Heather wanted a job for weekends, to give her something to do while raising the children, so she launched the shop and cafe. These days it’s open six days a week, but the notion hasn’t changed much. At busy times you chalk your name on a blackboard and wait to be called to one of the oil-skin-covered tables, most of them communal. Regulars, the sort of elders of the tribe who are able to slack off on a weekday lunchtime, arrive with cool bags full of wine and baguettes. They know how it works. They know what they are doing. At the front is a slab with wet fish to buy, and a counter with a few smoked products. At the back is a tiny kitchen from which come a couple of cooked dishes a day.
We order those: fat seared scallops on a tomato and bacon salad, and some king prawns, roasted in their shells, with a spicy mayonnaise. They start us up, like jump leads to a frozen car engine. What really matters, though, is the oysters. We order a dozen of the natives: the ones that come from the waters at our backs and which were filtered in the sheds just through the door over my shoulder. There are half a dozen of the prime number ones and half a dozen of the slightly smaller number twos and they cost around half of what they would in the sort of London restaurants which make such a big thing about supplying bread, and having a wine list and carpets.
Both sets are bright and fresh and meaty. Eating them is like being slapped around the face with spray off the bow of a wave-crashing yawl. We try them with a splash of Tabasco, one of the few condiments they do offer, and a dribble of the soy, punched up with wasabi. Quickly they disappear. We get the seafood platter, with its folds of locally smoked salmon and mackerel, the latter soothed by my jar of mayo. There are tiny prawns, and bigger shrimps and a pouch of smoked cod’s roe with that taste neatly balanced between sweet and smoke and bitter. Out the back door we can see clouds of steam rising. I stand up to get a better view. Dozens of crabs the size of dinner plates have just come out of the boiler. The crabs are not from around here, but they bring them in alive and keep them in filtration tanks in the cafe alongside the lobsters. Then they boil them as needed.
One of them is on our plate, and we sit contentedly, picking the white meat out of the more knotty and complicated bits of the shell, piling up the strands and then dressing them with soy and wasabi. It doesn’t feel like an overly cosmopolitan thing to do. The Company Shed, though bare and rough about the edges, is a place where nations meet. By the door is a party of young Japanese people, who have come to do silent damage to lobsters, the shells heaped in the middle of the table, the debris of a special sort of gustatory war. Behind us is an Australian couple, who declare it the best seafood they have ever eaten. ‘Outside Oz, of course.’ Well, of course. The rest of our table is taken up by a trio of expat Greek men who live nearby in Chelmsford. There, they run Greek restaurants. When they have a little free time they come here to do things to crabs. They share the fresh bread they baked this morning. We give them glasses of our Porter. It’s that sort of place.
Slowly we admit defeat. We would like to eat more. We would like the journey to continue. But shellfish like this always starts out bright and fresh before becoming first rich, then enough and finally too much. Richard Haward appears by our table. He’s a big grizzly heap of a man, with a straggly white beard and teeth like an overgrown graveyard. Early one morning, a year or two back, he took me out in an oyster boat, in a cold relentless rain, and stood in the prow looking like a part of the ancient landscape. I remember him cutting his thumb badly while shucking an oyster straight off one of the beds. I remember the way he didn’t flinch or even seem to notice. He bled into the sea, giving a part of himself to the waters as the Hawards always have. Now he stood quietly beside us. How was it, he wanted to know. I shrugged at the wreckage on the table in front of us. It was as it always is here, I told him, a special kind of perfect. He nodded solemnly and moved away.
After lunch we went for a short walk along the coast road while we waited for our cab to collect us and I told David about my first time there: about how, during my lunch, someone I was sharing the table with had watched me packing my things away at the end of my meal. My fellow diner had glanced at his watch and told me I wouldn’t be going anywhere. ‘Mersea’s an island again,’ he had said. ‘Don’t worry. It’s only for a few hours.’ I saw the look on David’s face. I knew what he was thinking. He liked the sound of that. He liked the idea of being marooned here, so close to such perfect seafood, even if only temporarily. It wouldn’t be happening today, though. The high tide wasn’t until much later in the afternoon. This time I had done my homework. I nodded down the road. Our cab was approaching. It was time to go home.
