What's that, there, in your stew?

I have a friend, we'll call her K, who HATES the stew. Hates it. If you want to make her cringe and scream and practically gag, say Stew two or three times. Hell, even if you aren't around her, say it anyway. It's fun.

I, however, love stew in all of its forms from canned Chunky to grandma's own to the very chichi Daube that I make as soon as the weather even thinks about getting slightly chilly. So I was delighted when my fellow lunch boys declared one recent snowy afternoon that we were going to John's Famous Stew on Kentucky Avenue.

You pull up into a parking lot that you just can't imagine isn't currently hosting a "let's take this outside" fight. Open the single, windowless door and you are in an honest-to-God roadhouse. Grab a numbered table before someone yells at you. The paneled walls are all beer signs and dartboards (a scary thought in a room this small) and the remnants of what I can only guess was an OTB establishment (horse murals and a tiny window now stuffed with supplies). The bar is stocked with the kind of stuff college students bet each other to drink.

And on the menu. Stew. Mild, medium, or hot. Served with "Thank God I'm an American" white bread. Butter's on the table, so don't ask. On this fine day, one of the lunch boys decided on a hamburger with stew. We all pictured a sandwich with stew ladled over, like a Beef Manhattan, only with stew. Our lunches arrived, and the bowls of stew (giant bowls, by the way, for those of you who care about heaping portions) all looked the same. Dig in, though, and there, like the prize at the bottom of a box of Cracker Jack, was a hamburger. A whole hamburger, bun and all. Under the stew.

There are pictures. Coming soon.