A trio of St. Louis classics captures our limited sightseeing time

It’s been eight years since I’ve set foot in my home town. For some people, that would be unremarkable. But before this stint I'd never gone much more than a year without visiting, even though I’ve lived in Europe since the late ‘90s. This was a long gap. As with people you don’t see for a long time, changes were more apparent than they used to be when I returned more frequently. 

On the whole, the differences I saw were positive and suggest the place is prospering. The Chesterfield river bottoms, agricultural in my childhood and under water when I moved away, is almost built out now, with a new outlet mall and a massive double-decker driving range to join the sprawl of retail, restaurants and offices that had already mushroomed there on my last visit. While the outlets are killing off the mall that was a highlight of my youth, built on higher land above the valley, developments around the old building are creating the Chesterfield business district promised when my parents moved there in the early ‘70s. 

Clayton Road, always an East-West artery lined with gracious houses, has transformed with new construction. Gone are many of the classic, rambling St. Louis-style ranch houses sprawling beneath the trees of wooded lots of an acre or more. In have come massive, multi-story mansions. Some have architectural merit, reaching back to my home town’s love of historic European vernacular styles, but many others are horrific, looking more like commercial buildings than residences. And far too many trees have been sacrificed for the explosion in square footage. It will be many years before the road re-gains its sylvan glories.

Downtown looked tidy and well maintained, though locals warned of the continuing disintegration of the City of St. Louis, the rising crime rates within, and warned grimly about going there after dark unless for a baseball game. (In this, at least, the divide between county and city hasn’t changed, though optimistic developers keep trying.)

Our four nights in the St. Louis area were devoted to family and friends rather than sightseeing, but we did manage to work in a bit of tourism. I was keen to see developments at the Gateway Arch and the Missouri Botanical Garden, and I wanted to introduce my husband to our spectacular Cathedral.

THE GREATEST BYZANTINE CATHEDRAL IN AMERICA

Officially the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis, this is one of the grandest churches in the United States and could go head to head on the architectural front with many European giants. Few beyond locals appreciate this however, so outside of services the place is often empty, despite the free entry and well-informed tour guides who will illuminate secrets of the building with their laser pointers.

The church is Romanesque on the outside, Byzantine on the inside and was heavily inspired by the Hagia Sophia. No, the city has no link whatsoever to that style; the cardinal who led construction simply liked it better than gothic. With more than 83,000 square feet of mosaics, it boasts the largest collection of this art form under one roof anywhere outside of Russia. It’s for the rich ornamentation of its walls, ceilings, domes and columns that the Cathedral is best known. 

In fact, it dates from the early 20th century, when St. Louis was a much bigger deal than it is now and its population was almost entirely Roman Catholic thanks to the city’s French Colonial roots.  Breaking ground soon after the St. Louis hosted both the Olympics and the World’s Fair, the Cathedral was a statement to the world of both the city’s position and the power of the church underpinning it. Its floor plan actually owes a heavy debt to the Roman Catholic cathedral in London, which had just opened for worship when St. Louis' church leaders did a grand tour looking for inspiration. Unlike the Londoners, however, St. Louisans didn't run out of money and were able to finish our decorations; Westminster cathedral is a much darker, gloomier place.

St. Louis' cathedral glistens and glimmers like the inside of a jewellery box. Vast tracks of ceiling are covered with gold; pure gold sheets beneath glass that ripples, broken into tiny tesserae. The result is a background that flickers, gleams and moves behind scenes from the bible and the religious history of St. Louis. As the home of all the missionary orders serving the west, we have a lot of it. The canonised nun who founded my school has a prominent pendentive to herself. 

The side chapels are arts & crafts in style, with a more balanced range of mosaic colours as flowers twine up columns and neo-classical design motifs repeat. Perfect to accompany the Tiffany glass in windows and light fixtures. Perhaps most unique is the deep red mosaic ceiling of the side aisle to the right of the altar, meant to convey the blood of Christ and almost hypnotic in the intensity of its shade. The central dome repeats the red as its background but cuts it with gold, to present the heaven gained through the blood. 

I took these wonders for granted as a child, though was always grateful for the visual distractions when masses got too long. Returning with an appreciative, impressed husband in tow reminded me of just how lucky I was to grow up with this.

GATEWAY TO THE WEST
The Cathedral hadn’t changed since I last saw it, but the grounds and museum beneath the Gateway Arch had undergone a radical transformation. The museum here was always good. In fact, once you’d made the trip to the top of the stainless steel structure in its infamous rocking elevators, it was the museum that was worth coming back for. But the entrance … almost tomb-like ramps leading down from either leg … was unimpressive and there was little room for big groups or security. More problematic, a mid-century museum built to glorify Westward expansion by white European settlers, lacking in interactive displays to appeal to youth, was out of step with the modern zeitgeist. Outside, there was the problem of the noisy concrete canyon of a highway that separated the Arch from the rest of the downtown area.