Since coining the term Roadfood and pointing the way to America’s best eats, JANE AND MICHAEL STERN have written more than 40 books about American food and popular culture. Their website, Roadfood.com, pioneered internet food reporting and photography. They regularly contribute to Saveur and Parade magazines.
SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
Jane and Michael Stern
The short-order cook standing at the griddle at the Adam and Eve Diner looked back over his shoulder and asked us, ‘How do you want dem eggs?’ He was a burly guy, well over six feet tall, wearing a puffy chef’s toque, a white t-shirt, and an apron tied at the waist. As he faced away from us to crack our eggs and shuffle hash browns on the griddle, our seats on stools at the counter afforded us a direct view of his pink bare buttocks. Regulars at the Adam and Eve knew him as Southern Exposure.
We don’t spend much time dining at strip clubs, so it was a little strange to eat a meal surrounded by naked and semi-naked cooks, waitresses and customers. But that’s the way it was when we stopped in the Adam and Eve Diner in 1974. The Adam and Eve was part of the Naked City Truck Stop in Roselawn, Indiana, about an hour south of Gary.
There is not much to do in Roselawn. It is in a particularly drab part of America—a web of flat roads, fast food joints, plain architecture, and mobile homes. There is nothing of the rolling Grant Wood Midwest here, or the dramatic wheat-filled blankness of Nebraska. It is not nostalgic or romantic; it is simply bare and sad.
If you lived in Roselawn you might understand the urge to do something radical to break the boredom. You might say one day, as you are having toast and coffee, ‘Hey, I have a great idea. Let’s open a truck stop where the waitresses and cook are naked and customers are free to strip if they’d like.’ If you lived in the midst of pounding boredom it might seem like a plan.
In 1968, a man named Dick Drost had this light-bulb-over-the-head moment. He opened a truck stop and called it Naked City. As strange as Drost’s idea was, Roselawn, Indiana, already had seen more than its share of naked people. It was in this tiny town on the Jasper and Newton County line that a Chicago lawyer named Alois Knapp opened Club Zoro in 1933—billed as the largest nudist colony in America. Knapp, who originally came from Austria, was the founder and editor of Sunshine and Health magazine, the archetypal nature culture digest that shows nudists to be healthy, happy folks playing volleyball and bridge despite the fact that they have no genitals (thanks to early airbrushing techniques).
Dale and Mary Drost (Dick’s father and mother) bought the nudist colony from Knapp in the 1940s and ran it until their son took over and named it Naked City. Dick had big plans for the acreage east of I-65 on Route 10. Because of its proximity to a major highway, where Peterbilts and Kenworths thundered by day and night, he saw the creaky old nudist colony as a potential tourist attraction, where truckers and civilians would come to eat hearty portions of gearjammer grub served by sexy naked waitresses. His plans were grand. He envisioned strip shows and topless beauty contests, visitors relaxing in communal hot tubs and spending the night in rustic bunkhouses surrounded by chirping naked nature.
There were a few problems in the master plan right from the beginning.
Most nudist colonies are in sunny climates and cater to naturists of the ‘nuts and berries’ type: clean-living sun-worshipers, tanned and vigorous. Roselawn, Indiana, is cold and grey for half the
year and humid and buggy the other half. This part of the Midwest is not known for its health consciousness. In fact, the typical restaurant meal consists of deep-fried pork tenderloin the size of a dinner plate on a squishy supermarket bun and a dish of soft-serve custard ice cream for dessert.
As Naked City’s figurehead, Dick Drost was not the picture of health. Crippled and twisted by muscular dystrophy, he whizzed around Naked City in a motorized wheelchair with a raccoon tail dangling off the back. He wanted to be the next Hugh Hefner, but he was twisted both mentally and physically, and did not have the funds to support his grandiose ideas. The best he could do was buy a round bed and cover it with a tatty sequined cover and have friends take pictures of him surrounded by a bevy of naked white-trash beauties.
