The Quilt Inn Country Cookbook

Aliske Webb

Everybody’s From Somewhere

As Michael and I travelled around the country collecting stories for our memories

and recipes for the Inn, we’ve enjoyed visiting small towns everywhere. I avoid

highways whenever possible and go out of my way to find the “grey roads” on the map.

They are the old roads, that lead meandering routes from town to town, left behind by

the “red” and important superhighways.

I often get us lost, but even that’s OK. Getting lost can lead you to some place

more interesting than where you were heading. Strange, that. A wise man said, “When

you are on a trip and your destination seems to move further and further away, you

know that it was the journey you were after, not the destination.”

Early on we noticed that almost every town we visited had a sign at the town

limits proudly boasting a native son or daughter who had gone on to fame and fortune,

supposedly elsewhere. Now we’re on the lookout for those wonderful telltale signs. I

think we’ve found the home of every Miss America since 1957. We found football,

basketball and baseball stars who made it past local high school hero to world class

competitor. We found singers and musicians who probably drove the neighbors crazy,

were the ne’r-do-wells at the time, probably now laughing, and strumming, all the way

to the bank.

In the “Who’s Who” of towns, (or perhaps that should be the “Where’s Where”),

is there a pecking order of luminaries? If your town can brag only of a Regional Lawn

Bowling Champion, are you less of an address than a town strutting a Miss America

or a Hall of Famer?

It’s a comfortable reminder that everybody is from somewhere. And driving

around any somebody’s home town lets us see a glimpse of their past and perhaps

their burning motivation for achieving success elsewhere. We wonder how those home

towns fare in the memories of native sons and daughters. Happy nostalgia of

childhood? Or, couldn’t wait to leave nightmares.

All those towns are everywhere different and everywhere the same. They are

towns without pity, towns from hell, or even towns with no name (Clint Eastwood

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Country Cooking