The recent renovation addresses all these problems. The architects have essentially roofed and turfed over the road for a one-block width, creating a new park that connects the vast lawns beneath the arch to the architectural glory of the Old Courthouse. The view both to and from the monuments is vastly improved. There’s now a grand, oval entrance plaza facing the downtown area, but sunken so it’s hidden to the viewer looking uphill from beneath the arch. It’s much more suited to the dignity of St. Louis’ most famous monument, and disperses crowds that overwhelmed the original lobby area.

Instead of occupying a fan-shaped footprint beside the old entry, the museum is now a long corridor linking the new entry facility to the old lobby with the lifts to the Arch’s top. Friends tell me there was much hand-wringing about the “woke agenda” when the new museum was unveiled. I wasn’t bothered. All the stories from my childhood are still here. Jefferson is still honoured for buying the Louisiana Purchase, Louis & Clark are still heroes who went on a grand adventure, and the settlers who set off from St. Louis are still commended for their bravery and determination that reinforced the American dream.

There are just more stories here, and more perspectives. The most noticeable increase is about the Native Americans who already lived here, both how they helped the new society and how they lost out. We explore the reality that the identity of the aggressor in the Mexican-American war depends on your starting viewpoint. Going further back, we’re reminded that the French and Spanish colonial roots of the area made for a startlingly diverse society.

We also get more exciting and more interactive displays. There’s a fantastic new model of the St. Louis riverfront at the height of the steamboat age, with lights on a circuit that give you a sense of day and night.

Whole building facades have been moved inside. Touch screens offer games and quizzes. Social media snappers will love the photo opportunities on the back of a Westward-bound train or in a colonial trading canoe. There’s even an exact-sized replica of the top of the arch, complete with true-sized windows that show the actual view transmitted by live cameras. So if trips are sold out for the day, or you can’t face the claustrophobic rocking elevators, you can get close to the real thing. Best of all, the the grand tradition of all of St. Louis’ historic cultural attractions, everything but the ride up the arch is free.

SHAW’S GARDEN KEEP’S GROWING
While the Cathedral undoubtably had a role in developing my appreciation for grand European architecture, the Missouri Botanical Garden laid the foundations for my growth into an English gardener. Englishmen are rare amongst the French, Germans, Italians and Irish who dominate my home town’s story, but Sheffield-born Henry Shaw made an outsized contribution for his nationality. Having grown very rich selling English cutlery to settlers heading West from St. Louis, he returned to his motherland for a visit, was impressed with Kew Gardens and thought we should have something similar. The rest is gardening history.


The longer I live in England, the more I appreciate just how British this place is. It’s not just the English woodland garden, the Victorian parterres around Shaw’s house or the formal box hedge garden that, hopefully, will preserve the viability of that British native once the scourge of box blight wipes ours out. Rather, it’s how much the Missouri facility resembles our Royal Horticultural Society gardens: the devotion to teaching, preservation and science; the wide range of styles and nations represented in different gardens within the garden; the facility dedicated to home gardening advice with a series of smaller gardening rooms meant to inspire what you could do at home. And just like RHS Wisley is a multi-million dollar re-development of the entry pavilion. So alike, in fact, I have to wonder if they exchanged planning notes or at least visited our Surrey-based garden for inspiration.

The most noticeable change in St. Louis is that the entry building that once felt like a barrier between you and the garden is now an obvious gateway to it. Instead of entering on one level and going up to another to access the gardens you make the change of levels in front of the building, on ramps through beds that are currently unplanted but promise to be spectacular. A two-story, glasshouse-like entry hall (just like Wisley) takes you straight out to a new forecourt that will be planted with rotating beds of seasonal annuals and grasses (just like Wisley). The new facility has a bigger restaurant, more classrooms and exhibition spaces, a much bigger shop and what looks to be a new glasshouse.

Beloved favourites are still here, too. The Japanese garden looked grand, the climatron showed off its tropical plants beneath its geodesic dome and the tradition of local couples having a photo shoot here to announce their engagement continues. Watching two before the lens on my visit reminded me of our turn 11 and a half years ago.

Unlike the changes at the Arch, the renovations at the Garden are all raw and incomplete, with construction workers still beavering away across the site. It’s going to be magnificent, and my gardening interest demanded I check it out while I’m in town. But, to be honest, it’s still many months away from being in shape for the average tourist. The building needs to be finished, the new glasshouse and forecourt planted and the Victorian camellia house put back in order. (At the moment it’s just a functional storehouse for a lot of plants in pots.) 

