Dinkiness and Cooking

It's been an uneven couple of week but life IS good

Ok, as much as I love my abandoned and bedraggled buildings, the last wander veered into sadness. Probably our moods but just the same, this building may have been the brightest spot on the trip. The picture is a bit misleading, in person it looks far, far tinier, dare I say, dinky.

I give you the Dinky Diner.

Sadly it wasn’t the right distance from where we stayed to stop for breakfast but ohhh, we enjoyed it all the same. The people in the first booth stared at us as I took pictures. Ernie just chortled the whole time.

It’s a Valentine diner, the most common type of diner you see in the midwest, or west-midwest it seems. I think we’ve seen them in Muscatine and Mason City, Iowa as well as Fort Wayne, Indiana. Unlike eastern diners which were in denser population areas, the Valentine could be small or positively dinky. There were “models like the eight-stool Aristocrat, nine-stool Nifty-Nine, 10-stool Master, and window-service-only Burger Bar.”¹

This little guy is only three booths wide and sits in a town with a population of about 150.

Fucking beautiful.

Ok, speaking of diners (?), I kinda cooked the other day. Now mind you, all my cooking is pretty abbreviated these days but this one worked. It really worked.

Cynthia’s White Beans with Bok Choy and Kielbasa

I set up my little stool in front of the counter and the stove and perched there. It’s inordinately awkward if I have to throw something away or open the oven but it works. I had planned to dice the kielbasa but I was feeling lazy so I just sliced it. I sautéed it a bit in olive oil and then dumped in all the cut up bok choy. Now, I used bok choy because we had bok choy, I think a green with more flavor, sharp kale or minerally spinach, would be even better. And as MUCH as I cook greens often I always forget how much they cook down. Geez. I wish I’d had more greens but it was big bunch of bok choy so I think part of it was that I wanted to taste the greens more. Then I added two cans of somewhat casually rinsed cannelini beans (I couldn’t reach the colander), a teaspoon of dried oregano because it was on the counter and I didn’t want to hobble over to the pantry, just a few red pepper flakes, some black pepper and just a little sprinkle of salt as between the canned beans and the kielbasa there was already a good bit. I covered it and let it sit on the warm burner. I’m trying to prep dinner ahead of time more often as if it gets too late neither of us can get it together to cook or he just doesn’t want to eat…so I’m trying. Later we heated it up and had it in a bowl with a good squeeze of lemon juice on top. I must say it was pretty damn good and Ernie ate it all! It needed the lemon. A bit of mustard or vinaigrette might help as well, but again…lazy.

The next day when that storm cloud of a question, “WHAT ARE WE HAVING FOR DINNER?” came up, we decided, to my great pleasure, on leftovers. He had leftover gruel and I had leftover kielbasa and beens with a fried egg on top.

Ok. Ok. It was good the other night. Last night? CRAZY GOOD! Time is a freaking gift, huh? I can’t wait to make it again or make a version with similar ingredients. Chorizo, ham, or other kinds of sausage? Kale or spinach or arugula or Swiss chard? I gotta say, I’ll stick with the white beans because I love them but of course other beans would work as well. The real key here however is patience. Make it ahead, make it ahead.

Let me know if you give it a try.

Onward!

Love,
Cynthia

1. https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/valentine-diners-history-mail-order-roadside-us