Guilty Pleasures: Darren Mark

By OWEN MORRIS

Darren Mark is the vice president of marketing and PR for Corona Cantina #1 in the Village West Shopping Center in Kansas City, Kansas, and a freelance writer for Spaces Magazine. Previously, he was the host of the mid-morning talk show Kansas City Live on KSHB. I caught up with him at the Peanut chowing on some wings and asked what he liked to eat when nobody was looking.

Before coming to Kansas City three years ago, I worked in Western New York, which has the world’s best buffalo wings and maple syrup. These just happen to be two foods that speak to me. New York has these micro-batch maple-syrup-makers that kick the pants off of what you can get at the supermarket. There’s few foods that have that big of an influence on an item on a menu as maple syrup. I’ll go to a restaurant that has killer pancakes but uses imitation syrup, and it ruins the experience. It’s like if you only drink Boulevard with pizza and then one day you have Coors Light with the pizza — the pizza is still excellent, but the experience is not the same. That’s how I feel about pancakes and maple syrup. It’s embarrassing but if I’m going out to breakfast, I’ll carry a quart of real maple syrup with me.

I get my maple syrup over the phone.