Date I made this recipe:
March 8, 2015
Holiday Inn
International Cook Book by Ruth Malone
Published by: The Holiday
Inn Magazine
© 1962; Seventh Edition
Purchased at Etsy
Recipe: Beef Stew from the Ames ,
Iowa Holiday Inn "on U.S.
Dateline: Holiday Inn, Kokomo , Indiana
When I was in 4th grade, my parents decided to
take what would be the start of an annual spring break family vacation (never
mind that I didn't technically get one) and set out from Michigan for Key West,
Florida and then from Florida to New Jersey to visit my grandma and then New
Jersey to home. Grandma lived with my dad's
sister, Rose, and her family, and this trip was our once-a-year trip to visit
that side of the family. It was the
prefect vacation, particularly because it started my love affair with Holiday Inn hotels.
On the first day of our vacation, we drove to Kokomo,
Indiana, arriving there at nightfall, beckoned by the glow of the Holiday Inn sign, the one that had an
arrow that kept lighting up, pointing to the hotel, as well as a star burst on
top (see below). I was enraptured.
Inside our room – the most capacious thing I'd ever seen –
was a directory of other Holiday Inn hotels,
free for the taking. So of course we
took that with us and kept taking it in subsequent years, adding other hotel
guides along the way, for example, Best
Western when we took a trip west.
And so on every day of every trip, including the Florida
one, my younger brother and I (mostly me) drove our dad crazy by whining about
wanting to stay at a Holiday Inn with
a pool (had to have a pool—what a treat!), something I don't
think the Kokomo Holiday Inn
had. It mattered not to me that the
hotel with a pool was 500 miles away because hey, I was in 4th grade
and had no idea that 500 miles was not something covered in a few hours
time. But dad did so there you go: "No! We are not driving to that Holiday Inn." "But daaaaaaaaaaaaddddddddd."
Side note: can you
imagine if the Beach Boy's song "Kokomo "
would have been released in 1968 instead of 1988? Talk about driving my dad crazy! It's such a catchy tune...and so fitting!
Dateline: Newark
Liberty Airport ,
Newark , New
Jersey
On Friday, February 27, 2015, Andy and I flew to Newark , NJ in order to
attend my dear Aunt Rose's funeral – she who was mentioned above – the next day
in Middlesex , NJ
And it was all good with the trip until it wasn't which is
to say until it started to snow. This
happened about noonish on Sunday afternoon, March 1st, when Andy and
I were having brunch in NYC with some friends.
By the time we set out in our rental car to return to Newark a few hours later, it was snowing to
beat the band. And long story made
short, our 7:30 p.m. flight back to Minneapolis
was canceled and rescheduled for the next evening. This meant we had to find a place to say near
the airport that had a courtesy shuttle.
And this proved to be no easy feat.
So we rushed, as did half the people in the airport to the
"bat phones," i.e. courtesy
phones at the airport, to try to secure said hotel room and from that point on,
hilarity ensued. I got on one phone and
dialed #10 which allegedly connected me with the Marriott Newark. I like Marriott's
hotels and the directory information said it was the only hotel on the airport
premises so this seemed like a good idea to me.
Meanwhile, Andy started calling from the top of the list to see if he
could get first fender in someplace else.
I won.
So we walked outside among the masses of people waiting for
their courtesy vans, and within minutes, we spotted the maroon van for the Marriott and away we went. (Please note that the van's color – maroon –
is very important.) We were the only ones on the van and had a great time
chatting with the driver (who also offered us water – how nice!) and within
minutes we were there. And the place was
gorgeous with a beautiful fire place, a bar and restaurant and an attentive
front desk staff. What could go wrong?
Plenty. Turns out
that we were booked at the Courtyard
Marriott. The Courtyard Marriott runs a green
courtesy shuttle and it ran every 30 minutes.
The fancy Marriott's shuttle
ran every few minutes.
Dejected, and embarrassed even though the booking person
NEVER said anything about the Courtyard
Marriott, we hopped the very nice shuttle from the wrong Marriott back to the airport. And waited, and waited AND waited for the
green van.
Meanwhile, the fancy Marriott's
maroon van came by several times as did the Hilton
and the Holiday Inn Express (the
topic of today's discussion). Over and over and over again, they came along,
picked up more stranded passengers, ferrying them to the hotel in question to
drop them off. Still no green van.
By this time, the crowds of people gathering for a courtesy
van were getting larger and larger and testier and testier. One hotel's van – I cannot recall which hotel
- finally arrived, causing a stampede of people to get on the thing. But at least 10 people couldn't fit on and
holy cow, you would have thought the Titanic was sinking and there was only one
lifeboat left, such was the distress of the "stranded" passengers.
