Kent D

We have 2 locations in Wichita, but they're both 8-10 miles from where I live, and I've got a half-dozen local burger shops within walking distance, so I haven't been in a rush to try them. And besides, I ate floppy/undercooked fries, so that would kind of be a deal-breaker for me. I'd rather we get White Castle back to town.

I prefer savory, whether it's eggs and bacon, biscuits and gravy (with some gravy slop-over on some hash browns), a bacon quesadilla, leftover roast beef and mashed potatoes on toast...I've always been a weird eater for breakfast. Yes, I'll eat pancakes or waffles or muffins, but I prefer grease and salt and meat.

Pancakes 1st, waffles 2nd, french toast a distant 3rd. My wife's exactly the opposite, my two daughters take both sides, but don't really care so long as there's plenty of syrup.

I've always been more a Bon Appetit subscriber than a Gourmet subscriber, but in any event this is still a loss to the culinary community, in the same way the failure of a daily newspaper hits the journalism community. I really find it difficult to find the time to read any of my magazines cover to cover anymore, but when they quit publishing and it's no longer in my mailbox every month, there's certainly a momentary feeling of loss, especially when they don't refund the balance of the subscription.

I've given up. I used to organize a monthly potluck for my co-workers on 2nd shift (we were, for a time a close-knit bunch who enjoyed each other's company as well as each other's culinary talents). Then, a couple of our go-to cooks moved to 1st shift and were replaced by people with absolutely no talent nor motivation, and it became "Kent brings the main course and we all open bags of chips and jars of cheese sauce". You truly haven't lived until you've sampled 4 bags of ramen noodles with about a pound of American cheese grated into them. I really can't justify spending the morning in the kitchen making a valid effort and then coming in to an assortment of chips, candy and deli sandwiches purchased from the gift shop and the cafeteria. And then our director converted our break area into a workspace for a mid-level-almost-manager, so we have no place to eat or spread out our food. At least sometimes my family does a potluck salad or potluck Mexican dinner and my siblings, my Mom and I all try to out-do each other.

I have to have it for baked beans and molasses crinkle cookies. Sometimes I put a tiny drizzle in my habanero salsa recipe. And my 9-year-old daughter has developed a taste for molasses milk instead of chocolate milk. I tried it...I think she's onto something.

I call it "toad in the hole" (my kids ask for it for breakfast before school), I heard someone on the radio refer to it as "Eggs with hat and coat" and just saw a reference on-line to Okie French Toast. I always cut the hole out with the cap from the non-stick spray can, put the butter on the griddle (when I don't use bacon grease), and cook it on both sides, but leave the yolk runny enough to dip the circle. I generally don't go to the trouble for me, I just fry an egg and put it between two pieces of toast.

Doesn't it hurt when you have to actually type the words "when A***'s used real meat."? At what point is the business decision made to serve up a chunk of solidified meat paste and call it roast instead of serving up an actual roast? Or paint on brown "grill marks" on a hamburger patty that's coming out of a microwave? I have to look and see when that "No Reservations" re-runs, we had a power flicker and it knocked out my DVR.

I was listening to a syndicated radio host out of D.C. talking today about a suspected bout of food poisoning who admitted that he had eaten a Lean Cuisine chicken entree that was still cold in spots, but he didn't want to take the time to heat it to the proper temperature. Guess he lost a little more weight than he planned that night.

I remember reading of the McDonalds "Surf and Turf" sandwich featuring an unholy union of the filet o fish and Quarter Pounder, which I will admit I would have considered half a lifetime ago. Or the hamburger patty with bacon and cheese wedged between two prepared grilled cheese sandwiches (When I was a teenager working at McDonalds they made a grilled cheese with an inverted bun around a slice of cheese and pressed in the bun toaster, so this would have been doable 25 years ago...) Fortunately, most of the culinary sins of my youth have faded from memory. The ones that remain make me shudder.

My knives are regrettably inferior and replaceable. My pots (or rather my heirloom cast-iron skillets handed down from both sides of grandparents) NOT replaceable. After the passing of my last Grandma at the age of 97, I was given a deep h-u-g-e cast iron skillet and lid that my Grandpa used in his hometown restaurant during the 1950's. I'm still afraid to use it, but I'm going to one of these days to fry a couple chickens.

It seems like a well-researched list, and I'd never call his qualifications into question, unlike some of those men's magazine's "50 hottest women" list where the guy writing it's never met any of the women on the list and wouldn't have a shot at them if he did. I did notice that there's not a pizzeria anywhere within 800 miles of Wichita. No great surprise there. The best pizza I've had in Wichita comes out of my oven, made with my own two hands, and Mr. Richman would likely sniff and pooh-pooh at it, but it IS better than Pizza Hut, Dominos, and Little Caesars. And now, I'm hungry for pizza.

I've assumed that it's at least marginally accurate, because even "Bewitched" showed Larry and Darrin serving drinks to their advertising clients in the office and then again at their home with dinner. I can't imagine how badly they'd reek at the end of the day with the constant smoking, drinking and wenching. I was shocked when they had Draper's daughter mixing cocktails for their dinner guests.

At this point, I don't think I'll share our latest pizza creation: canned chili, sliced hot dogs, chopped onion, mozz and cheddar cheese, and then a healthy squirt of mustard when it comes out of the oven. Oops, I said too much... Actually, for me, pizza's pepperoni & mushroom or white pizza with some chopped spinach, but I've tried almost everything.

