Scalloped Cabbage

Sadie L. King was already a seasoned veteran of the tea-room business when, in 1942, she and her husband, W.M. (William Melvin) McGrew, moved to Lawrence, Kansas, to open a place of their own in the quarters of the Lawrence Women’s Club at 1941 Massachusetts Street. They called it “The Hearth.”

Most recently the McGrews had spent five years stint operating the elaborately decorated tea and banquet rooms of the Hotel Grund in Kansas City, Kansas. W.M., a pharmacist by trade, had begun his career in Chanute, Kansas, where he owned and operated the Owl Drug Company; Sadie managed a tearoom in Chanute after the two were married in 1912 and would go on to manage others in Parsons and Pittsburg. In 1931 she became the manager of the tearoom at Radio Springs Park in Nevada, Missouri, and later opened a restaurant, “The Hob Nob,” in downtown Nevada. In 1936 the McGrews moved to Wichita, where she would manage the Tremont Hotel’s newly reopened dining rooms.

But things in Lawrence didn’t go as smoothly for the McGrews as they might have hoped. When the Lawrence Women’s Club decided not to renew their lease, they were forced to either find a new location or go out of business. And so in 1945 they bought a house at 17 East 11th Street, moved into it, and began preparing part of it as the new location of The Hearth. Somewhere around this time W.M. McGrew died, and Sadie McGrew took on C. Ruth Quinlan as a partner in the tearoom.

In 1948 McGrew found herself thrust into the national spotlight when it was discovered that Eden Ahbez (or eden ahbez, as he chose to style his name), a singer-songwriter who would later be credited with helping to inspire the hippie movement, was her long-lost adopted son. When Nat “King” Cole’s version of his autobiographical song “Nature Boy” shot to No. 1 on the Billboard charts for eight consecutive weeks, Ahbez suddenly found himself featured in Life, Time, and Newsweek magazines, which recounted how he had camped out under the first L in the Hollywood sign above Los Angeles, studied Oriental mysticism, and lived on a diet of vegetables, fruits, and nuts. At that point several residents of Chanute recognized Ahbez as George McGrew, though at first he denied that he and McGrew were one and the same. As it turned out, he and his twin sister, Edith, had spent their early years in the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York until the McGrews adopted them, at age eight, through the Children’s Aid Society of New York. Mrs. McGrew told reporters that she hadn’t seen or heard from “George” in 10 years. The spotlight quickly turned elsewhere, though, and in 1953 Sadie McGrew quietly closed The Hearth, saying that she planned to convert the house into apartments.

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Scalloped Cabbage

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Here’s the recipe for the Scalloped Cabbage that was served at The Hearth, a tea room in Lawrence, Kansas. This classic side dish was a mainstay of the tea room’s Sunday-Night smorgasbord. Duncan Hines, the widely traveled restaurant reviewer, found his way to The Hearth in the early 1950s and presented the recipe to readers of his nationally syndicated newspaper column, pronouncing it “awfully good.”

Ingredients

• 1 small head green cabbage, cored and coarsely chopped (about 7 cups)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus extra for salting water
• 3 tablespoons butter or chicken fat, plus extra for greasing baking dish
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 1/2 cups coarsely shredded cheddar cheese

Instructions

1

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 2-quart baking dish.

2

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the chopped cabbage in boiling water until barely tender, about 7 minutes; drain.

3

In a small saucepan, melt the butter or chicken fat over medium-low heat. Add flour, whisk until smooth, and cook until flour is no longer raw, about 1 minute.

4

Slowly add the warm milk to the roux in small increments (about 1/4 cup at a time), whisking constantly to keep the mixture smooth. Repeat, whisking constantly, until all the milk is incorporated and the mixture is smooth.

5

Continue to cook the mixture over medium-low heat, stirring frequently, until it starts to simmer and the sauce thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and season with salt.

6

Place a layer of the cabbage in the baking dish, cover with the white sauce, and then with a generous layer of cheese. Repeat until the baking dish is filled, leaving a layer of the cheese on top.

7

Bake in the preheated oven until the top is lightly browned, about 25 minutes.