Kansas City Food Blog

​Spring is for the annual garage cleaning. Fall is when I tackle the annual fridge and freezer inspection. While the fridge, with its science experiments in Tupperware containers, is usually more exciting, this time the freezer yielded an odd surprise.

Behind the popsicles and frozen fruit was a package of mini corn dogs that seem like the grocery-shopping equivalent of drunk dialing. I can't remember when or where I bought them (possibly Aldi?). They contain "chicken, pork and beef," and are proudly microwavable. And in case I might have been worried about portion size, the box says it contains approximately 16 batter wrapped cocktail franks.

The new Sasha Baron Cohen movie Bruno debuted this weekend. Among the more genteel scenes is the clip below, in which the Austrian fashion designer goes to Jerusalem and makes a food faux-pas. Hilarity ensues:  

Yossi Alpher, the former Mossad intelligence officer sitting to Cohen's left in the interview wrote a commentary about what it's like to be interviewed by a man who doesn't know a terrorist group from a hill of beans.

Kansas City has the best tap water of any major city in the United States. At least that's what a study by Sustain Lane concluded, saying our water had "no recorded pollutants." Our water is unique enough that author Elizabeth Royte came to study it for her book Bottlemania: Big Business, Local Springs, and the Battle Over America's Drinking Water released last year and now available in paperback.

She spoke with The Pitch's David Martin about the book and Kansas City:

I wrote about KC's water because I wanted to compare it with New York City's water, which is famously tasty and comes from a fairly well protected watershed. Kansas City starts with water from a much dirtier source -- the Missouri River -- cleans it up, and also wins taste awards.

Check out the full interview on our sister Plog.

(Image via Flickr: Malla Mi)

In addition to having one of the better articles explaining the fall of AIG, Vanity Fair's August edition also has a refresher biography about the life of Julia Child, who's being portrayed by Meryl Streep in the upcoming Julie & Julia.

Child's life has been well-documented by multiple biographers but she remains an enigma, which makes sense considering that she spent several years as a spy in the Office of Strategic Services. The article attempts to explain what Julia meant to America's cooks:

America's First Lady is not always the president's wife, though she does tend to be tall and tireless, and has in the past come from Wasp stock. The 20th century can count three such women, all of whom were cheerfully generous in the spotlight and wholly dedicated to causes that were democratic in character ... The first was Emily Post, the author of 1922's Etiquette ... The second was Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and a moral beacon through the 40s and 50s. When Post died, in 1960, and Eleanor Roosevelt, in 1962, it was not the svelte and sloe-eyed Jacqueline Kennedy who moved into this matriarchal role -- she was too young, too shy, too feathery, too fashionable. It was Julia Child, just turned 50.

Child is portrayed as someone who felt out of place during the early part of her life.

It was exactly one year ago that The Pitch launched Fat City with a root beer tasting. Since then, we've delivered 1,500 posts of news, events, openings, closings and the most informative -- and weirdest -- stuff we can find online. 

In normal times, restaurants serving normal food and charging normal prices hope to keep food costs hovering around 30 percent of their menu prices.

But these aren't normal times, and fast food chains long ago gave up the 30 percent rule on some items. Although McDonald's doesn't reveal its wholesale food costs, it's safe to say that the McDouble -- a double patty burger with one slice of cheese that retails for 99 cents -- is being sold for 50 or even 60 percent of costs. The chain was already forced to take the regular double cheeseburger off the dollar menu because it was costing too much.

Fat City wishes everyone a safe and happy Fourth of July. See you Monday!

If you didn't get to attend the KC Urban Farms and Gardens Tour  this past Sunday, here is a slideshow showing some of the things you missed.

Katherine Kelly of the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture and one of the tour organizers, says not only the farmers and gardeners who took part were happy, but the attendees were, too. "It was a good mix. A lot of people were interested in food growing, along with a few casual families ... it was people who are interested in eating well and they got a lot of exposure in a limited period of time."

Thirty farms and gardens participated, and the total attendance numbers are trickling in. Event spokesperson Janet Moss said a couple of sites had more than 300 people, and most reported having between 70 to 150 people. Farmers don't have to turn in numbers until the end of the week, but Moss and Kelly believe turnout to be higher than previous tours.

Even if you didn't make it to the tour, it's not too late to check out the farms.

Fat City turns one year old next week. Birthdays are always a fun time, and if you play your cards right, they can be a perfect opportunity to get free stuff from restaurants.