I keep saying I'm going to pick up a can of Spam for me and the girls (my wife's anti-pork), but I haven't eaten it since Boy Scouts, where we'd keep cans of it in the patrol supply box for emergency breakfast meat. Strangest way we ate it -- alternated cubes of Spam and marshmallows on a skewer and toasted over the fire. What can I say -- you get bored standing around the campfire sometimes. We also used to boil hotdogs in orange Tang. Boys will be boys...

I was a little disappointed with the Southwest episode (Alice Cooper's sports bar eating a wiener? Yawn.), but Ted Nugent and big guns saved it. My wife LOVE Ted, and watching Tony pick up a couple of cannons and cut loose was enjoyable -- and I don't even like guns. But I would have traded the whole Salton Sea segment for some more food or desert peril. But we did get to see Tony eat a patty melt.

I picked up one of their assortments for my daughter's 13th birthday. I figured it was safe because they only use cooked seafood in them, so there wouldn't be the "ick, it's raw" factor. She seemed to like it. Hopefully, we can get her grandpa to take her out to a "real sushi" place soon. He knows what the good stuff is and where to get it in Wichita, if such a thing is possible.

I mixed blue food coloring into the mashed potatoes when I was helping cook dinner and I was 8 or 9. No one else would eat them, especially with dark-brown gravy on them, so I got the whole bowl of mashed potatoes. I was instructed never to do that again. Years and years later, my wife ordered a birthday cake for my daughter with blue icing accents. It was really blue, and we all discovered later that blue food dye is not necessarily changed in the digestive process. And at the Star Trek Experience out in Las Vegas (I forget which hotel), they sell a Romulan Ale in souvenier(sp?) six-packs. Looks prettier than it tastes -- apparently, it's just a Costa Rican beer with dye added. I was really disappointed, I expected something more exotic.

I'm not exactly their target demo, but I've had a subscription for over 10 years. When I renew, I renew for 3 years at a time, which doesn't seem to stop them from sending "renew now" notices at least once a month, even though my subscription runs through Dec 2010. I wasn't crazy to hear that they were adding "limited advertising" a couple issues ago, although it's no worse than their included coupon booklet/ad they've mailed out with the issues for years. I'm more disappointed that they eliminated the "Men in the Kitchen" feature, and got rid of the toothpick search for cupcakes, Christmas tree bulbs and whatever else. And they quickly reversed the decision to put most of the recipe pictures on the web instead of in the magazine -- I imagine all the little old ladies raised a ruckus about having to log into the internet to see what a layer cake looks like.

Dang, I was going to suggest Nigel, too! When we got our Basset (awful lot of Basset owners on this board), I wanted Nigel, or Fred (the Basset from "Smokey and the Bandit"), but they were vetoed, so we settled on Duke. Kind of fun to stand at the back door and yell "SADIE...DUUUUUKE!" Looking forward to the 50th birthday coverage. I'm hoping when I hit that milestone I'm out of the country on an uncharted dessert island. (No, that wasn't a misspelling, I want an island full of desserts.)

Oddly enough, that's not selling me on the 7-11 burgers. Glad we don't have 7-11 around here anymore, just to avoid any curiosity. I'm still watching, but no McRibs in Wichita, yet.

I like to geek out to some "Good Eats" and "Feasting on Asphalt". Alton is one of the only "personalities" I still enjoy watching on FN. I almost wish all the cast-aways would form their own REAL FOOD network.

Oh, great, there goes my lunch money for the next month! Ever since I stumbled upon a test-market roll-out in Ottawa, Kansas in 1981, I have lusted in my heart for the McRib. They're messy, they're bad for you, I question whether the meat involved was ever NEAR a piggy's rib, but it matters not. I will not be denied my McRib fix.

For my kids, who really aren't that picky, I'll cut back on nuts in the brownies or cookies because my younger daughter "doesn't like nuts". She's not specific WHICH nut, just that she doesn't like them. She claims to hate raisins and cinnamon, but we got her to eat trail mix w/raisins this summer, and cinnamon's in all sorts of things we cook. My wife -- likes her meat red, won't eat cheese on burgers or sandwiches. I work around those restrictions pretty easily. Kids friends/houseguests: Allergies I'd work around, otherwise it's "That's what I made and how I make it. Pick around it if you don't like it." We don't have many dinner guests, so it's not that big a problem. My sister-in-law...she hates onions. She freaks out if my brother uses one in the kitchen without STERILIZING the cutting board and knife afterwards. She's turned her daughters against the noble onion. My Mom specially makes her potato salad WITHOUT onions if my SIL is going to be there, and portions some out, and then adds the onions for the rest of us. I, on the other hand, am always finding new and inventive ways of sneaking onions into dishes I make. She's not picked up on it yet -- minced onions, onion powder, etc.

Umm...I have a kitchen control problem. When offered help I reluctantly accept it, and then end up doing everything because "YOU'RE DOING IT THE WRONG WAY!"...which is kind of bad when it's one of my daughters offering to help. I know...I'm trying to get better about it. I'm learning to step back, let them screw up, and then explain how to do it better next time. As long as they don't chop off a finger or burn themselves, we'll be fine. Oh, and under no circumstances is anyone to approach my grill.