Back in the days before mega-specialty chains like Best Buy and Linens & Things – the department store was the end-all be-all place to go and buy… well… just about everything.

I suppose it was the early development of “Shopping as Socialization”…. Women, (my mother and grandmother included), seemed to make weekly trips to one of the two major department stores at the time: Famous Barr and Sticks Bear & Fuller.

These department stores, being little self-contained retail universes – contained their own restaurants – generally called Tea Rooms.

Famous Barr, a May company store, had a tea-room in every location in St. Louis – and I think I had lunch with Heehonk & Mom in just about every one before they were eventually shut down in the late 80’s.

Ask anyone who grew up here – and chances are they’ll know about the legacy which has survived the closing of the Famous Bar Restaurants: Their French Onion Soup…. That and a sandwich called a “John White Burger”… (burger with cheese sauce and fried onion frizzles on it)..

I hear there’s still one little food counter attached to the downtown Famous where you can still get a cup of French Onion and a John White – but I’ve yet to confirm this rumor.

Meanwhile – I found the recipe for Famous French Onion Soup online, (and double checked it against a copy my mom had) – and Kevin made a vat of it over the weekend.

Not only was it about the best damn soup we ever made – but … it tasted a lot like the original from what I can remember… It must have… While I was eating it I kept getting flashbacks to childhood jaunts to the department store.

I’m just sharing a recipe “(here)” – not blogging.