Mom's Review

" HOME STYLE COOKING "

8403 NC Hwy. 87 Wentworth, NC.

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HAUTE, HOME-STYLE

Date: October 3, 2004 Edition(s): ROCKINGHAM
Page: R1 Section: TRIAD
Column: MYLA BARNHARDT

Dateline: WENTWORTH

One of the best endorsements a diner can get is a jam-packed parking lot at lunchtime.

And if a couple of those cars belong to sheriff's deputies, well ... that's just gravy on the steak, or whipped cream on the pie.
If you buy into that theory, the cars crowded into the lot at Mom's Kitchen are a testimonial to the diner's success. And it's not just because it also happens to be the only diner in Wentworth.

Through its doors, there's more going on than slinging hash. New owners Ross and Amy Bray Hammond, gourmet chefs who've cooked at resorts around the country, may be serving up good ol' home-style cooking, but they can't resist throwing in an occasional gourmet twist.

And that's got folks smacking their lips and ordering up seconds.

Others, operating in the same spot, have not fared nearly as well as the Hammonds. The couple opened the diner on March 1 after spending months refurbishing it. They are renting the building from Amy's grandparents, Rachel and Banks Fox.

Rachel is the "mom" of Mom's Kitchen. She and Banks started the diner in the 1970s. Back then, it occupied a small corner of the convenience store that Banks operated.

By 1979, it was apparent that Rachel's cooking was becoming the mainstay of the business. The building was converted into a diner, and Mom's Country Kitchen, as it was then named, began a run that lasted for 17 years. That's when "mom," as Rachel was affectionately called, hung up her apron at age 78.

A host of proprietors rented the building at the intersection of N.C. 87 and N.C. 65, a stone's throw from Rockingham County High School. But no one stayed in business long.

When the building was vacated a year ago, Banks Fox phoned his granddaughter Amy, who was working as a chef in Rhode Island, and asked her to come home and open the diner.

Amy, 31, has a culinary degree from Guilford Technical Community College and has worked as a chef at resorts around the country. But her true schooling came from working alongside her grandmother at the diner. She started at 13, washing dishes for $20 a week. Her mother, Linda Fox, waited tables, as she does occasionally, even now. By the age of 14, Amy was flipping burgers and rolling out biscuits. After graduating from Rockingham High in 1991, and culinary school a few years later, she landed a job in Palm Beach, Fla. There, she met Ross Hammond, now 39, who had been trained by European chefs.

When Amy's grandfather pro-posed that they take over the diner, they were working the resort circuit, summering in New England and wintering in Palm Beach. And in doing so, they rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous, cooking for former president George Bush, Donald Trump, Jimmy Buffet, Danny Kaye, Johnny Cash and Estee Lauder.

But the lure of owning a business was attractive. So, instead of stirring up a bourbon glaze for a steak, Ross is mastering the fine art of Southern-style gravy and country style steak.

"I still keep calling it Swiss steak," he says. And instead of macadamia-nut-encrusted snapper served on a plate painted with mango coulis and red cabbage confetti, they're frying up a pretty delicious fish sandwich and hush puppies.

"We're trying to keep the country tradition going," Amy says. And that means lots of hot biscuits, green beans, cornbread and mashed potatoes. And they're starting to learn the ropes. When traffic court is in session at the courthouse down the road, they put a few more pots on the stove. They know it's going to be busy. With three schools less than a block or two away, the lines are out the door on a teacher workday. And when the National Guard has a weekend drill, Saturdays can be hectic. "They eat heavy," Ross says.

It's old hat to Rachel Fox. When she ran the diner, she often squeezed 100 guardsmen into the building. "Oh, my goodness, they sure could eat," she says.

The sheriff's deputies were just as loyal, usually showing up for biscuits and gravy every morning. "I got 'em so fat, Bobby Vernon (who was sheriff at that time) forbid 'em to come back up here to eat," Rachel says. She's come out of retirement to make pecan pies and cinnamon rolls for the diner on Wednesdays.

And though the Hammonds stick pretty much to traditional country cooking, they offer some of their fancier concoctions in their catering business, which they do on the side. They also experiment in the diner occasionally. That could be anything from serving the tuna melt with Swiss cheese and sauteed onions to sneaking some upscale specials onto the menu, such as chicken alfredo or roasted-vegetable lasagna.

But then again, the first time a patron looked at a plate of blackened chicken, he stared at the crusty meat and politely asked if they didn't think it was "a mite overdone." And when Ross takes the time to make a refined sauce for a dish, he still cringes when a customer calls it "gravy." But there are parts of Southern cuisine that Ross finds intriguing.

"I've sort of gotten into country ham," he said. You can't beat chili and slaw on a hot dog. And, he admits, there's something to the flavor that a slice of fatback meat adds to a dish. He's even grown accustomed to pork brains and scrambled eggs, apparently a breakfast delicacy around these parts.

"It's not bad," he says. And that just proves that you can teach an old cook new tricks.

Contact Myla Barnhardt at mbarnhardt@news-record.com or 627-4881, Ext.116.