Facebook: Michael Smith A chocolate macaron with strawberry mousse, strawberry powder and dark chocolate sorbet. Most young chefs are just hoping for a station they can call their own. At just 25 years old, Nicolette Foster is the pastry chef for Michael Smith and Extra Virgin. Aspiring cooks would be wise to follow her example. Yesterday, she talked about her…
Artificial Kansas The Kansas state barbecue championship is on the line this weekend. This is the time of year when competition barbecue teams discover if they’re going to be a contender. And the Great Lenexa Barbeque Battle might be the ultimate measuring stick in Kansas. Talk to any of the 200 teams competing while chowing down on barbecue at the…
Ashford Stamper Nicolette Foster is settling in at Michael Smith. With her shy smile and wavy brown hair that falls to her shoulders, 25-year-old Nicolette Foster could still be mistaken for a University of Missouri-Kansas City student. Six years ago, the new pastry chef at Michael Smith was just that – a Kansas City native studying business and planning to…
An Italian-style doughnut, frittelle di mele, with a cup of espresso is the way to begin brunch at the Boot. The best way to start brunch at the Boot, the cozy Italian restaurant in Westport created by Aaron Confessori and Rich Wiles, is with an order of frittelle di mele, the airy but yeast-free (who knew?) fried apple fritters, each…
Mac Mo Green described his new video for “Keep It Clappin’” as trying to capture that idea that if you could just get your boss outside of work, he’d be a cool dude. Shot at KC Trends by Digital Genius, the vid bounces back and forth between a typical workday and aparty in the parking lot. The song’s pretty sparse…
Why go bizarre when you can go hypnotic? We’re not saying that the new Cody Critcheloe and Christopher Good-directed video for SSION’s “Earthquake” doesn’t have a hint of the freaky about it, but rather than being whole-hog weird (such as their last video, for “My Love Grows In the Dark”), it’s more subtle. This track from the forthcoming Bent plays…
Quay Coffee opens tomorrow. Coffee brings people together, people like Cory Stipp and Tanner Stevens – friends who are now business partners preparing to open Quay Coffee in the River Market tomorrow. The new coffee shop at 412 Delaware, Suite B, will start serving at 6 a.m. in the space previously occupied by a duo of bean slingers – K…
Big Rich’s Small World Could other teams soon be looking up at the Royals? Close is a funny thing. After last night’s win over the Houston Astros, the Royals are four-and-a-half games out of first place. They’re in fourth place in their division (the spot they’ve finished three of the last four years). But it’s June 21 and suddenly those…
Chris Mullins Chocolate Ale won’t be rolling down the assembly line next year. Boulevard brewers will no longer be standing perplexed in the pantyhose aisle. As Pitch staff writer Ben Palosaari reported yesterday, Boulevard is not producing Chocolate Ale in 2013. The brewery’s founder, John McDonald, made a de facto announcement during the IKC 2012 conference downtown – a statement…
%{}% Major Planetary Note (MPN) June 24, 2012, marks the first of seven extremely challenging contacts between individual liberties and iconoclastic Uranus (free spirit self) in Aries (warrior, self-directed) and psychologically driven Pluto (soul depth self) in Capricorn (prime minister, political). Basic Meaning of MPN Aries and Capricorn want to be starting something from entirely different motivations. Talk about acting…
News is leaking via tweet out of the IKC 2012 conference being held at H&R Block headquarters that Boulevard founder John McDonald told an audience that there will be no Boulevard Chocolate Ale next year. Tweets complaining and questioning the story are coming in at a fast clip. Early each year, the limited-release brew sets Boulevard hounds on a citywide…
The lemonade at the Grand Street Cafe is tart and effervescent. When life hands you lemons, make something. Lemonade will do, particularly as a way of cooling down during the blistering hot afternoons we’ve been experiencing lately. The beverage isn’t as old as wine or beer but has a distinguished history: The Egyptians sipped an alcoholic concoction of honey, dates…
Cafe Gratitude has brought Kansas City diners tasty vegan and raw food recipes and a distinct dining philosophy from the original location in San Francisco. Photos by Angela C. Bond.
Even though this weekend’s Liberty Hall 100th anniversary shows with the Flaming Lips sold right the hell out, you can still get down and celebrate. Friday night, June 22, there will be a block party on Seventh Street between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, with booze, food, music and “fun for the whole family,” which I’m hoping involves a bounce house….
DIY Life Will it be lights out in Prairie Village? There is no Christmas in June. KCTV5 reports that the city of Prairie Village, Kansas, is in the process of drafting an ordinance that would regulate neighborhood attractions. The ordinance would require people displaying lights or holding concerts in residential neighborhoods to get a permit. The ordinance theoretically curbs attractions…
Sushi By Me is open. Sushi By Me has opened in the City Market. The sushi restaurant from chef David Nguyen is in the former space of Pieroguys Cafe (which moved to 1724 Main, the previous home of Dog Nuvo and Souperman) at 307 Main – between Habashi House and the City Market Coffeehouse. Built for the lunch and work…
Raconteur and Lawrence man-about-town Rob Gillaspie is better known as Scary Manilow, the former frontman of Lawrence garage-rockabilly sleaze purveyors the Spook Lights. Since that band’s breakup, Gillaspie has been working on several new projects, and one of them – a full-on bit of death-rock called Sextapes – debuts tonight (Wednesday, June 20) at the Eighth Street Taproom. I asked…
NY Observer Channel your inner Danny Meyer for a minute. For a generation that grew up on Sim City and has seen the rise of massive multiplayer online role-playing games, it should be natural to play restaurateur for a moment. So let’s assume you’ve been given a free pass to bring any local restaurant to your neighborhood. This line of…
Ryan Renteria California’s the Drowning Men operate somehwere between Mumford & Sons and Coldplay – very accessible and NPR-friendly. Thankfully, there’s a real musicianship to the sounds they make, and it all aims straight for the stratosphere. It’s soaring, it’s uplifting, and damned if All of the Unknown (due out next month on Borstal Beat) isn’t going to be one…
It’s a fact of life that Randy always wants your tots. Kansas City’s Randy Santel (the competitive eater who last month defeated six Washington state eating challenges) is getting ready to compete for a lifetime supply of loaded tater tots (potato cylinders covered in white cheddar cheese, spicy giardiniera, bacon and green onions) from Bar Louie. He’ll be competing against…
Photo by Sabrina Staires Ramsey Mohsen Name: Ramsey Mohsen Occupation: Director of social media, Digital Evolution Group. Video blogger, speaker, co-founder of the Ugly Christmas Sweater Party Hometown: Springfield, Missouri Current neighborhood: Fairway Who or what is your sidekick? My video camera (or iPhone). I love shooting video blogs! What career would you choose in an alternate reality? I would…