The blog Rambling Hussies has put together a list of metro-area chains that honor birthday boys and girls. For lunch, you could have a free sandwich from Planet Sub or a free burger from Red Robin. At dinner, Zarda Barbecue will give you free ribs, while The Bristol and its sister Houlihan's both offer free entrees. For dessert, you have your choice between Cold Stone Creamery and Baskin-Robbins -- both chains offer free ice cream.

The catch is, you often have to sign up for a restaurant's e-mail list or join its club or register in some other way. Registration forms generally ask for your birthdate, and more often than not restaurants will mail you a coupon for a free item on your big day. The other downside is that using a birthday coupon alerts the staff it's your birthday at that point, pretty much any plan for a low-key celebration is out the window. Yes, you'll probably get a free dessert, but it's at the expense of every other diner in the restaurant knowing it's your special day.

Garozzo's -- which offers free chicken spiedini on birthdays -- doesn't make you register, but it does ask for your ID. An even more exhaustive list is available at Spoofee.com. You could easily live to 100 and never have to pay for a meal on your birthday again.

Image via Flickr: Jessica N. Diamond

The ICEE has often been imitated, but purists know that nothing compares with the blue-and-red-striped cup and the incredibly cold and sweet liquid ice. And the inevitable brain freeze.

Maybe this is just idyllic childhood talking, but didn't there used to be an ICEE machine on practically every corner? Or at least in every gas station? These days, the machines aren't exactly rare, but it can be hard to find one. Especially when you need an ICEE fix on 100-degree days like we've had this week.

Enter the ICEE location tracker.

Ed McMahon's death was sort of overshadowed by all the rest of the news in the world yesterday. But let's not forget the man who introduced, sat next to and laughed with Johnny Carson for three decades. McMahon also starred in his share of commercials, most famously for Publishers Clearing House and Cash4Gold. But back in the late '60s and early '70s, Ed McMahon was Mr. Budweiser, his everyman persona and friendly demeanor extolling the virtues of "America's greatest beer."

Always ready to be the sidekick, he played second-banana to Frank Sinatra in this one:
 

For better or worse, Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank has seen his profile rise in the past year. He's chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee and was one of the bailout's most vocal backers, urging fellow members to pass it. Then, after losing confidence in Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, he became one of the most vocal backers for putting restrictions on that same TARP money.

But when Frank is not saving the economy, he's got other things on his mind, specifically sweet, sweet bud.

Pictures and font varieties like on this City Tavern menu are key to bumping up sales

Gone are the days when a menu was a simple piece of paper listing items and prices. Restaurants see it as the last piece of advertising a guest sees before ordering. So it's only natural that large restaurant chains have brought in psychologists and sociologists and lots of other professions whose titles end in "ologist" to make menus as effective as can be.

Certain little tricks can improve sales up to 10 percent, according to the National Restaurant Association. The adjective "marinated" increases sales while "fried" has the opposite effect. (Try pan-browned instead.) Daily specials should be highlighted in a different font or preferably a different color. Pictures and drawings help. The "power position" on the menu should be on the right page and just above center level. This is the spot for items with "high margin and appeal." Dollar signs are to be avoided.

Some good examples in Kansas City:

When you're a child, it's not uncommon to sometimes think of your parents as weird. Especially some of the foods they eat. Say, vegetables or shell fish or hamburgers cooked medium-rare.

Sometimes tastes don't evolve -- hence the reason Mexican restaurants feature chicken fingers on adult menus. But more often than not, the foods that seemed so foreign to us as children become some of our favorites.

Author Accidental Hedonist describes the change that happened with oysters.

When I was younger, oysters were slimy things, often bought from the tin, and often smoked ... Now as I've aged (and have moved to a region of the country where oysters are plentiful), I find myself migrating to dishes that contain the mollusk, regardless of whether it's raw, cooked, or deep fried.

But it's not just oysters. Other foods that I have once disdained I've recently rediscovered. The ultimate test, I suppose, if anyone could make liver an interesting treat.

Why and how do our tastes evolve? It's mostly a mystery. Of the five tastes (sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami), children seemed programmed to react positively to sweetness and adversely to bitterness. As people reach adolescence, saltiness starts playing a more important role and sweetness takes a back seat. (People remain divided on bitter.) It stays relatively the same for adults, though our sense of smell decreases with age, causing older people seek out stronger foods.

Whatever the reason, just be thankful kids don't like foods like oysters since it saves that much more for us adults.

(Image via Flickr: Daniel James)

Pity the poor Hooter's waitress. Not only does she have to do the extremely demanding job of serving while wearing warning-vest-orange shorts, but lately rival chains have been swooping up loyal customers with cheaper food and even more scantily clad women.