I suspect visitors next May will be very lucky. But they won't include me. While I doubt I'll go another eight years before returning home, my time of annual visits is long gone. Who knows what transformations will have taken place before I get back again.

America and the Burger, Part 1

by guest blogger Piers Bencard

So after providing notes, commenting, making recommendations (nagging) and editing a few blog entries I have finally been rewarded (?) with my own entry. The reason: being in St Louis and being introduced to a local classic, added to a desire to write an entry on something that readers, certainly in Missouri and the midwest, would be more likely to comment on. If only as they are far more likely to have tasted it (and therefore have a better understanding on the way that our taste buds work). Of course, I thought that the lady, your usual blogger, would do the hard work and I would just proof and point as usual: “No!” she said, “your idea, you write it.” So here it is:

The starting premise: Not all of the readers of this blog will have been to the expensive restaurants often discussed here, and even if they had, they would as likely have been to more humble establishments as well. From there, and being in Missouri, the ‘obvious’ starting point is the classic where the notion originated: White Castle.

For those readers not in the know: White Castle is a burger joint which started in Kansas and is a bit of a love-it-or-hate-it experience, like Marmite in Britain. The company has only 420 restaurants in their chain but reportedly has the second highest revenue for a fast food chain behind McDonalds (which has 32,000). A burger in White Castle is called a slider, as to eat them you slide them out of a small box. They come in multiple varieties: I tried the bacon double cheese slider and the lady had the Jalapeno Cheese doubles. We added onion rings and fries to the order and a diet Coke (apparently to cancel out the fat in cheese). Naturally we were told that we got the order wrong by various people, who all had variations on what we should have ordered.

My sliders were indeed heavily flavoured by the bacon and cheese, the onions and bun would have flavoured them anyway – that is a significant part of the slider taste. The burger itself is hardly the point of going, although some say that the secret recipe has some liver – I hardly tasted it, indeed hardly tasted the beef. This is in part due to the thinness of the patty and also due to the holes in it (it looks like the ‘5’ side on a die).

When asked, the lady told me that hers were: “Unctuous, high in fat, filled with cheese, onions and a slight hint of beef.” The overall experience was somewhat similar to a kebab, but without the salad accompanying it; I was told that after a night out, White Castle would be mobbed.

As to the rest of the meal: the onion rings were the best part, crispy and a touch bready in the coating, the fries were a disappointment and the Diet Coke was interminable – you have to love a country that comes up with the idea that two people can share a drink and continue refilling it until they are completely refreshed.

So what can I compare White Castle sliders to? Well, having already juxtaposed the corporate track record with McDonalds, why not compare a slider with a Big Mac (O Reader, what I do for you!).

And why not? They are both fast food burgers and with the construction of the Big Mac similar to the White Castle double slider (2 patties sandwiched by 3 pieces of bun), they are an easy direct comparison. Not only that, while White Castle has thin patties, the Big Mac’s patties are not really that much thicker, but at least you can taste them – which may or may not be a blessing as they are uniformly well done; regular readers may have noted that I prefer my meat to have a bit more life or at least moisture in it. The dry meat was definitely saved by the special sauce, the other difference being the lettuce – so Mickie D’s certainly wins in the toppings stakes.

We didn’t have onion rings at the Golden Arches, they weren’t on offer, but we did have some of MacDonald’s excellent fries. We also had another never-ending Diet Coke (the lady actually had a never-ending Diet Dr Pepper), and I have to ask why is it that we in the UK are not allowed to have such a wonder? Surely if the never-ending soda (or ‘Pop’ to the British reader) is normal and natural for the American MacDonald’s diner they should be available to the European diner as well?

So in my direct comparison of White Castle’s and the Big Mac, the Big Mac wins on toppings, patty and price (the White Castle were individually cheaper than the Big Mac, but you generally you eat at least 4-6 in one sitting so actually the White Castle’s meal was as expensive as O’Connells – more of which later). Overall, and this hurts and will hurt more as I continue to live with a St Louisan, McDonalds has it.

It's a time for sharing roots as the fiancé gets the full Missouri experience

There may be exceptions, but I believe that for most people, where you grew up and what makes you tick are closely related. They don't call them the formative years for nothing.

This year, two events are converging to make that inter-dependency important to me. First, I'm marrying an Englishman who, until meeting me, had no exposure whatsoever to the American Midwest or to St. Louis. Second, I'm about to sell the family home there, truly cutting ties for the first time since I left 18 years ago. It was, therefore, particularly important to me that Piers get at least one total immersion holiday in St. Louis, filled with fun, traditional food, all the requisite tourist sites and a heavy dose of childhood friends and extended family.

