"THE good news is, my husband loves to eat and enjoys it," Hillary Clinton said. "The bad news is, he loves to eat, even when things are not always right for him."
Visits to nine restaurants here that his friends say are among Bill Clinton's favorites, as well as sightings around the country, confirm his wife's description of his eating habits. From Sims Bar-B-Q to Juanita's, from Doe's Eat Place to Hungry's Cafe, President-elect Clinton prefers the stuff with fat in it: jalapeno cheeseburgers, chicken enchiladas, barbecue, cinnamon rolls and pies. But no chocolate-chip cookies.
"Talk about keeping the marriage together," Mrs. Clinton said in an interview last spring. "One of the serious issues of our marriage is that Bill Clinton does not eat chocolate." Laughing, Mrs. Clinton went on: "I know. I know. I probably should not have repeated that. Chelsea and I love chocolate. One of our favorite things is rich, rich, rich chocolate cake with thick chocolate icing."
Mr. Clinton must get his calories in other forms because he is allergic to chocolate and to milk.
While Mrs. Clinton made a point of contrasting her family's love of broccoli to President Bush's disdain for it, no one else interviewed for this article mentioned Mr. Clinton and broccoli in the same breath.
The President-elect's taste in food reflects the kind of diet most people his age and older grew up eating: heavy on the meat, dessert at every meal and tiny amounts of vegetables, the tinier the better.
This information may send current and future White House chefs into paroxysms of fear. But they need not worry. Anyone capable of making a good hollandaise should have no trouble with an enchilada. And no one in the White House will have to bother with barbecue; Sims will gladly deliver.
Mr. Clinton's battle of the bulge is one most people can sympathize with, especially if they have to eat irregular meals on the road. By the time of the New York primary in April, Mr. Clinton weighed more than 200 pounds, a gain of about 30 pounds. Mrs. Clinton said he made "a solemn vow" to eat right. "If you'd just be careful about the amount," she said she told him. Mr. Clinton is said to have lost 20 pounds since then.
As for Mrs. Clinton, she described herself as "periodically undisciplined about what I eat and the amount of exercise."
That is probably why she is seen in Little Rock's fat factories far less often than her husband. Juanita's, one of Mr. Clinton's favorites, is described by Mark Abernathy, one of the owners, as the "only real Tex-Mex place in Little Rock." Every fat counter knows what that means.
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"Bill's partial to chicken enchiladas," Mr. Abernathy said. "We're somewhat famous for them." He described them in loving detail: "They're made with Smooth Melt Cheese, which is similar to Velveeta but not cheese food. It's real cheese."
Thank goodness for small favors.
Mr. Clinton is also partial to soft tacos and to Clausthaler, a nonalcoholic German beer. He drinks very little alcohol, friends and restaurateurs say, preferring a soft drink or iced tea.
Now that the President-elect causes traffic to stop whenever he goes out, he's been eating a lot of carryout, from Juanita's and elsewhere. Often it includes chili con queso made with three kinds of cheese and three kinds of peppers, a dip Mr. Abernathy says is addictive.
Sims Bar-B-Q, in a rundown little shack that draws a cross-section of Little Rock's people, has been run by the Sims-Settlers family for 60 years, and the family members certainly know how to smoke meats.
Mr. Clinton is partial to sliced pork barbecue, baked beans and slaw, sliced beef, potato salad and sweet potato pie. "He comes every chance he gets," said Sandra Sims, a daughter of an owner, "and he eats all of it. The Governor has good taste."
No question. The beef is tender, sweet and smoky, the pork has a nice sharpness to it, and everything is made from scratch. Ms. Sims describes the style of barbecue as "hickory-smoked, Southern, vinegar-based and just good -- just good and fattening."
Which is probably why Mrs. Clinton does not go as often as her husband.
For those who don't like barbecue, it's hard to resist the perfectly spiced sweet-potato pies in the kind of flaky crust you don't often see anymore.
To pay a bet he lost on an Arkansas-Georgia football game, Mr. Clinton sent some of Sims's barbecued chicken this fall to Gov. Zell Miller of Georgia.
All those visits Mr. Clinton has made to McDonald's notwithstanding, the President-elect doesn't eat there much. At least not anymore. In a "Saturday Night Live" skit a few weeks ago Phil Hartman, the actor impersonating Mr. Clinton, was seen in a McDonald's with his Secret Service agents, one of whom said to him, "Mrs. Clinton told us not to let you into any fast-food places." Despite the warning, he snatched food from people's plates as he talked to them.
