Blackberry fried

The haul across Arkansas from east to west or west to east is most likely taken across the excellent ribbon called Interstate 40.  This vital link through Arkansas connects North Carolina to California and all points in-between.

When the nights are long or the holidays nigh and there is no open restaurant in sight, stop in off Exit 35 at Ozark and take yourself inside the I-40 Travel Center.  Yes, here you will find the magnificent Hillbilly Hideout, a grand new comfortable and affordable restaurant where you may sit and dine on American and Ark-Mex favorites and breakfast standards.

But if time is short, comfort yourself with one of Ms. Janie's eight inch or bigger half-crescent fried pies, cellophane wrapped and showcased at every register. Peach, apple, cherry -- but it is the blackberry we must heartily recommend, along with a cuppa joe and a full tank to get you back on the road.



Hillbilly Hideout
I-40 Travel Center
Exit 35, I-40
Ozark, AR 72949
(479) 667-0711

Blueberry fried.

There are too many items to confuse the mind at the bakery at Country Village near Star City.  Between the cakes, the pies, the doughnuts, the loaves of bread and cookies and jams and jellies and canned goods and such, there are so many things to make the mouth water.

Yet it's a very good idea to keep your sense of purpose, to walk in and order a blueberry fried pie or three.  Made from blueberry preserves created on-site, wrapped in doughnut dough and deep-fried, this is a pie with heft and moxie, and it deserves your full attention.

Country Village Bakery

158 Knight Haven Circle

Star City, AR 71667

(870) 628-3333

On Facebook

Apple cinnamon fried.

In the book, we talk about the Delta custom of the fried pie by the cash register.  You can find them all over the state, wrapped in wax paper or cellophane and offered for sale for a buck or two to pick up and take with you.

The danger in this is when the pie needs heat.  A good pie is buttery and spice-packed enough where it doesn't matter.

That's the case at the Country Store in Rison, a gray-washed convenience and fuel center that offers wax paper wrapped fried pies in a cardboard box right next to the register.  The apple-cinnamon pie is our favorite; packed with soft-stewed cinnamon spiced apple and just the right amount of sugar, this pie takes it over the top with a decadent dusting of even more cinnamon and sugar.

Rison Country Store

1980 U.S. 63

Rison, AR 71665

(870) 357-8259

Strawberry icebox.

The buzz around Searcy is that there's a new great place for catfish in town.  That place is The Lunchbox, and it's less than a year old.  But its recipes and catfish roots go straight to the famed and now defunct Georgetown One-Stop, the final word in all things catfish in Arkansas.

However, cheating oneself of a slice of the strawberry icebox pie at The Lunchbox is paramount to personal mutiny, and one's tastebuds might take an act of protest, if one can be determined.

What we do like about the strawberry icebox pie at The Lunchbox -- fresh-frozen chunks of Arkansas strawberries suspended in strawberry-juice pink tinted whipped cream, with enough extra whipped cream from a can on top to choke a horse.  The only other viable option is one of the restaurant's fabulous homemade fried pies, which can suitably be accepted if you're absolutely freezing.

Lunchbox
1100 East Race Avenue
Searcy, AR
(501) 268-4040
On Facebook

Coconut meringue.

Every morning, Tuesday through Saturday, Charlotte Bowls makes pie crust.  She makes just enough pie crusts to fit in enough pans to fill every section of counterspace in her kitchen at her famed Keo shop -- and no more.  The pies are filled, the meringue is beaten and dotted on top, and the pies are baked.

Locals know to order pie when they come through the door -- or better yet, have an order called in when the restaurant opens at 11 a.m.

If you miss out on the coconut meringue pie, named the best coconut meringue in the South by Southern Living, there are other pies... and cakes as well, though the layered delights are often overlooked.

And if for some reason you eek in the door at the end of the day looking for your Keo Klassic and miss out on burger AND pie, you still have an opportunity at greatness with a classic milkshake.

Charlotte’s Eats and Sweets
290 Main Street
Keo, AR 72083
(501) 841-2123

Apple tartine.

How about an upside-down pie?  Though it doesn't look out of alignment with its internal axis, this slice of apple tartine was cooked the other way around.  The chefs at Terry's Finer Restaurant, the little French-inspired cafe attached to Terry's Finer Foods in the Heights, prepare this beauty in a flat iron skillet apples-down, each slice coated in a blend of cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg and butter, the dough for the crust sprawled over its top like a firm blanket.  It's only when the apples have fully caramelized that the pie is inverted into its final form.

Terry’s Finer Restaurant
5018 Kavanaugh Boulevard
Little Rock, AR 72207
(501) 663-4152
www.facebook.com/TerrysFinerFoodsTheRestaurant

Brown sugar.

Is there any sort of pastry Tandra Watkins creates that we don't love?  We haven't found it yet.

Her brown sugar pie with bourbon whipped cream deserves to be highlighted on the menu at upscale Ashley's at the Capital... what surprises us is that it's actually the featured wintertime dessert over at Capital Bar and Grill across the lobby.  The brownie-crisp top crust, the almost pecan-custard (yet pecan-less) filling, the decadent and light slightly alcoholic cool cream... it'll make you thankful.

Check out the book for the recipe, and for more on Tandra.


Capital Bar and Grill
11 West Markham
Little Rock, AR 72201
(501) 374-7474
www.capitalhotel.com/CBG