As if that wasn't bad enough, she has to deal with a slew of corporate rules. Even down to the color of her bra.

German curator Mike Meire has put together a collection of street-vendor carts from around the world. His show, Global Street Food, is "dedicated to the fascination with improvised kitchens in public places. Urban fast food stations navigating the contrast between pragmatic dilettantism and complexity in the smallest of spaces."

The collection focuses on the countries of Vietnam, Uganda, China, Sudan, Mexico, Argentina and the good ol' USA. The above picture is of a sausage and cheese cart native to Argentina.

Let it be said once and for all that when it comes to ketchup, no restaurant should mess around with anything but Heinz. Sure, it's all well and good to have premium house-made ketchup but if some people don't want that (and they won't) you better have that classic awkward-pouring glass bottle ready just in case.

There are only a few other food basics that merit such loyalty. Hershey's chocolate syrup, Oreo cookies, Tabasco, Frank's Red Hot Sauce and Sriracha, for instance. Yet in categories where there's no one correct product people still buy name brands over store brands. Is it worth it to spend the extra 50 cents on Jolly Green Giant spinach versus the grocery store's brand?
 
The financial Web site The Street looked into the question and came up with a surprising conclusion: As the difference in quality between name brands and store brands has declined, the social stigma of buying the cheaper store brand has all but disappeared.

The movie Food, Inc comes out later this week, promising to rip into Big Ag and all the evil it has done.

Big Ag, or Big Food as it's also called (really, anything with "big" in the title will work, the better to remind people of similarities to Big Tobacco) consists of a handful of companies -- Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland, Mars -- that control a majority of food products.

The companies have drawn the ire of green supporters for years, but it's only been recently, through the efforts of writers like Michael Pollan and books such as Fast Food Nation, that the public has come to understand the practices of Big Ag. Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack happen to be two people influenced by the green movement and this has Big Ag worried.

But as Slate reports, Big Ag's worries go well beyond the government. The weather has been particularly unkind the past several years, with unbearably hot summers, late-season freezes and droughts. It's a catch-22 for the industry: Its model of cheap food is built on cheap fuel to bring water to plants, make fertilizer and transport products. But fossil fuels only exacerbate the problems of nature.

Last year's spike in oil prices quickly drove food prices higher, even contributing to food shortages in parts of the world ... And then there are the reports that the world is down to a few decades' supply of phosphorus, a key ingredient in synthetic fertilizer. One of Big Food's favorite refrains is the need for synthetics in order to feed the world. Yet it continues to lack long-term plans for providing adequate, affordable amounts of the stuff.

Although Slate doesn't mention it, what it's implying is that Big Ag will eventually lead us to a dust-bowl situation where a combination of Mother Nature and bad farming practices leads to disaster. Signs of another Dust Bowl have begun to appear in California, where a lack of rain for the last three years has led to permanent drought conditions and an abundance of wildfires.

(Image via Flickr: Georgie Rain)

What's the biggest compliment you can give to water? That it tastes like water. Or, if you're one of the increasing number of water gullible fools connoisseurs, then you'd use words like rounded, flinty, crispy and spritzy to describe two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen.

All of those adjectives are actually used in a taste test of waters served at Claridge's in London, which has a mind-numbing 33 choices ranging from the plain and cheap Fiji to $40 water pumped straight from glaciers, rainwater, springs and God knows where else.

Claridge's and several restaurants in Los Angeles employ water sommeliers to advise customers on what goes best with "spiced braised belly pork or fillet of brill with parmentier of truffled leek."

There is even a French term for what people are supposedly buying in these expensive waters.

Among Michael Pollan's food rules is the one that says if your grandma wouldn't recognize the food, avoid it. Grandma knows fruits such as apples, oranges and pears but not say, fruit-by-the-foot.

Also, if Grandma wouldn't recognize many of the words in the health claim on the package, the health claim is probably bogus.

Men's Health (yes, the same magazine that declared Oklahoma Joe's the best barbecue joint in the world) has released an article showing eight foods with health claims that are deceitful at best and downright horrific in other cases.

Take 7UP's promise of "all natural flavors." Turns outs they didn't stop using high fructose corn syrup but just switched from "alcium
disodium EDTA to natural potassium citrate." That clears things right up.

In the case of Smucker's reduced-fat peanut butter, it's not so much that the company lies -- it does take out 25 percent of the fat -- but, rather, what it doesn't say, which is that the fat has been replaced with maltodextrin, which the article describes as a cheap carb filler.