In fact, all the President-elect gets at McDonald's these days is a glass of water and a cup of coffee.
"When he's not on a diet," one of the counter people said, "he has an Egg McMuffin."
Once or twice a week, when he was Governor, his jogging took him by the Community Bakery, where he would get a cup of coffee and a bagel, plain or cinnamon.
No sweets for Mr. Clinton? "A lot of times he'd get cake doughnuts," said John Sproles, the manager, "but I don't know if he ate them."
Ann Ward, owner of Hungry's Cafe, seemed far more knowledgeable -- or forthcoming. "He'd stop twice a week when the Legislature was in session," said Ms. Ward, whose restaurant serves a lunch of "one meat, two veg., bread, tea, Kool-Aid or coffee" for $4.50. One meat means hamburger pepper loaf, smothered steak, fried chicken or chicken fried steak.
The restaurant looks the way any place called Hungry's should look: a stamped-tin ceiling, dark green walls with chipped paint, linoleum on the floor worn by thousands of scraping chairs and footsteps, and a different oilcloth pattern on every table.
"Mr. Clinton often had cinnamon rolls," Ms. Ward said, rolls nearly as big as hubcaps. In a bow to his cholesterol count, he smeared them with margarine, she added.
None of Mr. Clinton's favorite restaurants ever gained the fame reserved for Doe's Eat Place, where Mr. Clinton often held important political events. Decorated in Early Attic, it exudes legend. Ersatz legend. The place is only four years old. Some of the patina that has rubbed off on it is from its namesake in Greenville, Miss., which is legendary: it opened 50 years ago. The Little Rock Doe's pays a fee to the Greenville restaurant to use the name.
Tim Jones, a waiter at Doe's, calls it "vegetarian hell."
"We have potato and one kind of salad," he said, "but most people come here for a greasy cheeseburger or a two-pound steak." Mr. Clinton has had his share of both.
"His mother would be proud of him," Mr. Jones said. "He cleans his plate."
The restaurant's cook, Lucille Robinson, has been feeding Mr. Clinton for 15 years, starting at a place called the Band Box, whose owner, George Eldridge, also owns Doe's. Mr. Eldridge plans to open a place similar to Doe's in Washington under the name George & Lucille's.
"The Governor always eats jalapeno cheeseburgers, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, pickles and onions," Ms. Robinson said. "But last time he was in he had tamales and French fries. He has to cut back every now and then."
Doe's appears to reflect its owner's idiosyncratic tastes: things like cheeseburgers and fries for $3.95 and a wine "cellar" in a closet near the kitchen, with a bottle of Mondavi Opus One 1985 for $100.
Once or twice a month when he was Governor, Mr. Clinton would walk across the street from the Statehouse to the Solar Cafe, Little Rock's unreconstructed hippie restaurant. It is in a converted gas station decorated in California funk, and it features sandwiches with names like Sun Burger, Solar Chick and a burrito called Earthling Roll. It also has croissants, bacon, ham and eggs.
Mr. Clinton does not confine his restaurant-going to downtown; he is often seen in west Little Rock, where people with money live. His choice of restaurants there falls into the suburban-yuppie category. Instead of chipped paint and cracked linoleum, there are airy spaces with light woods and plants. He frequents Trio's and Graffiti's, usually with his family. The manager at Graffiti's, Paul McGee, reports that Mr. Clinton "eats light and healthy." Could he possibly have meant the lunch the restaurant catered at the Governor's Mansion after Mr. Clinton's last inaugural: fettucine with "forest mushrooms, morels and French Brie with Alfredo sauce."
Be still my arteries!
It's hard to pin down the menu at Trio's, which serves all the cliche's like quiche, Caesar salad, garlic bread and carrot cake. But it also has grilled salmon with ginger vinaigrette, pita chips with cumin and lemon pepper, and black bean salad.
Mr. Clinton, however, sticks with his favorite: chicken enchiladas. These are filled with Monterey Jack, onion and chicken, and topped with a rich and gooey sauce of tomatillos, green chilies and cream.
Rich and gooey also describes a spinach dip Mr. Clinton likes. It is made with jalapeno, cheese, cream, onion, tomato and cream cheese.
That's why Mrs. Clinton likes to have her husband eat at home, where she has greater control over the menu. But lately, Trio's has been sending vats of the spinach dip to the Governor's Mansion.
Let's face facts: Hillary Clinton probably has more influence on Cabinet appointments than on her husband's eating habits. Her nutritional influence, she said, "is less than I would like."
