Granny Had One

Like many Midwesterners, I grew up on meat and potatoes. Over the last few years, I became a vegetarian - sort of accidentally. I started trying to eat fewer animal products for health reasons, and over a period of a few years I found I didn’t want to eat any meat at all. I just lost my taste for it. Recently, I found myself in a comfort food eatery in Guthrie, Oklahoma called Granny Had One. There were not a lot of choices for the vegetarian on the menu, but I still loved the joint. The funny thing was that I actually drove to this place and convinced my husband that he wanted to eat there, even though he too is a vegetarian. Granny’s has a cowboy mural on the wall along with wooden tables and chairs, and a full bar. They’ve got a salad bar with iceberg lettuce and various potato and pasta salads. There might have been some broccoli too, maybe. As I said though, I loved the place, because it reminded me of home and my youth.

As a kid in Lawrence, KS I used to love this place on the outskirts of town called Don’s Steakhouse. We would drive out there for the feast on special occasions. I remember very little about the building -- just the people and the food. Rare slabs of prime rib were served in white oblong dishes filled with juice, along with steak fries and chicken gravy. There is nothing like gravy poured over fries. Chicken fried steak was also covered in the gravy and served with a few “token” but buttery green beans. If you didn’t specify what you wanted on your potatoes, then a large mound of sour cream and butter would top the spud still in its foil from cooking. Comfort food, home cooking steak houses are still all over the lower Midwest and the south serving up chicken fried steak, baked potatoes, and homemade rolls, and they are way better than the chains. These are the kind of places where, when you finish eating, everyone leans back in their chairs and rubs their stomachs. Someone often says, “Oh God, I think I hurt myself!” So why does a vegetarian still like going to these places? I just like the down home country atmosphere and I still like the smell of the food even though I don’t care to eat the meat anymore. It just reminds me of my childhood, smelling the fried chicken, gravy, and apple pies my grandmother and mother were cooking.

Since I still eat some seafood I ordered the fried shrimp at Granny Had One. I really enjoyed it, but had to give Slim (my husband of 20 years) about three of the rich, crunchy little crustaceans. On the menu it said toward the bottom, “portabella mushroom dinner for our vegetarian friends,” which I thought was hilarious. Slim ordered it. When our dinners came, he got a big mushroom. That’s right, just a big mushroom on the plate next to the baked potato and token beans. In all fairness, the mushroom had been marinated, and it tasted great. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t control myself. I kept saying, “hey nice mushroom!” After awhile I kept asking Slim to let me get a picture of his meal, and finally after some argument he agreed, as long as I “didn’t attract attention to myself.” The accompanying picture to this post tells the story: a mushroom with a potato and 3 tubs of butter.

Granny Had One is in downtown Guthrie. It's run by very nice people who will serve you chicken fried steak, steak, chicken, baked potato, homemade rolls, homemade pies, French fries, and butter. Lots and lots of butter.