My most recent Podcast from "This American Life" was the well-known "24 Hours at the Golden Apple" (for those of us nerds who know what the most popular “This American Life” broadcasts have been). The program spends 24 hours at the diner in Chicago, trying to interview everyone that comes through and hear their stories. Listening to it was actually quite emotional for me. The sounds of the plates clicking on the linoleum counter, coffee being poured, the thick Chicago accents and hearing the stories of the "regulars" made me actually quite homesick.
A diner is something that does not exist in Germany. You can't go someplace on a Sunday morning, and expect to order a plate of fried eggs with bacon and a side of toast - endless cups of coffee or an extra large orange juice. A skillet? Ha! Good luck. It's not so much the food, but the feeling that characterizes these places and I've always loved any sort of diner atmosphere.
Starting in my childhood with "after church" breakfast to "Salisbury Steak" Wednesday night specials in our (then population) town of 30,000 it was always a time when you felt special, if not important because you were "going out to eat". There were countless rolls in the decorated napkin bread baskets with miniature sized butter tubs, and those really great breadsticks; sesame, garlic and of course plain. The places had names like Spring Garden, and Grandma's - ornately decorated with miniature sized quilts, iron skillets on the walls, and usually some sort of plastic duck in a flowered apron with matching hat. The tables were brown, the carpet patterned to hide the crumbs, and curtains usually in some sort of salmon pink.
Soon high school arrived and I spent the majority of my time in a place called The Junction. The Junction had a train car theme and was decorated with a track that goes through the whole restaurant, and if you were lucky, it’s actually running. On the walls hang the black and white pictures of sports teams past, and there is a constant scent of sitting coffee and bacon in the air. With my freshmen year of high school came my first coffee and cigarette, which rapidly turned into many coffees, and many cigarettes. I always sat at the back table talking with friends about the then most important conversation of my life – which maybe they were because I remember them almost to the exact words to this day. Many a serious contemplation was played out over those endless cups of coffee, drinking so much I would walk out shaking due to the high from a pack of Marlboro Reds and about six cups of coffee over three hours.
College came and I sought out diners in my university town. I found two that I liked, but admit I didn’t go to them as often as my usual diner habits would have you to believe. Something about your home town diner can never match up to one you have not grown up in. I spent a lot of time in various ones sitting, smoking, studying, and ordering slices of pie to go with my ten page marketing papers. Sometimes I took friends to these places, but often it was alone with my notebooks and highlighters, staring at the brown tables and salmon colored curtains. I would almost look forward to studying, because I knew that I could sit for hours, not be bothered and the coffee wouldn’t stop being poured. Most of the waitresses knew me, because my first time at each place – there was always a $5 tip at the end of the night - which would guarantee a swift coffee refill for the next time I came in (to be followed by another $5 tip).
After college I moved up to Chicago where I was in diner heaven. I lived on Clark St. for my first two years, and was at the Golden Nugget about once per month. I of course have been to many other ones, but it was two blocks away and the most convenient. The time of “Does he like me?” conversations of high school are done and there are no more tests to be studied for – but I still go and sit with a coffee and a plate of eggs alone and listen to my favourite sounds of clinking plates and pouring coffee.
A diner is something that does not exist in Germany. You can't go someplace on a Sunday morning, and expect to order a plate of fried eggs with bacon and a side of toast - endless cups of coffee or an extra large orange juice. A skillet? Ha! Good luck. It's not so much the food, but the feeling that characterizes these places and I've always loved any sort of diner atmosphere.
Starting in my childhood with "after church" breakfast to "Salisbury Steak" Wednesday night specials in our (then population) town of 30,000 it was always a time when you felt special, if not important because you were "going out to eat". There were countless rolls in the decorated napkin bread baskets with miniature sized butter tubs, and those really great breadsticks; sesame, garlic and of course plain. The places had names like Spring Garden, and Grandma's - ornately decorated with miniature sized quilts, iron skillets on the walls, and usually some sort of plastic duck in a flowered apron with matching hat. The tables were brown, the carpet patterned to hide the crumbs, and curtains usually in some sort of salmon pink.
Soon high school arrived and I spent the majority of my time in a place called The Junction. The Junction had a train car theme and was decorated with a track that goes through the whole restaurant, and if you were lucky, it’s actually running. On the walls hang the black and white pictures of sports teams past, and there is a constant scent of sitting coffee and bacon in the air. With my freshmen year of high school came my first coffee and cigarette, which rapidly turned into many coffees, and many cigarettes. I always sat at the back table talking with friends about the then most important conversation of my life – which maybe they were because I remember them almost to the exact words to this day. Many a serious contemplation was played out over those endless cups of coffee, drinking so much I would walk out shaking due to the high from a pack of Marlboro Reds and about six cups of coffee over three hours.
College came and I sought out diners in my university town. I found two that I liked, but admit I didn’t go to them as often as my usual diner habits would have you to believe. Something about your home town diner can never match up to one you have not grown up in. I spent a lot of time in various ones sitting, smoking, studying, and ordering slices of pie to go with my ten page marketing papers. Sometimes I took friends to these places, but often it was alone with my notebooks and highlighters, staring at the brown tables and salmon colored curtains. I would almost look forward to studying, because I knew that I could sit for hours, not be bothered and the coffee wouldn’t stop being poured. Most of the waitresses knew me, because my first time at each place – there was always a $5 tip at the end of the night - which would guarantee a swift coffee refill for the next time I came in (to be followed by another $5 tip).
After college I moved up to Chicago where I was in diner heaven. I lived on Clark St. for my first two years, and was at the Golden Nugget about once per month. I of course have been to many other ones, but it was two blocks away and the most convenient. The time of “Does he like me?” conversations of high school are done and there are no more tests to be studied for – but I still go and sit with a coffee and a plate of eggs alone and listen to my favourite sounds of clinking plates and pouring coffee.
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