Several hotel's vans were really tiny and in one case, barely
had room for a mom and her two kids, one of whom was a baby. The husband, who in charge of the family's 20
pieces of luggage had to stay behind with the luggage while the "women and
children first" went to the hotel.
It was chaos. Nah,
make that Armageddon. And still we
waited and waited and waited. We didn't
dare get inside out of the cold and snow because then the van could come and
what if we missed it?
Finally – thank you Jesus – the green van for the Courtyard Marriott arrived. As did the Holiday Inn Express – again!
We piled on and all fit which was a relief because who wanted to wait
another half an hour...besides nobody?
By this time it was almost 9:00. At no point were we able to get food or drink
at the airport because that was upstairs in the gate area and we never got past
the "Special Services" area in the basement of the airport where we
had to go to reschedule our flights. In a parallel family moment, my brother's 1:30
p.m. flight, also out of Newark ,
got cancelled and he flew standby for the 8:15 a.m. flight the next day. He decided to sleep in the gate area. Had we known, we could have all bunked
together but 'tis not the Verme Family way to be that organized!
When we got to the hotel, to our right was a bar and
restaurant that was open for another hour.
To our left, the front desk. And
I swear, for one, brief moment, every passenger on that van paused to ponder
these choices: check in, pass "GO" and head to the room or check in
later and proceed immediately to obtain a beverage and a tidbit. Tough call, that one. I was just happy to see a bar. And food.
But particularly a bar. Just
sayin'.
The hilarious thing about this is that Andy and I had just
checked out of a Courtyard Marriott
in Somerset , NJ
And so dear reader, although we did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express that night, I had a
great time recalling the magic of the Holiday
Inn of my youth, even if it was done while watching the "wrong"
hotel courtesy van pass by us several times over. I told a friend that we should have just
hopped on a Holiday Inn Express van
just for the hell of it. Because when
those people say "Express," they mean it!
Now then, as to this cookbook, leafing through this is
almost as fun as going through the hotel
directory of old except this time it contains recipes. By the time of the seventh publishing in
1972, the town of Marquette , Michigan , which is near my hometown, had
opened a Holiday Inn. Of their two recipes, only the one for a
Pasty (pronounced paa –[like baa]- stee) floated my boat but pasties are a bit
of work to make so I passed on the pasty.
Kokomo, Indiana's Holiday
Inn recipe for "Talk of the Town Steak" also fell short given
that it consisted only of round steak, seasoning salt, liquid smoke and
bacon. I decided not to ruin the memory
of my very first Holiday Inn stay
with such a simple recipe.
Andy favored the "Creamed Ham and Turkey Au
Gratin" recipe from the Holiday Inn
in East Lansing , Michigan
Several other Holiday
Inn recipes also fell by the wayside – some from Minnesota ,
a few others from New Jersey , Florida and also the Boston
area – before we settled on the beef stew recipe from the Holiday Inn in Ames ,
IA.
I may have stayed at a Holiday
Inn in Ames , IA. Ames
where Iowa State University Iowa State Minneapolis
to our travel posse. Sometimes we stayed
at private homes (once we stayed in a commune) but other times a hotel. Maybe the Holiday
Inn, maybe not. But in her honor and
in her memory, I decided on that the beef stew was going to represent Holiday Inn's everywhere and it did an
admirable job.
This is a very simple recipe although patience is required
when cooking the beef stew meat so that it gets nice and tender. The recipe says 1 -1 ½ hours and I say plan on 1 ½. The vegetables, which are added at the end,
stayed nice and crispy but not such that they were raw and the whole dish was
pretty tasty. If anything, it needed a
bit of spice but you can cheat and add that on your own as the recipe only
called for paprika and salt.
Beef Stew – serves 8
3 pounds boneless beef, cubed
1/3 cup cooking oil
2 cups beef stock or bouillon
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
2 cups potatoes, peeled & diced
1 ½ cups diced carrots
1 ½ cups tomato paste
1 cup onion, diced
½ cup chopped celery
2 tablespoons cornstarch
Ann's Note: Although
I only made half the recipe, you will likely need to add almost 2 cups of
liquid so that your broth doesn't boil down.
I started with 1 cup and then added another cup halfway through cooking,
making sure to cover the meat. If making
half a recipe, reduce the amount of all other ingredients though, including the
cornstarch.
Sauté beef in oil in
a heavy skillet. Brown on all
sides. Add stock and cook slowly until
meat is tender (1-1 ½ hours). Add
seasonings, then vegetables and cook until they are done. (Ann's Note:
This includes the tomato paste.)
Carefully add thickening for gravy (blend cornstarch in a small amount
of water and add gradually to stock).
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