My wife’s job is moving to Kansas, 25 miles away. So we are moving to be only 2 miles from her work, rather than 25. We tried to find a place in Missouri without many steps and on the first floor since we have her mum with and she uses a walker. Hello Overland Park/Leawood!
I will at least be able to walk to the grocery store. In this area, there are two Whole Paychecks within 3 miles of each other. The closest one caters to rich hippies (more schnozz jewelery and lurid tattoos); they other is a haven for soccer moms who seem to be mainly tall Skandahoovian women. There is also a Dean & DeLuca, which is even more insanely expensive than Whole Paycheck. Hen House, a local chain, is more reasonable, and even has a whole kosher butcher shop and a wider selection of fresh sea food than the others I have mentioned.
There are also S. Asian greengrocers and halal butcher shops in the area. Olathe or KCKS is where I shall go to get my ingredients for comida mejicana.
A recent painting of mine.
“Who would believe they would freak out in Kansas, Suzy Creamcheese…” Frank Zappa.
Wow.. this was great. They made their own beans and the cole slaw was not some bland and overly sweet grocery store salad bar mush. I was most impressed. This was for the grand opening at Local Pig, a an artisanal butcher shop that produces charcuterie in the East Bottoms. This is about two blocks from Knucklehead’s, a music venue where have I occasionally sat in on accordion at the blues jams, just north, across the railroad tracks.
The Local Pig has a nice interior.
There was quite a crowd, even when I got there a bit after noon. It was chilly and windy, in the 40s, but pleasant. There seemed to be a rather well-behaved crowd.
The crowd is served.
The plates were quite nice. The buns/rolls were amazingly good. Not some sort of Bunny Bread/burger bun dreck.
Here’s a photo of my plate.
Pork plate at Local Pig's grand opening.
If I had known, I could have gotten some ribs. But I didn’t. Here’s a plate of rib remains. Sigh. Whimper.
Had I just know; I could have had a rib or three. Shucks.
Lest we forget, the guest of honor… a noble beast..
Head office!
And here’s the guest of honor with the woman who was nobly serving the Boulevard Ales on tap. Good work, folks!
The Guest of Honor and one of his Minions..
Not forgetting, EL TORITO #3 (I think it’s number 3) just opened its new supermercado on the north side of Independence Avenue, across from ACE Hardware. It’s a really nice place to shop for comida and has a great carniceria.
a self-proclaimed “quaffer of culinary consciousness” and travels around New York City, mostly in The Bronx, documenting various ethnic cultures and their indigenous cuisines, represented typically by the small food establishments (including restaurants, food trucks, street vendors, and grocery stores) he visits. Baron Ambrosia has appeared in Fornal’s self-produced video podcast Underbelly NYC and currently stars in the public-access televisioncable TV channel BronxNet‘s Bronx Flavor.
from Jason Sheehan (a former chef, now a food writer in Seattle):
Patrick wrote a post, collecting his thoughts about Mexican food, quote-unquote traditional cuisine and foodies. In it, he decided that what was needed was a movement–a revolution, albeit a small one. He wrote:
“At the core, a strong belief in local ingredients, deconstructed classics, or authentic flavors scores a win for most restaurant-goers. It’s tempting to take the foodie philosophy and expand it to all restaurants and markets. As review sites like Yelp and Urbanspoon expand, diners have become more critical (myself included) and more resistant to eateries that go against the grain of New American, French styled, locally grown/caught/farmed cuisine…Traditional has become a euphemism for unchanging, which in the context of the foodie fight for authenticity, seems contradictory. Do foodies want locally produced goods or authentic spices found only in Mexico? Should a restaurant try a French technique on an Irish dish or only boil down vegetables into a stew? Should we deconstruct meatloaf?”
Preach it, brother. Bring it on home…
“Therefore, I put out a call to all open-minded eaters. Join me in the anti-foodie movement. Rather than project our vision of food onto the restaurants, take food on its own terms. We are in America-nothing we produce here can be completely of another place. Even the most “authentic” Mexican food in California is from California…Anti-foodie is not about hating on the foodies. We are all still foodies-this is a foodie post if there has ever been. I will still go to Chez Shea and love the carefully constructed courses. I will continue to marvel at Art of the Table’s ability to improvise based on the daily catch and kitchen leftovers. Of course I would still thoroughly enjoy an evening at Crush, sitting in modern chairs I would never have in my house, but are surprisingly comfortable and the perfect spot to enjoy a dish.
But that doesn’t mean stepping away from the Tex-Mex, Teriyakis, and fried chickens of the world. We live in Seattle, one of the best food cities in the country. The restaurants here have a history all their own and their unique styles provide the variety we crave (it’s the spice of life, right?). It might be a good time to step back and see the context in which we eat food.
SAN FRANCISCO — Get out your knives and prepare to get blood on your clothes: more Americans are learning how to butcher their own meat.
Cooking enthusiasts and eco-conscious food lovers are signing up for classes where they learn how to carve up whole hogs, lambs and other farm animals, the latest trend among foodies who want a closer connection to the meaty morsels on their forks.
On a recent evening in San Francisco, a dozen men and women met at a rental kitchen in the Mission District to break down a 170-pound hog under the guidance of Ryan Farr, one of a new breed of “artisan butchers” who is bringing the art of butchery to the meat-loving masses.
After Farr and his assistant plunked the slaughtered pig on a sprawling stainless steel table, the students — wearing white aprons and brandishing cleavers, saws and hatchets — took turns cutting up the carcass. They sawed through flesh, chopped through bones and sliced off tendons until the animal was reduced to hundreds of individual cuts of meat.
“I like the part when you cut the head and you see what’s inside. You discover pieces here and there that you didn’t expect,” said Alex Castellarnau, a designer in San Francisco. “It’s very crafty. I had a lot of fun using the different tools.”
Chickenfoot Soup 