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Photographs by Kevin A. Roberts
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One of the places I often take out-of-towners is the loop that goes across the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers by ferry. The back roads of Calhoun County that go through apple and peach orchards is country I've known for years, beginning when my childrens' father lived in the next county north.
I recently did a short version of this, just driving up to the Golden Eagle Ferry in St. Charles County with my guests to have lunch at Kinder's, the restaurant and bar that marks the ferry's Illinois landing. Kinder's has been there for a lot longer than I've been making this trip. It's a simple place with plenty of tables on a deck overlooking the river and large windows in the dining room, a dock, and a few rooms to rent, as well.
Multigenerational locals and road-tripping suburbanites mix. My friends, two New Yorkers unused to such rusticity, became part of the amalgamation as we watched a group set off in small power boats to commemorate a long-departed friend with appropriate jokes and t-shirts. A few light nibbles, said the pals. It didn't quite turn out that way. While there are salads on the menu, dainty is not the direction we went.
"Fried gizzards? From chickens?" asked one. Well, yes. An order of mixed livers and gizzards (below left) arrived hot and well-drained, the breading seasoned with a generous hand on the black pepper and maybe a little garlic salt, too. The guest who'd been so stunned to see them on a menu was hard put to share them, but managed with a fair amount of grace. The chicken livers were even better unless you're a gizzard aficionado, in the same batter and not cooked to rubberiness.
Most St. Louisans aren't aware that the area around the juncture of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers is fish sandwich land. They're so much a part of the regional cuisine that at fairs, for instance, the local 4-H Club will be selling fish sandwiches, not hamburgers. The fish of choice is generally catfish or buffalo, the catfish even these days probably locally caught. Buffalo? Forget the noble beast; this is buffalo fish, also local and known for its plethora of bones. But I'm told by folks who've been cooking buffalo for decades that the way the fish is processed, giving a series of slits about a quarter-inch apart in the flesh, allows the heat of cooking to dissolve the bones.
Does it work? Well, boneless buffalo has been my fish sandwich of choice in these spots and I've never found a bone. It's breaded, usually in cornmeal, as it is at Kinder's, and cooked to crunchiness, so perhaps the tiny fragments are unnoticeable, but it certainly seems to work. The fish comes on white supermarket bread, clearly just a holder for the hot fish, and the condiments of choice are usually mustard and a slice of onion.
We had a buffalo sandwich and two catfish sandwiches, one grilled (above center) and the other fried. The abstemious guest's grilled cat was seasoned with Cajun seasoning, one of several options the server offered, and wasn't overcooked, but compared to the fried fish seemed a little wan. The serving of catfish was two fillets, another astonishing thing to the guests. Onion rings, like the fish, gizzards and livers, were well-drained and their batter was noticeably light.
Was this the end of the allegedly-light lunch? "They said they make all their desserts here!" cried the other guest. "We have to try something." Blackberry pie (above right), three forks; maybe the juices were thickened a little too much, but that's just one of my hangups. The crust was surprisingly good after a stay in the refrigerator. One of my pals stopped to remark on the pie as we went through the dining room. It turned out the dessert chef was within arm's reach. I'm not sure how often folks from East 78th Street are praising their blackberry pie at Kinder's, but it's always nice to have the stereotype of unfriendly New Yorkers blown away.
A rookie server, who tried hard, smiled and generally kept up, which was fine: with a view like this, it's not the sort of place to eat and run.
Kinder's Restaurant
Route 1, Golden Eagle, Ill.
618-883-2586
To get to the Golden Eagle Ferry, take Missouri Highway 94 through St. Charles. (Main Street going north will feed into it.) Turn left on State Road B. The Golden Eagle Ferry's road is on the right around 6 miles from Highway 94, and it's marked. And don't forget, it's located "On and Sometimes In the Mississippi", as the sign by the parking lot says. $3 to ride the ferry on foot, $15 to ride ferry with car.
