Ah, the Fedora Cafe at Union Station and what we learned from it. Modern American first reared his head about then. Union Station was the place to be, for strolling, stopping, eating and drinking, and Fedora, an early outpost of the Gilbert-Robinson group, led the way. I had my first interview with a nationally-known cookbook author there, Barbara Olney, who was doing a demo of her book on chocolate. It was more like a conversation than a formal interview, as it turned out. We were both single women, and at one point when we were talking about men, she said of a former (oh, definitely former) swain, "He wouldn't let me cook for him. Can you imagine?"
I wrote about Fedora for St. Louis Magazine's blog. You can read it heree.