Alice's Restaurant
What would any Thanksgiving holiday be without revisiting Arlo Guthrie's, Alice's Restaurant? I doubt there is a single person from any generation, who at one time or another doesn't find themselves mindlessly singing the famous line, "You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant. Just walk right in; it's around the back, just half a mile from the railroad track. You can have anything you want at Alice's restaurant." It's eighteen minutes and twenty seconds of pure talk-song, folk music with a twist; the story is true.
It was 1965, and Arlo Guthrie was headed back to Stockbridge, Massachusetts to visit some friends for the Thanksgiving holiday. He ended up at Alice and Ray Brock's house (which was a converted church). Alice served a great dinner and good times were being had, as usual. Seems Arlo and his buddy were feeling a little beholden to Alice for her wonderful hospitality, so they decided to clean out all of the garbage in a downstairs room. They were going to the dump. They arrived to find the dump was closed, but decided they needed to get rid of the trash anyway. They tossed it over a ledge and were arrested the next day for littering...The story/song goes on to say that they paid a fine and had to clean up the garbage, but when the draft rolled around they were considered convicts and were rejected. (In reality, Arlo was classified A1, but his lottery number never came up) The song became an instant phenomenon and hurtled Guthrie to the top of his fame. It seems Alice Brock; the namesake of the song would be skyrocketed to the stars as well.
True to the song, Alice did own a restaurant just half a mile from the railroad track. It was known as "The Backroom Rest" and was located six miles from the church in which they lived. So, when Alice wasn't playing surrogate mother to any number of hippies living in her deconsecrated church, she was cooking in her restaurant. The Back Room Rest survived for a year when Alice closed it down upon her divorce from Ray Brock.
The fame she acquired through Arlo Guthrie's song and the release of a movie with the same name, was the catalyst she used in opening several restaurants throughout her life, although most unsuccessfully. She felt that the restaurant owned her instead of her owning it, and found that the fame of being a hippie-era relic turned her into an object, not a person.
Another one of Alice's ventures into success was the release of her cookbook in 1969. Not surprisingly named, Alice's Restaurant Cookbook. This cookbook isn't a James Beard contender in any fashion yet it gives one a glimpse into Alice's nonchalant approach to good food. It includes about one hundred recipes and hand drawings by Alice. Still photos from the movie are prevalent as well in this flighty but fun cookbook. It was a successful first printing of 40,000 copies, and I have a copy from the third printing; all yellowed and tattered, but still cherished.
One of Alice's famous quotes, "Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good." is just an echo from the past, but somewhere in the hearts of many Americans, Alice will always be larger than life. Nowadays Alice can be found at 69 Commercial Street, Provincetown, Massachusetts running her Art studio, where she says, "If you ring the bell, and I'm here, I'll always answer the door". Alice doesn't mind discussing ‘those' days with anyone, but wants people to understand there is more to Alice than just a restaurant.
Hopefully you are all in the spirit of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, and if you tune into channel 16 on Sirius radio on Thanksgiving Day, you can hear Alice's Restaurant played non-stop. Lastly, I'll leave you with a recipe scanned from Alice's cookbook. It's her favorite stuffing; the very same one she fed to Arlo and the gang on that fateful night in 1965.