This trip, we devoted sightseeing time to the top options. We went up in The Arch, squeezing into one of the tiny capsules to be carried up the south leg to the small observation deck, then explored the museum at its base. That looks at the broad story of westward expansion, while our visit to the History Museum in Forest Park looked more specifically at St. Louis and its immediate area. The fur trappers who founded the place, the divisions of the Civil War, the magnificence of the 1904 World's Fair, the glory days of aviation ... Piers can now cover off the civic highlights like a native. We drove around the grand old neighbourhoods around Forest Park, giving an appreciation for how good American architecture could be early in the 20th century.

Swinging south of the city, we had a lovely stroll around the Botanical Gardens. One of the best in the United States and in glorious bloom this wet April, the dogwoods, azaleas and tulips provided a lush background for our engagement photo shoot. The Budweiser brewery tour was a must, and I'm delighted to say that the ownership of InBev has made little difference to this institution since I went on the tour just before the completion of the takeover (See 23 August 2008).

In the middle of the week we headed south and west to the Lake of the Ozarks, traditional summer playground for St. Louisans. Our scenic drive along highway 94 followed the path of the Lewis and Clark expedition and showed off some gorgeous landscape. Once there, we stayed at the Lodge of the Four Seasons where we took in two of the three usual activities, shopping at the Osage Beach Outlet Mall and relaxing at the wonderful Spa Shiki. (Getting out in a boat would have been the third, but the only decent weather came at the same time as our spa appointments.) In nearby Jefferson City, where my father lives, we toured the capitol building. Almost laughably ornate and grand for our humble state, it impresses with its architecture, its bold position on a hill over the Missouri River and its Hall of Missourians, where you can wander amongst statues of Mark Twain, Josephine Baker, Walt Disney, Harry S. Truman (twice), Stan Musial and many more.

Most critically, we got to a baseball game. It wasn't the best example of the genre, with gloomy weather, a rain delay in the 7th and the Cards sloppily giving up a lead in the 8th to lose to the Reds. But Piers got to drink in the atmosphere, interact with the fans, understand more about the game and indulge in pre- and post-game beverages at local watering holes. As we all explained to him, you can't really understand St. Louis without understanding Cardinals baseball.

Tacked on to all of this sightseeing was, of course, food. For Piers' first visit to St. Louis, I made sure we went to some of the better restaurants in town, so he could see that the Midwest could do dining experiences as sophisticated as those we get in London. This visit was more about local stalwarts. We tried a few places new to me (high marks to Yagu in Chesterfield Valley for top quality sushi with innovative twists and gorgeous presentation), but the concentration was on childhood comfort food. Thus on a surfeit of burgers, fries and onion rings, on which my guest blogger Piers will comment in coming entries. In addition to those delights at White Castle, O'Connell's and Sportsman's Park, we went for soft, fresh-from-the-oven pretzels at Gus', sandwiches from Amighetti's, classic rib sticking Italian fare at Rigazzi's (good food, genial but horrific service), cannoli from Missouri Baking, the classical American abundance of dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, numerous plates of toasted ravioli and hot dogs at the ball park ... all the savoury items washed down with copious amounts of beer.

These are the tastes of childhood. (Yes, even the beer is a formative flavour. You don't grow up in Anheuser Busch's home city without believing it's your patriotic duty to drink their products.) It is no wonder that I was a tubby child, nor that my Weight Watchers weigh in upon returning was enough to send me into shock, depression and a vow to give up wine and bread for the rest of the month.

Throughout the trip we got to spend lots of quality time with the people who mattered. We saw my father both in St. Louis and on his home turf in Jefferson City, where dad gave an engagement party for us at his apartment. I suspect Piers was the most exotic thing to hit that crowd in a very long time. His accent and his commentary on why we hadn't hung around for the royal wedding seemed to provide constant fascination. Back in St. Louis, we did more quality bonding time with my matron of honour Anne and her husband Mike (who almost died for us in their attempt to pick us up at the airport). Anne and I have been delighted to see how quickly the boys have bonded and are looking forward to a future of shared holidays in slightly more exotic locations.

On royal wedding day, Anne gave an engagement party for us that was dominated by the Villa (high school) crowd. We even had our own commemorative plate, designed and created by our classmate Madolyn, who made a special trip in from Boston for the party. Far more comforting than any food or tour was watching Piers embraced by, and comfortable with, the family and friends who will continue to be my roots after the house and its contents are sold. As long as the people you love are there, you can always go home again.

Worst tornado in 40+ years doesn't keep us from St. Louis, but makes trip interesting

Friday, 22 April. 7:45 pm, central time.

We'd been en route from London for 16 hours. Our connecting flight from Chicago was on the approach to St. Louis, already running almost two hours late because of the violent thunderstorms that had been sweeping across the Midwest. The storms out the window were frightening and impressive, with towering thunderheads above a thick carpet of clouds sparking with lightening. (The photo's not mine, but does give you a good sense of what I was seeing out the window.) A break between two storm fronts was giving us enough room to get on the ground.

Then the pilot pulled up. He announced that the control tower had been evacuated and we needed to fly on. A few minutes later, Lambert Field took a direct hit by a particularly violent tornado; the worst in St. Louis for 40 years. While we flew on to Kansas City, our friends who'd been waiting to pick us up were running for shelter on the lower level behind the baggage carousels. The windows in the terminal above had imploded, sending rain, tree branches and debris swirling through the building on currents of high winds.

Anne and Mike reported that the storm blast was over in a minute, but shock and fear followed, with people bloodied by the windows stumbling around looking for help and passengers getting off planes that had been caught on the tarmac in the midst of it all trembling with the trauma. Our friends saw no evidence of organisation or leadership from the airport staff, who were in the same panic as everyone else. News coverage suggests that things improved, but Anne and Mike didn't stick around to check it out. Checking via a weather app on his iPad, Mike could see that the coast was clear ... or, at least, tornado free ... made for the car and drove home carefully through the debris field that was the surrounding highways.

Back in Kansas City, 250 miles west of where we wanted to be, skies were clear and the night was warm. Less pleasantly, every rental car was sold out, there were no outlets open in the terminals to get food or drink and three full planeloads of people were milling around waiting for an announcement. Waiting for flights the next morning wasn't a reasonable option, as the St. Louis airport was closed and all the planes there would be grounded for a while as inspectors looked for damage. American was, instead, scrambling for buses. No easy commission late on a Friday night. Three finally emerged out of the dark at 11:30 and we scrambled aboard for a four and a half hour drive back across the state.

As we approached the airport, we had the surreal feeling of driving through a disaster film. It was incredibly dark, since power was out throughout the area. Most of the illumination came from the flashing blue and red lights of emergency vehicles, which were thick on the ground. Along the highway we could see overturned cars, snapped trees and slabs of debris that had been people's roofs, furniture and lives.

Though I grew up in the tornado zone and moved to the violent heart of it when I lived in Dallas, I still couldn't quite believe the damage I was seeing. Dawn brought in the news crews who captured the damage for the world, and there was St. Louis leading the national news. Every year there are four or five news stories about some community being flattened. You grow up knowing the signs and how to take action if a storm is coming. But seeing one wipe out a community I know well (in fact, the neighbourhood where I lived until I was seven) was sobering. Piers, who always teases me when I talk about the severity of Midwestern weather, was respectfully silent. And Anne and Mike may never volunteer to pick us up at the airport again.

It was a dramatic start to the trip. We're thankful that we, and all we care about, are safe, and that Chesterfield (where our house is) was entirely untouched. We're hoping the rest of the trip is a bit less extraordinary.

St. Louis makes a pitch for quintessential American town while feeding us well

Our guest commentator today is blog sub editor and blog writer's fiance, Piers. You've heard plenty about St. Louis from me over the years, all clearly tinted by the fact that I grew up there. Today you get an objective report from a first-time visitor. Not just to St. Louis, also to the middle of the country, as his previous trips to the States have been to LA and Washington DC/ Virginia.

The circumstances, of course, were not ideal. In town for Mom's memorial service and to start cleaning out the house, Piers was also working every day so he didn't have to take leave to be with me. Thus his introductory sightseeing consisted of evenings out with friends and two weekend jaunts around town when we needed a break from the house sorting.

Piers' strongest impressions? How similar it was to the stereotypical America he'd seen on TV. From the slightly down-at-the-heel cluster of tall buildings and stadia that is downtown to the leafy lanes of suburbia, St. Louis was, to him "everytown USA" as presented by the American media.

"In size, dimensions, buildings and density of urbanisation the city centre was not so different from an English town," said Piers. "However, as soon as you got into the suburbs it was very much more open, less dense, more like the American suburbia on TV. Houses all set back. Big gardens, drives with multiple cars, every house with a garage, no shrubbery around the front of the gardens so that it has the open feel of continuous parkland dotted with homes. I now understand the traditional image of the paper boy cycling down the sidewalk and throwing papers at the porches on his way past."

The domestic architecture was a bit of a shock for him, and, unsurprisingly, he found the older, more subtle, elegant and architecturally pure homes of Frontenac and Ladue far more to his taste than the lumbering "McMansions" that are going up in Chesterfield.

"Overly ostentations, pretentious, attempting to claim something they're not, and in so doing are actually generating an entirely new form of architecture," he observed. "The French chateau style was very amusing, because I could almost see the originator of that style turning around to an architect, showing a picture of a bad chateau in the first place, then adding a bit more of this style, mashing in a bit of that, then popping a southern mansion's columned porch on the front."

Also high on his amusement list was how clearly fascinated by English style the St. Louisans are, yet how many of their mock Tudor homes looked far more Bavarian to his British eyes than anything actually found at home.

We took a quick walk around Chesterfield's Faust park one evening, where buildings from the town's settlement days have been moved and assembled into an historic district. "I can’t quite see how those buildings evolved into the offices and homes of modern St. Louis," Piers said. "I just didn't see the progression of architecture."

Then he saw the older, more modest neighbourhoods of The Hill and South Saint Louis, and saw a whole different style. "Almost more like LA with all small houses behind tiny lawns. It didn’t have the suburban feel that Chesterfield had. So effectively there seem to be three types of urbanisation: the City itself with its business and industrial feel, then two types of suburbia, inner and outer," he said.

The bit of sightseeing we did brought him back to a more accustomed popuation density and sense of history. St. Charles, the original capital of Missouri, and Laclede's Landing both made impressions with their early 19th century architecture and their cobbled streets. "I can get a feel for some of this history you're always going on about," he said.

Our quick drives around town were really scouting expeditions for the trip coming at Easter, which was always planned as a proper vacation. What's high on Piers' list to return to?

"Definitely the brewery. I was quite interested that it was thrown over such a large space and that people could drive in and around it. I loved the wolves, or whatever they were," he mused. (Those are giant stone foxes in Bavarian dress, sitting on the corners of the bottling plant hoisting large beer steins.) "I definitely want to go to the top of the Arch and have a see through those little windows. I’d like to go back and see the zoo and spend some time in Forest Park."

On his first drive around Busch Stadium (something he has, of course, seen a lot of already on his fiance's MLB.com feed and yet barely recognised from that), he was surprised by how small it looked. This is a trick of architectural perspective, as the lines to the outfield are of the usual length and there's a huge entertainment area behind the bleachers, but he thought "were someone to hit a home run I would suspect it would fly out and hit a car. I can only anticipate, once we're in it, that it will be open, full of light." Stay tuned for Piers' first baseball game on 23 April.)

Most of our free time wasn't spent sightseeing, however, but over evening meals. So while Piers had only a sampler of tourist attractions, the week gave him a full immersion into the St. Louis restaurant scene.

His best experience? As expected, Annie Gunn's. "Quality plates of food, a fantastic sommelier, a broad wine list and a menu that made the most of local, seasonal meat and produce. Very much like a top quality restaurant in Europe," he said, while tucking into a melt-in-the-mouth pork belly with caramelised apples, sauteed potato and sweet and sour cabbage. (A dish calculated to delight him in any restaurant.) My pork chop (so big it provided two more meals) with pecan molasses sauce topped with grated fresh horseradish was exquisite, and dad gave top marks for his wild Alaskan Salmon. We also discovered a couple of excellent American wines: the Kent Rasmussen winery "Carneros" 2007 pinot noir and the Penner-Ash 2008 Willamette Valley pinot noir.

In second place stands Charlie Gittos, an Italian institution from "The Hill" that's recently expanded into Chesterfield. Piers' review: "The service at Gittos was great, I liked the fact that the waiter knew enough about the menu to really advise us on our choices and on the wine, but then when he realised we were serious about the wine he offered to bring the sommelier over to enhance the experience, it wasn't necessary as the wine chosen by your usual author was excellent. They understood my tomato allergy and, despite being an Italian restaurant heavy on that ingredient, provided me with excellent options." The white pizza with clams is something we'll try again at home, and the veal scaloppine topped with crab sauce was a big hit. Piers also judged this the best toasted ravioli (a St. Louis specialty) he'd had thus far.

We had a good Sicilian red here, which was probably the best value for money on what we found to be a pricey wine list. In fact, we noticed across all the restaurants we went to that American wine lists actually seem to be more expensive than British, with the cheapest bottles often coming in at $40, where we'd expect to see £25 bottles ... and remember, that's with tax included ... on the lists of similar restaurants at home. Do Brits drink so much more that the volumes bring the prices down, we wondered? Or is it that with the preponderance of wine makers in Europe provide more competition and therefore make it more economical?

Cunetto's House of Pasta (dubbed the "house of waiting" by our friends Anne and Mike) didn't fare so well, with average service and sub-standard pasta served up after waiting almost 2 hours to get a table and food at the no-reservations establishment on The Hill. Now that I spend my life in much nicer restaurants I realise that the appeal of Cunettos was huge piles of food for not a lot of money. Fortunately, we're both at a point in our lives where we can go for quality over quantity. And Cunetto's is not going to win in that game.

