Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 3, 1993 TAG: 9311020168
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The smell is gravy, the atmosphere is pure diner, and the matriarch is Sylvia Hollandsworth, a woman known from one edge of Vinton to the other for her homemade sausage, tenderloin and chipped-beef gravies.
For those of us who have always been a bit mystified by the elements of good gravy-making - people who wouldn't know a good roux if they sopped one up with a biscuit - Sylvia is the gravy guru to turn to.
She knows, for instance, that no gravy is worth its grease if it isn't served on top of a pile of homemade - not instant - mashed potatoes.
She'd sooner succumb to instant gravy than cook in anything but her old, seasoned iron skillet: "Even cheap wine tastes good if you drink it out of an expensive glass," she says.
And she can tell you just exactly how to get the perfect gravy consistency - no lumps, no flour specks, no huge chunks of meat.
"I grew up on gravy in a West Virginia holler," says the 56-year-old daughter of a cafeteria cook. "We didn't have much meat then; ours was just fatback."
Sylvia learned from her mama how to get the most flavor out of a piece of meat. She learned how to "toast" her gravy - a technique that requires mashing flour into crumpled sausage and letting it cook before adding the evaporated milk, water and white pepper.
Judging from her steady stream of breakfast and lunch regulars, Vinton is hooked on Sylvia's gravy. During the March blizzard, Vinton rescue workers were so worried The Dogwood would be closed that they personally chauffeured Sylvia to work.
"I told them the day before I probably wouldn't be able to get in," she recalls. "They said, `Then we'll send the rescue squad.'
"I fed the entire Fire Department that day. I was busy."
Open for more than 50 years now, The Dogwood Restaurant is to Vinton what The Roanoker is to Roanoke. Originally Harvey's Restaurant, the restaurant became The Dogwood 35 years ago. Sylvia took it over in 1988 after a stint as banquet manager for the Patrick Henry Hotel.
Sylvia can't even fathom how many meals have been served on her classic dogwood-border plates that originally came from Hotel Roanoke.
Ditto her coffee cups - the sturdy, heavy, white ceramic kind that keep both your coffee and your hands from getting cold.
Dick Cranwell flipped burgers at The Dogwood during high school. "Of course, he might have just washed the dishes," Sylvia says with a teasing laugh. And he still counts himself among The Dogwood's regulars, especially during campaign season.
Last Friday Cranwell dressed up in a Pillsbury Doughboy costume and handed out trick-or-treat candy at The Dogwood. "Course, he looked more like Chef Boyardee," Sylvia says. "The diaper pins in his hat kept falling out."
Sylvia's ancient gas stove is so old that she has to put bricks on the bottom of the oven to keep her homemade biscuits from burning. "They say `George Washington slept here'? Well, Martha cooked on this stove," she deadpans.
The Dogwood is comfort-food paradise. Regulars mark their calendars by meatloaf Mondays, chicken-and-dumplings Tuesdays, chicken-liver Wednesdays, country-style steak Thursdays and pan-fried chicken Fridays. Seafood chowder is a favorite soup special on Thursdays and Fridays.
For the anti-gravy contingent, Sylvia also makes a "lite" chicken salad, served with fruit on the side - using the same trademark fruit-dip recipe the old Miller & Rhoads tearoom was known for.
Lunch specials come with a selection of meat-seasoned vegetables - green beans, pinto beans, cabbage - and/or the requisite gooey- crunchy macaroni and cheese. And kids can get breakfast pancakes shaped to order by Sylvia's daughter, Penny Ray, who ladles out a mean Mickey Mouse likeness with her batter.
"Sylvia's mashed potatoes are so good, sometimes I get two orders," says Sandy Edwards, office manager at Vinton's American Lenders.
Bob Browning and his neighbor, retiree Lewis Barnett, have been coming to the Dogwood regularly since June, when Browning was declared legally blind. "My neighbor brings me out to breakfast every day," Browning says. "On Saturdays we bring our wives."
"The second time we came in here, they called us by our first names."
Sylvia's also a big hit with the NASCAR-loving set, having one of the best collections of racing memorabilia around. Customers bring her NASCAR clocks and photographs to sell on consignment, and they frequently add to her massive display with gifts of signed prints and cardboard stand-ups.
Sylvia first got into the hobby in '85, when she started dating her second husband. "When you're old and you start going out with someone, you don't talk about dating; you talk about NASCAR," she says.
Her favorite driver is Darrell Walker. She keeps his hand-lettered No. 17 on her restaurant bulletin board - for those times when she gets parking tickets downtown. "I put it on my car, so it's like they're giving Darrell Walker a ticket instead of me," she says. "It's an inside joke with the other merchants."
When racing legends Alan Kulwicki and Davey Allison died earlier this year, customers were ringing her home phone constantly, wanting to share the sad news.
Indeed, Sylvia is just as much an institution around here as The Dogwood itself. And she's not too uppity to have a little fun at her own expense. Last week, she cackled as she showed off her recent Glamour Shots photo, the one she used in a recent restaurant promotion in the Vinton newspaper.
"I thought I was going to Oakey's by the time they got through with me," she says.
The Dogwood Restaurant, at 106 E. Lee Ave. in Vinton, is open for breakfast and lunch weekdays, 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; 6 a.m. to noon Saturdays; and 7 a.m. to noon Sundays. 343-6549.
by CNB