. Arizona. I love it, and you know
you've got winslow Arizona. I've been to Arizona a lot,
but not to any places you mentioned. What's weird is
you see stuff in here like savice, which you don't
(47:55):
think about in hallibutsavice which you don't envision in Arizona.
And of course my favorite, the Roadkill Cafe. Really rack
of raccoon, but that's not really raccoon.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
That is not real raccoon. But so the Roadkill Cafe,
it was really funny. When I was speaking with the owner,
they just wanted to come up with a fun concept,
you know that people would think about, and so their
whole menu has names like that like rack of Raccoon
and thumper, hit the bumper, chicken that almost crossed the road.
Like it's hilarious, right, like what they named all of
(48:29):
their different dishes. And she said, for a long time,
these menus, their actually venues, were getting stolen by these
tourists who wanted a souvenir, to the point where they're like, okay,
well now we're going to print extra menus and sell
them at our gift shop so you can really like
buy them and take them home, like please don't take
our menus. And she felt like it was, you know,
as payback because back in the day, like she would
(48:50):
like sneak like fun little souvenirs like that before she
was up a restaurant owner.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Well, I you know, I could see where people would be,
particularly in the era of social media. And you said,
a lot of people, a lot of these places don't
even have a social media account. Pity because they would
have been great for them to get free pr but
you know, everybody takes everything now and it's a little
more intrusive Arizona. Interesting fact because at the beginning of
each chapter you can have a little factoid, Arizona can
(49:15):
claim the longest uninterrupted stretch of the original highway between
Seligman and Kingmen. I love Arizona. I think that sounds
neat because I would think one of the challenges is
modernization and also a bunch of cuts. You know, you're
going to maintain this very old road. Budget cuts are problem,
and modernization and strip malls and developers are the constant,
(49:40):
you know, monster at the door.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
Right, Yeah, definitely. I mean yeah, when you travel Route
sixty six and a lot of these small towns, you
know there is a I mean there was like a
sign that I saw in one of the towns where
it was like f the interstate. Yeah, you know because
in the history, when you're research into what happened torout
(50:03):
sixty six, like the building of like I forty I
forty four, like that is what really caused the downfall
of a lot of these towns that became they became
ghost towns. Yeah, took away a lot of their business
and their traffic and like their populations.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
It makes me sad that it's happening all over the place.
And again I travel, my heart sinks when I hit
the strip mall section of every place. We call it
the industrial section, and you just and during we traveled
during COVID, there were so many places around the business.
It was just really upsetting. Okay, then we got to
go to California. This is the last day, and the
stop you started there were ending there. And I love
(50:38):
Santa Monica. I've been there a lot. I knew, you know,
like tail of the Pop. I knew about Mels Drive in.
I had some plates and cups from there actually, and
I love Grandma's Chicken supermo. That is something I planned
to make because I love a good chicken soup. But
what was interesting about California is and you get into
(50:58):
the Asian you know, throughout all these the recipes were
all to reflect the heritage of immigrant in the immigrants
to settled there where it was German or Filipino or Italian,
and here you're seeing a lot of Asian influence and
multi Asian too, not just you know, because Asian Asia, right,
(51:19):
Asian fusion. So talk to me about that, which is
also where you live, so you can talk about also
how it's changed since you live there.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
So what I really loved about the whole drive is that,
you know, like the food changes so much depending on
the region that you're in. And I touch on this
in my writing in the book, is that so much
of the food when people think of read sixty six
and I did too, And before I began this trip,
I was thinking, it's all like I pictured Americana like
(51:48):
American food as you know, your hot dogs and your
bolts of chili and your hamburgers and things like that.
And I, you know, the more I looked into it,
like Americana really like Americana really envelops all of the
people that came to this country and settled it and
you know, brought their recipes, brought their cultures from where
(52:12):
they came from, and then they incorporated into where they
live now. You know. So when you look at Americana,
I mean the like all of that great Southwestern food
in New Mexico, like that is, like the chilerinals like
those are Americana, and in California, like I have the
(52:33):
the spicy seafood soup that's at the al right right, mushrooms.
I mean, there was just a lot of interesting dishes
that reflect yeah, and the people who came here, like
the chefs, the families that settled here and they've been
here now for like generations, and they brought that food
with them and now it's just firmly woven into like
(52:53):
the fabric of that community.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
Well, I think it's great. I think it's been a
great road trip with you.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
Today.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
We've got top it off because all great trips have
to come to an end and we have to wrap
it up. But we've been talking with Linda Lee. The
book is the Root sixty six cookbook, the best recipes
from every stop along the way. I hope I've wetted
your appetite for not only food but travel, because this
really is a travel book for me. First, a little
bit of history, a little bit of culture, travel book one.
(53:21):
If we have the book up, let's put it up
again and I'll do a wrap. Great, this is the
book take the trip because and Linda, thank you. I
want to thank you for sharing your enthusiasm with me
today on Fearless Fabulous. You listen, everybody up. I hope
you'll take a trip, have some adventure, step out of
your comfort zone, because life is too short just to
(53:42):
sit on your butt all day and dream about doing
things you want to do.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
Just do it.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
Because, as I always like to say it every show
and every show. You have a choice in life. Choose
to live on your terms and none on terms set
by you by other people. Always choose fearless and fabulous,
and always stay curious and ready to hit the road.
So may all your future journeys be a good one. Congratulations,
(54:08):
Thank you so much. Thank you for joining me. Thank
you everybody for joining me. I can't wait to plan
my next road trip. Never know where I'll be hitting
the road. Thank you,
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