Kent D

Some of the more interesting articles I've read, though, are about the School Districts which have switched to making their own meals from using pre-made. I saw a piece on CBS Sunday morning about one program where they found it actually costs less to make the meals from scratch than to buy the pre-made food. Of course they still face the challenge of selling those foods to the children. ← I wax nostalgic to my kids about how good school lunches used to be. They were cooked right there in the school kitchen by somebody's grandma (for a few years, it was actually MY grandma), and everything was hot and fresh and very little of it made it to the trash cans. Hot rolls, cinnamon rolls, cookies, pie, all baked that day on-premises. Now the food's trucked in from a central "processing facility" in big metal carts, and they just pull the styrofoam cartons out of the carts and hand them to the kids. Very few of the schools even have a functioning kitchen. My younger daughter won't eat the school lunches, she'd rather take a sandwich or pita pocket or roll-up from home. My older daughter will eat on "delivery pizza" day, but takes her lunch and supplements from the middle-school ala carte items (nachos, slushies, cookies, and other forms of crap). The fact of the matter is here in Wichita, something like 80% of the public school students get free or reduced lunches, and the district is providing bare-minimum nutrition for whatever the government pays them. They're not going to spend extra in pay and benefits to staff the 60-70 school buildings with cooks. And outside the educational/institutional setting, buy a meal at about 80% of the restaurants in your town, and have a good look at the presentation/assembly. I stopped at Taco Bell for lunch (Yes, I know I'm part of the problem - it was on the way, it was fast, and I was hungry!), and it looked like a 6-year-old had prepared it. Tasted like it, too. I probably should have just gone home and opened a can of soup for all the enjoyment it gave me.

I'd take her name, tell her on her next visit she can have a free sandwich (and maybe a beverage), and leave it at that. It's not like she complained about the quality of her beverage, cookies, or tart, so she has no case for reimbursement of those items. I can't think of any other business where you can buy several items, have one be defective, and expect a refund for all the items, without even having to provide proof of purchase for those items. And really, she sounds like such a nutjob that no one would take her complaints seriously, anyway.

I must confess that when I was in college, I'd just snag a salad bowl full of veggies from the cafeteria salad bar on Saturday night, and then on Sunday morning, incredibly hung-over, I would deposit one broken package of Ramen in my 4-cup mini-coffee-pot carafe, which rarely made coffee, sprinkle the seasoning over it, dump in the veggies, and turn the pot on, allowing the water to percolate down over the entire mess. By the time I was back from the shower, hot pot noodles. Eat directly from the carafe with a fork stolen from the dorm cafeteria. Not saying it was the best, but when cooking with your eyes closed, you do what you have to do to survive.

Wichita had a microbrewery that produced a trio of beers -- Archangel Ale, Purgatory Porter, and Red Devil Ale as I recall. When I heard they were closing their doors, I bought a few cases at bargain prices as my go-to beer store was clearing out their stock. It was good while it lasted, and I have one bottle of each left, which likely would be of questionable quality over 10 years later, but I hold on to them as a collector item. Also have one bottle of Romulan Ale, a beer sold out at the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas, but it's just a standard central American beer with blue food coloring, no exotic flavor. And the coloring has some disquieting side-effects...

Maybe Diet Coke with Botox, to firm and tighten up those crow's feet. Oh, wait, taking Botox orally's probably NOT the ideal way... I doubt that I'll drink it, unless someone gives me it for free. Between Coke Zero, Diet Coke, Diet Black Cherry Vanilla Coke, Diet Cherry Coke, Diet Lime Coke, and oh yeah, Cherry Coke Zero, I just don't have room in my refrigerator for another Coke product, no matter how healthy it might make me. Now if someone comes up with Aquafina with Prozac...

Well, that's disappointing that it's only food coloring. Our homemade lemonade always came with a splash of cherry juice, and sometimes even a few thin slices of lemon. But I guess everything I've tasted lately had nothing to distinguish it from regular.

No, it's great. It's just that I've been trying to score some acid for the past week, like you said I should, so I could finish the story. That stuff's not easy to find in Wichita, man.

Quite the opposite -- she uses it against me. When I try something new, without the aid of a recipe, she just says "This isn't another Chicken Drywall, is it?" Even my kids use it against me, and they've never even experienced the dish. I'm very careful what I put on the plate now...