When we visited Naked City a few years after it opened, the place already looked worn and fetid. The hot tub bubbled with blue green algae, the sexy naked women looked decidedly unfresh, and there was a disturbing number of underage girls milling around, waiting for the Miss Naked Teenybopper contest to begin. The truckers, most of whom kept their clothes on, seemed immune to the seediness, happy to eat some grub and see bare tits. Naked City became their playground; there was always something to celebrate at the end of the long haul. They showed up in force for holiday events like the Saint Patrick’s Day celebration called Erin Go-Braless. They strolled around the park and enjoyed Drost’s grand monument: a 63-foot-long sculpture of a shapely lady’s leg wearing a black high heel. The leg was decidedly Art Brut, but with a purpose. It functioned as a sundial—a clever inspiration for nudists who shed their watches along with their clothing.
Drost’s original vision of Naked City was as broad as Walt Disney’s for Disneyland, even imagining franchised Naked Cities all over the world. Ultimately, he saw literal naked cities, ‘with buildings, skyscrapers, and people doing everything and anything that they would in a medium-size city … in the nude’. The fount of it all would be the truck stop and its Adam and Eve Diner—a sure moneymaker because truck drivers who worked the network of highways that passed along Roselawn needed to eat. The menu attracted drivers for its featured ‘gearjammer breakfast’ of three eggs, three biscuits, hash browns, chicken-fried steak drowned in a pool of thick white cream gravy, along with unlimited cups of insipid pale brown coffee.
At that point of our career we were interested in the culture of long-haul truck drivers. We believed them to be the last American cowboys and we made it our work to see life as they did. As we sat at the counter in the Adam and Eve, waiting for our home fries and eggs, we were greeted by Miss Nude America, Cheryl Turner, who served as hostess. Except for high-heel shoes, Cheryl was completely naked, although she did carry around a small patch of shag rug to put on chairs so her ass wouldn’t stick to the Lucite or Naugahyde. Bleached blonde with gravity-resistant breast implants, she walked from customer to customer offering little plastic combs imprinted with the words Naked City Truck Stop. For a few dollars, truckers were invited to comb her tuft of pubic hair and keep the comb as a souvenir. For a few dollars more, you could buy a Reddi-Wip and honey dessert, with Miss Nude America serving as the human plate. Whether it was the strain of hours on the road or just the bizarre, unreal quality of life in a nude truck stop, there was a strange lack of sexual tension in the air.
Inspired by Southern Exposure’s blush-colored behind, we supplemented our potatoes and eggs with two portions of thick-sliced country ham. Say what you will about the rest of Naked City, it was damn good ham: sizzled crisp on the griddle and served with red-eye gravy and canned biscuits hot from the oven. We actually kind of liked the place. It certainly was one of a kind. The jukebox blasted fine old Hank Williams tunes and newer Jerry Reed ones, and we even bought one of Miss Nude America’s souvenir combs, but decided against the grooming option.
Naked City did not age well. Dick Drost’s dream of opening a chain of Naked City Truck Stops all around the country, and eventually the world, never came to be; and old-style, physical-fitness naturists in the tradition of Alois Knapp learned to shun the shenanigans for which the nudist resort became notorious. After a few run-ins with the law, Drost closed Naked City in 1986, pleading guilty to ten sex-related misdemeanors and agreeing to stay out of Indiana for ten years.
After years of neglect, Naked City was reborn as Sun Aura Resort, where the lady leg sundial remains, clothing is optional, and organized fun is pretty much limited to weekend dances by the bonfire. One mile east, the Ponderosa Sun Club carries on the Dick Drost spirit of naked revelry. Despite its proclaimed family-friendly principles (‘a public erection is not acceptable’), it hosts a yearly Nudes-A-Poppin Festival in July, with competitions for Miss & Mr. Nude Go-Go, Miss & Mr. Nude North America, Miss Nude Erotic Pole Performer, and an amateur wet t-shirt contest.
As far as we can tell, there are no more good ham steaks to eat in Roselawn, Indiana. Southern Exposure long ago hung up his toque, put on his pants, and moved on to sunnier climes.
M.J. HYLAND is the author of three multi-award-winning novels: How the Light Gets In, Carry Me Down, and This Is How. Hyland also lectures in creative writing and is co-founder of The Hyland & Byrne Editing Firm.