The worst offender is Mama Celeste "original pizza." Turns out Mama Celeste doesn't use a single shred of real cheese! Instead, it uses an artificial cheese made up of soybean oil.

You're better off eating at your grandma's tonight.

Making food ridiculously large and unhealthy has become an art form, reaching its zenith with the bacon explosion and the blog This Is Why You're Fat. Finally, there's a name for things like 10 pound BLTs. Gourmet Magazine has deemed this phenomenon the "gross-food movement."

Defining what constitutes gross food is tricky. It's almost always a Frankenstein-like combination of two foods that shouldn't go together, say pizza and blueberry waffles, blown up to huge proportions. To paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, you'll know gross food when you see it. Like this deep-fried cheeseburger on a stick.


Gourmet describes gross food in slightly more eloquent terms.

There is no cereal more disappointing when you're a kid than Grape Nuts. The commercials show attractive young adults running, working, driving big cars and talking about how it keeps them going. Plus it has the words grape (yum) and nut (double-yum) in the name, so it has to be good.

I should have known I was in for disappointment the first time I ever saw it at my grandparents' house. That should have been my first clue -- they couldn't run, didn't work and barely drove. I poured a big bowl of it. I don't really remember anything else except maybe crying and wondering if there had been a mistake.

I never ate them again. And today when I see Grape Nuts, I am terrified by their similarity in appearance to dry cat food. Seriously:


I am not the only one.

Domino's pasta bowls have generated a lot of press. Not much of it positive. First there was the commercial that stirred up trouble because the talking piece of pasta (Pasta Dude) was mimicking spanking somebody doggy-style:



Things haven't gotten any better since the pasta bread-bowls have actually hit the market.

Nina and Tim Zagat are best known for their eponymous guides. For 30 years now, the two have been reviewing restaurants across the country and editing many more people's reviews. They have learned a thing or two about dining trends and so when they say service in America sucks, it sucks.

Writing in The Atlantic, the couple says that 70 percent of all complaints they get have to do with service,

The average rating for food on our 30-point scale is usually two points higher than the average rating for service. Given the fact that identical people are voting, and that there are hundreds of thousands of them, this deficit is dramatic.

Considering that Americans (the ones I know at least) are very tolerant of mediocre service, that must mean a lot of meals with horrific service.

While cuisine has improved dramatically in the past 20 years, service has lagged. According to the Zagats, the problem is that the media glamorizes the job of chefs and so all the talented people end up working in the back of the house. "When was the last time you saw a show that focused on waiters or maitre d's," they ask, "and how many [culinary] schools pride themselves on teaching service skills?"

The couple has a point. We understand that chefs are to be rewarded for their flare and uniqueness but we don't expect the same from maitre d's. There's no reason not to. At many famous restaurants -- Four Seasons, Le Cirque -- the owners often act as maitre d and treat the dining room as if it's their house. Even if the owner is absent, many fine-dining restaurants have someone working the front who will effortlessly take care of special requests and remember even sporadic guests. But at mid-level restaurants, such an experience is virtually non-existent.

I usually don't mind. But I do get irked when restaurants are under-staffed, when the server doesn't have the slightest clue what the daily special is or -- I've noticed this one a lot lately -- a different server comes out with the entrees and places them in front of the wrong people. Servers don't have to go to an expensive school to learn these little things, they just need to be trained right and that job falls on the restaurant, not the servers themselves.

(Image via Flickr: Glamhag)

As this weekend's weather proves, things are already starting to get unbearably hot. With the summer season come roughly 1,000 reading lists, including several focused on cookbooks.

According to both NPR and the New York Time's list, the majority of cookbooks this summer will focus on basics, comfort food and growing your own food. Gone are the hedonistic days of celebrity chefs and expensive ingredients. Bang for your buck is in.

Take Preserved, which focuses on the old-fashioned art of preserves and canning. T. Susan Chang at NPR says she's read "at least six new books on canning and preserving, and Preserved is the one that sold me. It was the fruit leather recipe -- I had no idea I could make fruit leather at home, nor that it could be so easy."

The Times recommends a different book on the same subject Well Preserved: Techniques for putting up small batches of seasonal food, saying it "demystifies canning for those who didn't grow up at their grandmother's elbow, front-loading the book with how-to's accompanied by answers to commonly asked questions." The Times also says these recipes are easy to follow.

OK, I get it. You don't want canning -- you just want something simple to prepare after a day at the beach.

Sadly and surprisingly, I was once again passed over to give a commencement speech this year. It's a shame because I believe I've got some valuable advice to offer graduates, especially from high school.

