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Over the Back Fence By HANK HENRY Editor's note: Hank Henry is recuperating from surgery. This week and next he will reprise two of his favorite columns, and then return with new material on April 4. This originally was published July 10, 1995, and has been updated. To deserve Talent Cafe pie, you ate everything In the last 20 years or so, the Rogue Valley has become widely known for the quality of many of its restaurants. You can find foods featured at local restaurants which are native dishes of countries around the world. Many of these are not only wonderful to eat, but the food is arranged on the plates in ways that are truly artistic. Another category of restaurants caters to the working person with lunches that are served quickly and for low prices. There was once a restaurant in Talent that fit that last description, serving lunches primarily for working people. Good basic food. A spontaneous ritual grew up around the Talent Cafe that involved the locals bringing visitors from other areas to the cafe. The finer clothing they wore and the more upscale their lifestyle, the better the tourists were equipped to play their parts. The Talent Cafe was located in an old storefront building on Talent Avenue. The wooden structure looked like something out of a western movie, with a false front for a second story. Inside, it looked like a turn-of-the-century soda fountain -- booths for four along the walls and in the middle there were small round tables with legs and chair backs made of twisted heavy wire. There were no cash registers, only crumpled bills and stacks of coins on one end of the soda fountain bar. I was brought to the Talent Cafe one noonday by the mayor of another small town up the road. He wanted me to see how some touristy people handled being put on the spot. Two old ladies in black, floor-length dresses, white blouses and checkered aprons were running the place when we were there. They looked like somebody's grandmothers, but they could be as tough as nails, as you will see. No one was ever able to tell me how the ritual started where locals would take their out-of-town guests to the cafe, but the routine spread all over the valley by word-of-mouth. It never involved more than a small number of the many people who ate lunch there, but the prank followed a set pattern. To set up the event, the local host had to brag to the visitor about the pies that were baked at the Talent Cafe, probably the best pies in the West -- or in the world, for that matter. The host could not say enough about the pies. Upon stepping into the restaurant, the host and the tourist would be seated by one of the ladies in the long dresses. She would announce the two entrees to choose from that day, such as chicken fried steak or pork chops. For the game to work, before leaving the house, the host had to explain to the visitor that the ladies would not sell a piece of pie by itself. Rather, the pie and the plate lunch had to be ordered as a unit. When the plates came, they would be piled high with the entree, plus mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and two thick pieces of white bread on top. It was enough food for a person who operated a jackhammer all day, and was too much for a sedentary tourist. The tourist would tackle the mound with determination, but invariably he would finish with food still on his plate. Then came the moment people in-the-know had been waiting for. The elderly waitress would approach, the visitor would say he was ready for pie, and then, with everybody watching, the waitress would smile and say, "Son, you haven't cleaned your plate." And she meant it. It never failed. The tourist would lower his gaze, his face would flush, and he would manfully finish all the food on his plate. A lot of overly fed tourists left the Talent Cafe in those days. But the pie was worth it. (Hank Henry is a retired Jackson County commissioner and a former radio and television announcer. Call him at 772-9055.) Prime Times front page Mail Tribune front page Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA