Are you hungry, peckish, esurient? Join me at Josie’s diner in Lexington, Kentucky, in the heart of Bluegrass country, where the horses are lean and very many people are, let me be frank, not. Josie’s is heaving at 8 a.m. as the well-upholstered clientele arrive for the morning feed. A mercifully slim student at the University of Kentucky is my waitress.
‘Hi, y’all! I’m Madeline Rose and I’ll be your server today,’ she announces, in the earnest tone of wait staff in a country where the credit card terminal offers the option of a 25 per cent tip. The menu she hands me is already expansive, but there’s more. She enumerates the day’s off-menu breakfast specials, available should anyone be unsatisfied by Josie’s signature Santa Cruz Burrito, featuring fresh scrambled eggs, chorizo sausage, grilled chicken, avocado with cheddar-jack cheese and ‘our tasty Santa Cruz sauce drizzle’ ($18.50).
‘So today our quiche is going to have ham, tomato and mozzarella,’ she announces, ending sentences on the upbeat that is the vernacular of young American blondes.
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