Piers got exposure to a good mix of the casual, hamburger and basic fare bar and restaurant scene that makes up so much of American dining. The Brick House in Chesterfield was average but filling, delivering one of the biggest burgers he'd ever seen but let down by the fact they're not allowed to serve them rare. The sliced roast beef sandwich at O'Connell's got good marks, and Piers admitted that the place had a good homey feel. But his favourite meal on this front was at Sportsman's Park, another bastion of tradition, where the roast beef sandwiches in little buns, served with dishes of au jus, were a huge hit.

Later that same night he was perhaps the most memorable thing to hit Schneithorst's bierkeller in many a month, sending his beer back because the glass was too cold. (He had specifically requested a room temperature glass and got a frosted one.) "I'm sorry, you Americans serve beer far too cold," he harrumphed. "Fine when it's bad beer and you need the temperature to kill the taste. But this was a good Bavarian wheat beer. Why chill it to the point that you can't taste the quality?"

And just to complete the sweep of St. Louis culinary tradition, we took him to Ted Drewes. The 1930s era ice cream hut has been standing beside what was Route 66 since that road was the only main highway to the west, and its "frozen custard" is justifiably famous. "Unctuous, very filling and a nice balance of flavours," Piers said of his "Cardinal Sin" concrete that mixed chocolate and cherries into the vanilla custard. Terrible for my diet, of course, but it's clear we're coming back here after the ball game next month. Traditions must be upheld, after all.

Life in Chesterfield getting ever more sophisticated; but don't plan on enjoying it on a limited income

My family moved to Chesterfield, Missouri, in the mid-'70s. While it wasn't exactly the country, it was a stretch from the bright lights. Shopping malls, culture, parks, school ... everything was at least half an hour away. We had farm fields, cheap houses and a good highway to get us to the action.

How things have changed. "Society" moved to Chesterfield behind us, and all the trappings followed. What strikes me most these days is that, short of attending a Cardinals' game or seeing the art museum or botanical gardens, there's almost nothing I want to do on a visit that can't be accomplished within the Chesterfield city limits, or slightly west (away from the city).

There's even ethnic diversity. I was delighted to discover Thai Sawadee in Hilltown Village shopping centre, an elegantly decorated restaurant with a diverse menu. No bland concessions to old Midwestern tastes here; we sampled a variety of dishes characterised by distinctive combinations of spices and a tongue-pricking amount of heat. As good as any Thai I've had in the more ethnically diverse neighbourhoods of Chicago or London.

Across the parking lot in the same centre, Gianfabio's is still going strong. This high end Italian place launched in the late '80s and is still delivering the style of southern Italian/American fare that makes up part of St. Louis' soul. Meatball sandwiches and chicken parmagiana graced the table and were so abundant that half came home with us. Just up the road, Charlie Gitto's ... a long-established giant on "the Hill", St. Louis' Italian district ... is refurbishing a defunct Pizzeria Uno and preparing to move in. Even the oldest names, it seems, are heading west.

West of Chesterfield, where it still feels like countryside, is the Missouri River wine region. But even that's going upscale and sophisticated. It's great to see Chandler Hill Winery doing so well. I discovered this place soon after its opening (see 16.8.08), and was delighted to see someone taking the Missouri wine country experience upscale. Almost two years later, the building has settled into the landscape, the vines are bedding down, the landscape has softened and a regular crowd has developed. In addition to selling wine (their house varieties are still made from grapes from other vineyards, until their vines mature), they're obviously doing a bustling business as a restaurant and meeting place, with lots of regularly scheduled private parties.

We joined them for a special, by-reservation-only steak dinner night. The view over the Missouri valley was exquisite and the evening's weather clement, lacking the heavy humidity that so often mars Midwestern summer evenings. Two musicians moved back and forth between a variety of stringed instruments, giving us lots of acoustic favourites while setting a mellow, sophisticated scene. (Note to the Bruneels: I now understand the appeal of Dave Mathews' stuff in a live setting.) The food was a picture of middle-American simplicity. First, a basic salad. Main course, a huge steak with a baked potato on the side. No more vegetables ... you already had a salad, didn't you? Not gourmet by any means, but comforting in its homely simplicity and redolent of childhood with its smokey barbecue flavours. And the wine? A local vidal blanc, crisp and slightly sweet, certainly held its own against the German whites I was drinking in early May.

No doubt about it, west St. Louis county has arrived. The drawback? You'd better have a lot of money to live there. As fashionable people have moved to the area, and the shops and restaurants have followed, the price of everything has gone up. It's getting ever more expensive to live in America, even in a leafy provincial backwater; a fact felt acutely by those on a limited income.

