A sign in front of Mortimer’s reads, “Happy Birthday Miss Evalina.”
Inside, Evalina Edwards celebrates her 90th birthday with presents and a strawberry cake with cream cheese icing. But, unlike other people who mark their birthday at the restaurant, Edwards moves from the dining room to the kitchen and goes back to work when the party is over.
For almost 75 years, Edwards has worked at restaurants owned by the Bell family. She began working for the late Vernon Bell at The Little Tea Shop in 1953 and then moved to Mortimer’s, one of Bell’s other restaurants, in 1981. She also worked at Bell’s legendary Memphis restaurant The Knickerbocker.
And work, apparently, is what Edwards loves to do. She works from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday at Mortimer’s at 590 North Perkins Road.
“She’s one of a kind,” says Mortimer’s owner Christopher Jamieson. “They don’t make them like that anymore.”
He adds, “She never wants to sit down.”
I get the feeling Edwards doesn’t want to sit down when I ask if I can interview her. I feel like she’d rather stay in the kitchen and keep busy.
When I worked at The Commercial Appeal, I interviewed Edwards for a story as she was turning 80 years old. That article hangs in a frame by the restaurant’s front door.
Edwards looks exactly like she did when I interviewed her 10 years ago. She’s slim, wears glasses and a cap. And when I ask her a question she’s still as direct as she was back then. Like when I ask where she was born.
“I ain’t got to tell you all that,” she shoots back. “Everybody wants to know where I was born.”
That information isn’t in my first story about Edwards, so she must not have wanted to tell me then, either. But she did tell me about her career and what she does at Mortimer’s.
She was 21 when she began cooking, Edwards says. “I didn’t start cooking until I started to work,” she says.
Edwards “went to the employment office” and got the job. “I first started out as a bus girl at The Little Tea Shop.”
She worked her way up to become a cook. After The Little Tea Shop was sold, Edwards moved to Mortimer’s.
Each day, Edwards cooks lunch, which includes “chicken and dumplings, meatloaf, and beef.”
And, she tells me, “I made just about all kinds of vegetables. Broccoli casserole, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, cabbage casserole.”
I asked where she got the recipes. “I got it out of the recipe book.”
But that was then. “I don’t have to use recipes now. I don’t need any recipe to look at ’cause I already know what goes in it.”
Edwards also makes the most delicious rolls in town. The rolls, which are only served at lunch, look and taste like rolls served long ago at legendary Memphis restaurants. They remind me of the ones served at the old Anderton’s restaurant. As I recall, they also took their stale rolls, put them in the oven, lightly toasted them, and then served them at dinner. I’d love for somebody to do that again.
I asked Edwards what makes her rolls different from those found in stores. “I don’t know how they make them in the stores, but I use the yeast, warm water, and eggs. And margarine. And self-rising flour.”
Apparently, she doesn’t let the rolls go through the rising process that can take four hours. “You can just put them in the oven, and they go ahead and rise. Just cook them and they rise in the stove.”
Edwards uses three or four packets of yeast, 16 cups of flour, and four eggs when she makes them at Mortimer’s.
She doesn’t know how many rolls she makes a day. “I don’t know how many rolls. I’ve never counted them. But it makes three pans.”
And if you don’t get to Mortimer’s early at lunchtime, you’re not going to get any of her rolls.
Edwards also makes my all-time favorite “frozen fruit,” which goes with the chicken salad at lunchtime. I first discovered this combo in the late ’60s or early ’70s at The Little Tea Shop when Edwards still worked there. Later, I learned it was a favorite of the late sports reporter George Lapides, who was my colleague at the old Memphis Press-Scimitar.
After they stopped serving it at The Little Tea Shop, I asked for the recipe from one of the long-time servers. She wrote it out for me. But when I tried to make it, I ended up with a big mess.
Edwards told me how she makes the frozen fruit. “Eggs, three cups of sugar, pineapple juice, and two packages of marshmallows, a teaspoon of vanilla flavor. And you put it in a double boiler and let it cook. Then let it set overnight. And next day you make your whipping cream and put it in there. Put it in the freezer.”
When it’s time to serve it, Edwards scoops out individual portions and adds the pink topping, which, I was once told, is made of cream cheese and maraschino cherry juice. A cherry is put on top. Edwards doesn’t make the topping or the chicken salad.
I asked Jamieson how Edwards gets to work every day. “She does not drive,” he says. “When she worked at the Tea Shop, I believe she lived in Hurt Village and walked to work. “
She used to take the bus to Mortimer’s. But now, he says, “One of the employees picks her up every day and her son, typically, brings her home.”
Edwards, to his knowledge, has never taken a vacation, but he gives her vacation pay each year, Jamieson says. “Around the holidays she will take a day here and there. She will take the day after Thanksgiving.”
Jamieson relies on Edwards for kitchen information. He’ll call her at home if he needs to know something about inventory. She can tell him — even if she’s at home — if they have a third of a box left of this or that at the restaurant. “She remembers everything in her head.”
The Mortimer’s staff celebrates her birthday every year, but this year they wanted to do something on a larger scale for Edwards. “The girls put a big gift basket together for her.”
They also “made her a big card for everyone to sign.”
And they gave her “a bunch of cash,” Jamieson says. “She was tickled.”
Jamieson checks the date of her birthday each year. It’s written on a piece of paper that dates to when Edwards began working at Mortimer’s. “The paper is all yellow. It looks like it was written on a typewriter.”
Like probably everyone who knows her, I had to ask Edwards to tell me the secret to her longevity.
“I don’t have any secret,” she says. “It’s the good Lord’s will.”
