Dinner at the Wilderness Inn

The café at the Wilderness Inn is my favorite place to eat.  It’s at Lowell, Idaho, just up the Lochsa River from its confluence with the Selway.  Yesterday, after walking along the Selway River, I stopped at the Wilderness Inn for dinner.  I had a pork tenderloin sandwich and onion rings.

It was 20 years ago—10 June 1988—when I first ate at the Wilderness Inn. On that day I drove over Bitterroot Mountains at Lolo Pass on Highway 12 and down the valley of the Lochsa River. I was searching for kittentails for a research project on flower evolution that I was then just beginning.  Synthyris missurica, the mountain kittentail, is common along the side creeks that enter the Lochsa River, and I was making collections of its flowers at various creeks as I drove down Highway 12.  The morning of collecting work was long.  There had been little food in the truck when I had a quick breakfast and fixed tea earlier at my campsite in Montana.  As I collected along the Lochsa my hunger grew intense, and there were no stores or restaurants.  The drive down the Lochsa valley was slow.  Logging trucks loaded with large cedars crept down the mountain highway.  The curves were tight, coming one after another, and I passed, as I could, the logging trucks and tractor-trailer rigs.  I grew ravenous, wondering the distance to food, feeling certain that Highway 12 in the Lochsa valley was the most extensive food-free zone in America.  And then I saw the Wilderness Inn.  It was situated across the highway from the river, sitting behind a small parking area.  That first meal at the Wilderness Inn was several years before I moved to the inland Northwest and began my regular visits to the Lochsa River.

My research allows me to range widely over the American West, and I enjoy eating in local, independent restaurants as I travel.  A week ago, on my return home from the desert, I stopped in Cascade, Idaho, for breakfast.  I had camped the night before in the mountains to the south of Cascade, and I arrived at the restaurant at 6.30, looking for both breakfast and tea.  Two women were sitting at a table by a front window when I arrived.  They stood when I entered—they were the waitress and cook.  The waitress brought a menu, and the cook went the kitchen, where she began to complain loudly about her job, her employers, and why the restaurant was losing money.  It was a sour breakfast.  Not an experience I’ve ever had at the Wilderness Inn.

The waitress at the Wilderness Inn has a good laugh.  We look up as she laughs, and it helps us see who else is having dinner.  A couple of late middle-aged women at a table talk about their favorite hunting spots, and two retired gentlemen at the counter comment on their favorite soap operas.  Current and former forest rangers speak softly.  Shiny motorcycles line-up outside—I admire them as I eat and think about travelling with the wind in my hair (no helmet law in Idaho!).  Tables of young, white-water rafting guides set my reveries to youth and adventure. “Here ya go,” the waitress says as she hands me a menu, although I know what I want. 

A month ago, I met DL for dinner at the Wilderness Inn before we went camping on her birthday.  The week after that CF and I had lunch there on a day when we searched the river beaches for garden stones.  Two weeks after that, I was back in the restaurant with DL, Peter, and Ray when we were cold and wet from walking 15 miles in the rain at the end of a backpack.  The young waitress that evening kept the hot drinks coming to our table.   For each of those meals and all of my other lunches and dinners at the Wilderness Inn, I have a pork tenderloin sandwich.

Breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches are practically the state food of Iowa, where I grew-up.  The pork tenderloin sandwiches at the Wilderness Inn are fixed Iowa style, which is uncommon.  Iowa style is basically a wiener schnitzel with thinly pounded meat—about the thickness of corrugated cardboard (and sometimes it has the taste of cardboard as well)—served on a hamburger bun.  The piece of meat should be twice the diameter of the hamburger bun so that the sandwich with the overhanging rim of breaded pork looks more like a flying saucer than a hamburger.  One puts ketchup on this sandwich, probably also mustard or mayo, and tomato, onion, lettuce, as well as pickles.

I’ve eaten breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches this way since childhood.  It was my mother’s favorite food.  After I moved away from home, she would always fix them for me when I returned to visit.  In her mid-80s, when she no longer cooked for herself, she would ask, “Do you want a tenderloin sandwich this evening?”  She would then call a minimart near the senior citizens’ apartments where she lived in old age to place an order for the sandwiches.  “Will you walk over to pick them up?” she would ask after the order was placed.  It takes only a few minutes to cook the meat, and by the time I walked to the grill at the nearby minimart our sandwiches would be ready.

Each time I order a pork tenderloin sandwich at the Wilderness Inn, I think about having dinner with my mother.  I think about her love of breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches.

Comments

[Diana]

I just asked my husband where Lowell is, in relation to us, and he said it's only about 40 miles. In fact while you were there yesterday we were in Kooskia. So close!

But I've never been to Lowell and now I have a nice Saturday excursion destination. I'll try the sandwich!

[Clare]

Okay, I'm hungry now. Iowa style eh?

[larry]

Diana and Clare--I await your reviews of your own breaded pork tenderloin experiences.

[Ken]

Larry,

It's a sunny, Sunday morning here in Arizona, and I've now frittered my morning away reading your posts.

I'm brand new to reading blogs, only for a week now. But after sifting through the innane ramblings of hundreds of blogs, I find your posts a great paring with a good pot of coffee.

Thanks

[larry]

Ken--thanks for the thoughts. While I can't imagine taking these 'sketches' with coffee most were written with tea.

[Ron Kaster]

I grew up eating Breaded Pork Tendorloin Sandwiches at the 'Millie's Drive In' (since closed) Restaurant, in Des Moines,IA, in the mid to late 1950s,and their sandwich was one of the best, I've had.
The pork tenderloin meat (very thinly pounded) portion, was about eight to nine inches across,after cooking, and was served on a six inch bun. The actual pork was pounded very thin, then dipped into a batter, and bread crumbs, and deep fried, delicious with mustard and 'Millie's (sort of like a Thousand Island dressing) special sauce. I sure miss eating them. Have found nothing similar anywhere since then.

[larry]

Ron--that sandwich you describe is the one I also remember, although I'm dubious about that 'special sauce' it sounds like an awfully big deviation from tradition (and my deeply ingrained memories). I think you have three choices to alleviate that sense of the missed sandwich in your life: (1) try making one yourself, (2) head to some small town restaurant in Iowa (no matter how far away you may be now), or 3) drive up to Idaho to have a sandwich at the Wilderness Inn.

[Ben]

Larry, if you liked Millies Drive-In then you should like the tenderloins at B&B Grocery Meat and Deli. I believe the owners of B&B are related to the past owners of Millies. Regardless, B&B's pork tenderloin sandwich is outstanding. I'm addicted to it.

It's definately a must to try if you're in Des Moines, Iowa.

[Connie Stivers]

Was Millie's on 2nd Ave. I have friends that say no. I was a car-hop around 1959 and thought that I worked at Millie's on 2nd Ave. I know it moved to University east of 2nd ave. later.
Connie