I actually only received this valuable advice myself two days ago when it was printed in Esquire and like many things in the magazine it concerns drinking.

Now I know what you're thinking -- high schoolers aren't of drinking age. Yes, there are many who wouldn't dare dream of imbibing illegally, but the ones who do might as well learn the proper way to do it. Just as I don't condone underage sex but I know that Bristol Palin teenagers are going to do it anyway and might as well be safe, I believe high school graduates could save themselves much humiliation by knowing some basic drinking rules.

When a person starts drinking casually, there are many things that need to be understood. Some highlights from Esquire's article:

It's not because the dishwasher is cheap, decrepit and was installed during the Harding administration. No, your dishwasher doesn't clean dishes because you already did!

So says cleaning expert Arianne Cohen, who cites pre-rinsing dishes as the number-one fault people make when using the machine. In addition to wasting water and energy, it has the opposite effect on the dishes. Cohen cites a dishwashing engineer: "Dishwasher detergent aggressively goes after food ... and if you don't have food soil in the unit, it attacks the glasses, and they get cloudy." That leads to the process known as "permanent-etching," something KC Lunch Spots observed on the glasses at a local diner.

Since detergent attacks food and not dishes you should add detergent based on "food soil" not how full the dishwasher is. Other hints: Despite all the fancy gizmos companies come out with, powder detergent is best. Never place bowls upright, unless you like harboring an environment for bacteria. Same goes with cups. The water doesn't drain and dirty water sticks around.

Finally if you're already doing all of the above then yes, it may actually be your dishwasher causing the problems. But before buying a new one (or heaven forbid, doing the dishes in the sink) make sure to examine the filter and spray arm. Often times they are clogged with debris and just need a good cleaning, something that can be done in the sink since both parts are detachable.

(Image via Flickr: Wade Rockett)

Last week's season finale of The Simpsons seemed to touch on (and ridicule) every aspect of culinary news the past couple of years -- organic fare, vegetarians and food-borne illness, to name a few.

The first part of the show focused on fast-food chain Krustyburger and its extremely unhealthy options. So owner Krusty the Clown decides to launch a vegetarian burger:


Turns out the "Mother Nature" burgers -- made in nearby Ogdenville -- are tainted with rotten barley. At this point the story turns to the immigration issue but not before getting in a couple more pot shots.

The best part is the pitch-perfect commercial Krusty makes to promote his new Mother Nature burger.

Before the Obama family moved into the White House, several high-profile food advocates called for the family to build a garden. Sure enough, they did. Or at least their gardeners and chefs did.

Little did people know that this 50 x 20-foot garden would lead to starvation and cancer. That is, if you believe the American Council on Science and Health, which bills itself as a "consumer education consortium concerned with issues related to food, nutrition, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, lifestyle, the environment and health."

The group has been accused of taking a majority of its funding from the chemical and pesticide industry, which it denies, saying it has "thousands of donors." Whoever is funding the ACSH, it has decided to take a rather extreme view on the Obama garden. It shared these opinions with the Daily Show:

This week's edition of the New Yorker looks at the man who brought America "super-value" wine. Fred Franzia, the C.E.O of Bronco Winery, is a convicted felon (got caught mislabeling grapes) and a politically incorrect cowboy.

Unfortunately the entire article is not online, only an abstract. But if you have any interest whatsoever in cheap wine, you should pick up a copy. Among the highlights:

-- Franzia keeps his predecessor's ashes in a wine bottle in his trailer office. Yes, he may own more than $300 million in vines alone but his office is in a 30-year-old trailer that's never been updated.

-- He's constantly buying wine names and trademarks. He doesn't like to pay to invent his own labeling so he waits until wineries are in bankruptcy and buys them just for the brands. He claims to have "20 or so" wine brands he's waiting to use.

-- One of the brands Franzia bought on some courthouse steps is Charles Shaw. Better known as two-buck Chuck, which he re-released in 2002. The actual Charles Shaw started his eponymous label in the 1980s but went bankrupt in a divorce. Charles Shaw is still alive but doesn't see a penny of the money from the wine with his name on it; he works the night shift at an IT firm in Chicago.

-- While out tending to his vines, Franzia tried to get an owl to shit on the New Yorker reporter because he thought it would be funny.

-- In the house he's currently building, for his daughter's room he installed windows positioned so "nobody can peek at her titties."
 
Reading the article calls to mind another California family -- the Beverly Hillbillies. Both Franzia and the Clampetts are wildly rich and don't act it. That makes for an entertaining story, especially while drinking a glass or two of cheap Bronco wine.