My wife would argue that the worst meal was something I "created" when we were dating that she later dubbed "chicken drywall", which contained diced chicken breast in white sauce on top of minute rice. No color, no flavor, no texture. We each choked down a couple bites and then went out for a pizza. 20 years later, she hasn't forgiven me. But I would regretfully say that the worst meal I ate at someone else's home was a birthday dinner my sister cooked for me. Some sort of chicken breast on the bone, smothered in what would probably be described as a Middle-Eastern tomato sauce, with sides of fried okra and stewed zucchini, neither of which I've EVER liked to eat. (I can eat okra and zucchini now, if I can control the cooking process, I'm still squirrelly about most non-mainline vegetables.) I drank a lot of iced tea to wash down what I managed to chew up and swallow. My wife didn't do much better than I did, and she LIKES okra. We stayed an acceptable time to socialize afterward, and hit the first drive-through window we came to on the way home.

Well, I've always liked most sandwiches on toast (tuna salad, chicken salad, egg salad, blt, etc.) but the toast rarely holds the heat long enough to be a detriment to the ingredients within. If I'm eating a sandwich "out" where warming or toasting is the mode of preparation, I much prefer to eat them there than to take them home, because if you want to rewarm them, the lettuce and veggies and most dressings get all icky. And maybe I've just been lucky, but I don't really remember having a bad reuben, except one where the meat was a little on the fatty side. I prefer to make them at home, where I can toast them to my desired level of doneness, and stack the ingredients in a way where the kraut doesn't get a chance to make things soggy.

I found this rather interesting story linked from The Pitch (a Kansas City "alternative press" paper/website): St. Louis "River Front Times" - Chinatown Confidential It talks about a little back-alley Chiu Chow restaurant where the menu's in Chinese, the owner/cook doesn't speak English, and he doesn't WANT to change any of that. Great article, lots of entree descriptions and a history of the cuisine. Really a great piece of reporting, and educational, too.

Even though Kansas isn't included in the critical states on the NYT map, I know that it's rare to SEE a honeybee in my garden anymore, and the level of my produce production has suffered.

First off, I'm SHOCKED that you still haven't got to Arthur Bryant's. That would be like going to Philadelphia looking for cheesesteak and saying you haven't got to Pat's yet. Also funny is that Amazon's linked Arthur Bryant's to a book on taking the MCAT test. Really...you have to get to AB's. Just for the sake of an accurate comparison.

At least in Wichita, "Chinese Food" is super-buffet-style, mostly cooked by undocumented persons from a country south of here, and SERVED by persons of Chinese descent. And it's the same thing on every buffet. Now the Vietnamese and Thai is rather good and authentic, and there's a couple dozen Japanese table-cooking/sushi restaurants that are improving in quality, but Chinese is only what you'd expect, even in those places that feature a surly Mongolian Grill cook and his omnipresent tip jar. Now, down at the end of my block and around the corner, there's a little take-out place, Egg Roll King, that makes a good fried rice and egg rolls. I run through their drive-through to supplement whatever I'm making at home. It's neighborhood, the family that runs it are friendly, and the food's always hot. But their menu is a mishmash of Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese and Korean, most of it passable, except for the over-reliance of onion as filler. And I like fortune cookies.

A hot, well-made sausage/egg mcmuffin is always my first choice in a hurry. I tried the McGriddle, but that syrup/egg combo left me queasy. I've never been a big fan of French Toast for the same reason. Our local competitor to McDonalds in the breakfast market, Spangles, has a variety of egg/meat scrambles served on bagels, sourdough buns, or pita bread, and they've now introduced a "Breakfast bowl" featuring scrambled eggs, choice of sausage/bacon/steak, cheese, hash brown nuggets, and then a warm layer of country gravy ladeled on top. No, I haven't got the nerve up to try one yet, but I'm sure one of these Saturday mornings when I'm working OT I'm going to pull through the drive-through and risk it. Test-marketers LOVE me -- I'm always willing to try something once.

This makes me think of the warning I give friends when in adjacent hotel rooms, camping, etc. "If I can hear you, I reserve the right to comment." Maybe the problem is we're TOO polite. We're worried about offending someone who *already has offended us*. I wonder what would happen if more of us turned around and said, "Your behavior is not acceptable in public," as these folks parents obviously never told them. ← Well, these persons apparently worked for Big Dog Motorcycles, and had perhaps ridden one or more of these motorcycles to the restaurant. I didn't feel it was my place to ask them to behave themselves, and I believe the waitress was hoping that all those bottles of wine would inflate the coming gratuity. We just figured "Hey, you eat chicken in a converted barn, you might have to deal with some unruly animals!". The chicken WAS quite good.

