In Starved Rock country there's no excuse to go hungry, from crispy fried chicken to creamy peanut butter pie

OTTAWA, Ill. - Sometimes you just need to get in a car and drive, out to the edge of Chicago, through the suburbs and past the exurbs, to a place where the highway is straight and smooth and the sky shows you where it meets the land, or at least the treetops, in all four directions.

I do this now and again, on Interstate 80, and usually I end up in LaSalle County - in Ottawa, Utica, LaSalle or Peru - or in Ladd, a tiny town just over the county line.

Ottawa is where the Fox River meets the Illinois River, that meandering ribbon that flows into the mighty Mississippi. Ottawa is also where Abraham Lincoln met Stephen Douglas on Aug. 21, 1858, for the