An observation driven home this visit because, you see, I was in St. Louis trying to get a grip on my mother's finances and what benefits and services were available to a woman with no family in town, living on limited means. The answer? Almost nothing. Medicines, transport, nursing care, the occasional helper ... it's all up to you to fund, and even if you're insured you're not fully covered. Medicines have co-pays, home help isn't a justifiable expense. Everything comes with a price tag. From the "bargain" $20 an hour for basic home help to the more than $200 a day for a basic nursing home. (At that price, frankly, wouldn't a nice hotel be an option?) Is there a safety net? Sure. Medicaid will provide some help, and may fund a nursing home, if your total net worth is no more than $1,000. No house, no car, no savings. Basically, that means you have to be destitute.

I am, as I have been since my political awakening, a Reagan-style, small "c" conservative who believes in the merits of as small a government as possible and free market economics. The natural ebb and flow of the market will, in time, right most wrongs. But the fact is, we live in a welfare state. A small one in America, compared for example to Northern Europe, but a welfare state nonetheless, where people pay taxes all their lives in expectation of services. Yet they get to the end of their lives, and the message is clear: you're on your own.

Forget retirement dreams of around-the-world sailing and cozy farmhouses in Tuscany. In America, at least, you'd better be socking away those retirement funds to pay for health care and the spiraling costs of life when it requires more assistance. I returned to the UK much more appreciative of the NHS. The care may be as basic as Chandler Hill's steak and potato, but it doesn't abandon old people to their fate with such callousness. And I returned much more aware that without children to lend a hand in my "golden years", I'd better up those pension contributions. Or the yacht might have to be sacrificed for the nursing home.

There's nothing like an American Thanksgiving

I can't remember the last Thanksgiving I spent in the States. It was certainly at least five years ago, and as many as 10. Given the holiday's close proximity to Christmas, traveling back for it is usually impractical if you have big yuletide plans. But this year, given the "carpe diem" motivations of my mother's illness ... and the ability to do my job from St. Louis for a couple of weeks ... a proper American Thanksgiving made sense.

I indulged in all the critical elements of the holiday. Food. Shopping. Getting up the Christmas decorations. Starting the Christmas baking. Catching up with old friends and extended family. The weather being particularly fine, I was even drafted into raking leaves at my childhood home. I may have grown up and moved on, but those damned oak trees are still carpeting the place in a thick layer of brown which must be removed. It wasn't fun when I was 13; it's not much more entertaining now. But at least I can justify it as exercise needed to stay in all the new clothes in smaller sizes that I just bought.

The highlight of the trip was the Thanksgiving meal itself. This is not a given. I am an only child of divorced parents, without aunts, uncles or cousins in town. The biggest family meal I can put together is for three; rarely does that add up to the festive expectation set by movies. Thus it was a delight to be included as extensions of the Edgar family, where five children of my generation, all married with their own progeny, and random extensions like us pushed the guest total to near 30. The kitchen was a merry production line, laughing children ran laps around the house, wine flowed and there was enough food to feed an army. The patriarch of the family has this event down to a science, clearing out the sitting room and filling it with a huge, medieval-style, c-shaped banquet table.

I was reminded, as I watched the menu coming together, of just how laden with sugars and fats this traditional meal is. Sure, the roast turkey is healthy. But we put it with cranberries and sweet potatoes that could both be desserts, potatoes lashed with cream and butter, and a green bean casserole that masks the vegetables with cream of mushroom soup and deep fried onions. And that's before you tuck into the pecan pie or piled whipped cream on the pumpkin pie. It's a weight watchers nightmare. But damn, it was good.

All this food is, of course, traditionally followed by shopping. My dad played his usual role of wingman, carrying bags and catching up with me between shops. The malls were crowded but not excessively so. I found parking even at midday. The sales were good, but not jaw dropping. Still, I managed to find enough at Dillards, Macys and Coldwater Creek to do all the wardrobe replenishment I needed.

I augmented the holiday routine with one special night out. Kemoll's has been one of St. Louis' finest Italian restaurants since it opened in 1927. (Yes, Italian. Despite the name. In the '20s, people had difficulty with tricky names like "Camuglio", so the family anglicised it to Kemoll.) Their deep fried artichokes, toasted ravioli and variety of veal dishes have marked many a St. Louisan's special nights, including mine. Last year, Kemoll's moved into the 40th floor of the Met Life building, once of the city's highest, thus adding amazing views of the riverfront and arch to the great food.

I have to admit to some flashbacks with the appetizers ... in my high school days this was the American Bar Association, and the venue for my junior prom. It was not the most pleasant of evenings, as my badly-chosen date ignored me in the early hours, then ended up snogging a classmate in my car at the after-dance party. While I was not damaged for life, it was certainly traumatic, and hadn't left me with fond memories of that room. I'm delighted to report that a fine dinner with some excellent wine, in the company of my mother and the adopted sister who's been a best friend since we were three, banished all those nasty ghosts.

As did the idea of a perfectly-chosen date waiting for me back in England. When I introduce him to St. Louis, I'll be treating him to a romantic dinner here.