table talk / By Joseph Byrd

An Outlaw Cook in Humboldt County

(July 17, 2008)  “We’ve never had such a breakfast: heaping cuts of wild pig, some with skin, some with crust-crunchy bones, and a smoky tenderloin chop….” Photo courtesy of flickr.com user drazz.

This is a memoir of a Humboldt County legend, a restaurant that broke all the rules, sold incredible food cheap and, like a meteor, came and went, from 1999 to 2004, in a blaze of fire. It was called “Al’s Diner” and it was in Rio Dell. And it was funky — a tiny high-ceiling room with a useless built-in counter and uncomfortable stools, plus four ratty booths up against one wall. If you didn’t know, you might walk in, look around, and go right out again.

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My favorite periodical on food is Simple Cooking, a newsletter penned mostly by John Thorne, widely regarded as America’s best food writer. Thorne is also the author of a number of books that combine memoir, philosophical musings and culinary history — the best known being his Outlaw Cook (with his wife, Matt, 1992), which was precociously outrageous (as Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential was 10 years later).

Still, until 1999, I’d never considered the possibility that “outlaw cook” was anything but a well-turned phrase. The thought that a restaurant could literally break the law? Bypass the bureaucratic hegemony of the Health Department? Ignore Fish and Game strictures, which demand a paper trail for every quail and abalone? Endanger the public, serving food that was insufficiently regulated, registered, processed and spindled before it ever got to the kitchen? No! They’d be busted long before … well, maybe not.

We were on our way south to San Francisco when we first stopped at Al’s Diner for lunch. It was October, and the couple in the next booth ordered pumpkin pie. “Do you have any whipped cream?” they asked the waitress. “No, but if you don’t mind waiting, I’ll make some.” And she did.

That got our attention. That ever happen to you? Me neither.

The lunch special was pork steak. It looked good to me. Al nodded approvingly from the kitchen, and disappeared. I could hear pounding, as a slice of pork shoulder was macerated with thyme, dill and flour. Twenty minutes later (a long time, if you are used to fast food), there appeared a platter: a crispy tender disc about seven inches wide, covered with a rich, beefy gravy with hints of red wine, a huge scoop of mashed potato with more beef gravy in the center topped with grilled onions — paper thin, with caramelized edges; plus narrow slices of char-edged sweet red pepper, topped by a deep-fried crushed garlic clove. Where it could be squeezed in were simple steamed baby broccoli buds and pickled red cabbage.

With this I had a Dr Pepper, since no beer was available. (Or so I thought.)

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