How about dining with your children in a nominally-family-friendly restaurant, and having to watch a young couple virtually do what comes naturally while they're waiting for their meal? Fortunately, my kids' backs were turn to the transgression, but it sure didn't help my or my wife's appetites. Or while my wife and I were having an anniversary dinner at Stroud's Restaurant in Wichita, we were treated to the rather bawdy conversation between a woman of respectable age and her 3 male companions, 2 of which she was kissing in a rather friendly manner, while they debated if white zinfandel went with fried chicken. Evidently it must, because they downed 3 or 4 bottles while we were dining. It was equal parts amusing and disgusting.

I encountered slaw on pork barbecue while in Little Rock (pretty close to Memphis), and while I was momentarily put off, I managed to eat the whole sandwich, messy though it was. And now, when I serve pork barbecue sandwiches, I offer a form of slaw on the side and tell everyone "That's the way you're supposed to eat it!".

They forgot the lettuce, tomato, and mayo. THAT'S the perfect bacon sandwich.

The Wichita Eagle newspaper featured articles on morel hunting, as it has evidently been a productive weather year for mushrooms. At least until the artic blast came through this afternoon, dropping us below freezing. Do mushrooms freeze well? go get 'em. One person was quoted as saying that he and a friend collected 6 trash-bags full of morels, so I would imagine there are some very productive areas in rural Kansas.

If it's a restaurant that considers its reputation to be important, I'm sure they'd like any constructive feedback that might be offered, so long as you couch it in terms of "I'm not looking for anything, I just thought you should know that on my last visit I perceived a downturn in the quality/service/etc., and because I was so blown away the first time, and I respect the reputation you have earned, that you should know what I noticed on this visit." Let them do what they will with your comments, but if you care about the place, pass them on.

So, this is in response to global warming? What exactly do helicopters run on to remain in the air, and how do their emissions impact global warming? They might as well tax people for being in possession of cows and other gas-producing beasts as to tax people for cooking outdoors.

Thankfully, I've never had occasion to eat foie gras, wouldn't eat it if I HAD the occasion, but that's my personal choice. It wouldn't keep me from dining in a restaurant that serves it, I just would steer clear of it when perusing the menu. And even if I was horribly horribly upset at the presumed treatment of those poor little geese, I wouldn't call the restaurant and lecture them on their menu choices, being as it's THEIR restaurant not mine, I'd just call and cancel my reservation, and find some place that caters to my culinary preferences. But I'm pretty easy-going about my personal politics, and I'm pretty much against government entities telling me what to eat or not to eat, or drink, or anything else of that matter. So I don't know that I'd get into a political discussion with the caller, I'd just thank them and cancel their reservation, and bid them a good life.

Here in south-central Kansas, we're enough in the middle that we eat EVERY kind of gravy. White gravy for sausage gray & biscuits, chipped beef gravy, chicken fried steak, fried chicken, chicken fried chicken, brown gravy for roast and potatoes, roast beef hash, salisbury steak, regular steak, etc. I mostly thicken my meat gravies with cornstarch (looks nicer, sets up quicker). I try to avoid the powdered stuff unless I simply don't have the stock/juices to make gravy from scratch, or I'm in a tremendous hurry to eat gravy. (Such a thing has been known to happen!) My white gravy (for biscuits and gravy) - I just sprinkle a few tablespoons of flour over the mostly-drained sausage, stir it around to "roux it up", pour in the milk slowly, and season it. If I'm making "plain white", I just make a roux of equal parts cooking fat and flour, brown it just a touch, and pour in the milk and season. If I'm feeling it, I'll even saute some minced onion in the fat before adding the flour. Seasoning salt/pepper/shot of cayenne sauce. Don't think I've ever tried red-eye gravy, but from what I've heard, it's mostly too salty for my tastes. But I'm always looking for a reason to add gravy to the menu. Did you know that ANY kind of gravy goes good on French fries?

Food-Travel blogs are MURDER on my work productivity! This is all great stuff, but I can't imagine eating all that stuff -- I'm just not that dedicated/committed. I'd be calling for soup and crackers midway through day 2. Great reading, though!