HOW TO EAT FOR FREE IN HELSINKI
M.J. Hyland
In Melbourne’s business district, one very hot day in January 2001, I walked into a budget travel agency and booked a flight to Helsinki.
I had no special interest in Helsinki, and the cost of the ticket left me broke, but I couldn’t stomach the swelter of summer and I wanted to spend some time in a colder place, a city in the dark of winter.
On that day I’d no idea of the trouble coming: that in seven years I’d be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And I didn’t know that I’d also suffer from a disease within a disease—Uhthoff’s syndrome—a set of MS symptoms which cause profound heat intolerance.
I wasn’t sick in January 2001, not one bit sick, and I had just two problems: Melbourne’s hot weather and the deep boredom of working as a corporate lawyer on the 88th floor of a city law firm.
An hour before booking the flight, I was in Collins Street with a senior associate, a man with a big ego and female hips who loved both the sun and the law.
‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘I’d give anything to be down the beach.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That’d be nice.’
It wouldn’t be nice. The last time I went to the beach I was shitty and sore and kept all my clothes on—a long-sleeved shirt, socks and shoes—and my head was covered with a wet towel.
‘Can we cross the street?’ I said. ‘And walk in the shade?’
We were on our way to the Supreme Court to hear the verdict of an industrial-relations dispute.
‘Why?’ he said. ‘It’s only three blocks.’
He looked at me as though he wanted to spit on my head, and no surprise. I hated the sun, which he loved, I was a useless and indifferent lawyer and, unlike him, I didn’t bill enough hours or make budget.
The associate, on the other hand, made money and, like most corporate lawyers, he’d started law school with good intentions, and now his conscience was stashed away in the receipts drawer of Tiffany & Co.
‘So, could we?’ I said, ‘Cross the road?’
‘What?’
‘Walk on the other side of the street?’ I said. ‘There’s some shade over there.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Forget about it.’
We’d finished in the Supreme Court and on the way back to the office I told him I needed to run a quick errand.
‘Don’t forget the LXXX has to be filed by close of play today,’ he said.
Close of play.
‘Yes, yes,’ I said, ‘I just need to pop into the chemist.’
‘Are you on all fours with the PXXX file?’ he asked.
On all fours—that’s lawyer-talk and it proves you need a high I.Q. Most lawyers don’t say anything real, and most of them are afraid of small words.
When you’
re a lawyer, you should sound expert all day long and this means using platitudes, and every one, every time, must be spoken as though it’s an original term of art, reserved for a special world.
Lawyers don’t say: How are you getting on with the PXX file? They say: Are you across the PXX file? Or, Are you up to speed? And worse, Are you on all fours?
‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘I’ll have all that done by tonight.’
‘And the due diligence for TXXX?’
‘Yes, I’m across that too,’ I said.
I smiled. I was glad we’d lost our case.
‘It looks like our client was an unconscionable maggot-hole,’ I said. ‘And he was obviously guilty of diabolical acts of Rachmanism.’
I had a lawyer for a boyfriend once, and he turned up at my flat late on a Friday night, huffing and puffing. He said he had something urgent to discuss, and then he proposed:
‘Marcus thinks you’re a real catch,’ he said. ‘And he’s probably right.’
Marcus was a lawyer too.
‘That’s nice,’ I said.
‘So, what would you say,’ he said, ‘in the event that I asked you to marry me?’
Outside the office on Collins Street, the senior associate told me to come see him for ‘a head’s up’ when I’d finished with my errand. Ten minutes later, I was in the travel agency spending money I couldn’t afford to lose on an ASAP flight to Helsinki and all because, in the agency’s window, I saw pictures of Helsinki wearing its snowy white coat:
‘… In late January the mercury can fall to below -15°C … and the sea freezes over.’
The travel agent told me about a new hotel near the central train station.
‘It’s absolutely wonderful,’ she said.
‘It’s so cheap,’ I said.
‘Probably because it’s new,’ she said.
A Fork In The Road: Tales of Food, Pleasure and Discovery On The Road (Lonely Planet Travel Literature) Page 4