The Kitchen Commons

Kansas City is an interesting place when it comes to food. On one side of the continuum is arguably the best BBQ and steak that you can get anywhere in the country. I have been here for 4 days and in that time I have had the very best BBQ from Arthur Bryant’s and an amazing steak form a place called Jess & Jim’s. I have also had some of the most half-assed food served in some of the largest containers you can imagine. I had a hard time finding anything that would pass for healthy.

From what I can tell, the folks in Kansas are an agreeable bunch on most topics except for meat and directions. Ask them their opinions on world events or the latest fashions and you are likely to get responses ranging from the non-committal to the reserved. However all bets are off when the conversation turns to steaks and BBQ. When engaging a person around here on the topic of meat, it is not difficult to get their point of view. I have found that a group of Kansans will have a strong allegiance to a particular establishment, will seldom agree on the best place to eat, and almost never agree on the best way to get there. For the sake of brevity I am only going to cover BBQ for this post. If I open this up to steak as well we may never get to the end of it.

I am relatively new to BBQ. I will concede that I did not have actual BBQ until December of 1997. Up until then I am ashamed to admit that I thought that BBQ was made on the grill. 14 years may seem like enough time to come up with an informed independent opinion on the topic but I have been told by people who have been arguing about this stuff since the 1960’s that I need more time to mull things over.
The first real BBQ place I went to was Gates in KC. For me it was a transformative experience. I had never had anything like it. I come from a family who when faced with a tough cut of meat has the inexplicable urge to boil the crap out of it. Not knowing how to actually cook ribs and brisket, I stayed away from those cuts and went for the tender stuff. Now I was faced with the realization that this was the best meat I had ever had and it was made from parts of the animal that I considered shoe leather.

As time when on I became a student of all things Q. Over time I acquired a smoker and I have even made my own rubs. I seek out BBQ where ever I travel and have my own opinions on cuts and quality. I am not biased when I say that the best barbecue that can be found anywhere in America comes from Arthur Bryant’s in downtown KC. I believe this to be a true statement and, coming from New York I have no dog in this fight so I am not biased one way or another.

There are going to be people both in and out of KC that will argue that their BBQ place is superior to Bryant’s. A person with a weak argument may try to convince you that other places may have better this or that; their joint has the best beans or something ridiculous like that. Just don’t waste your time talking to these people. You will only aggravate yourself.
For the sake of this argument, we will start with the premise that the best BBQ is in Kansas City. Why? It comes down to location and population. Kansas City has access to the best beef and pork and a lower middle class demographic that needed to make the best of what they had. There are other places in this great country of ours that have more foods in season, better overall selection, and longer growing seasons. These supposed positives only stunted BBQ in other parts of the country. If the state you live in has meat and little else, and you can’t afford the tender stuff you are going to be in the best position possible to make the best Q. There are places like Texas that have beef that rival KC but not the pork knowhow. When you go to Texas you get the brisket or the sausage. They have pork ribs and pulled pork but they are not in love with the pig and it comes through. Tennessee has the pork down to a science and the wood they use makes a sweet tasting Q but they do not have access to good beef and as a result they don’t have the depth of BBQ that Kansas has.
Another piece of BBQ good fortune for Kansas City came in the form of a man by the name of Henry Perry. Mr. Perry came to KC by way of Memphis and is generally considered to be the Jonny Appleseed of BBQ in KC (his story is quite similar to how I brought corn to Northern Ireland but that will have to wait for another time). Henry started selling the first BBQ in the city around the turn of the last century. He would sell a rack of pork ribs on the street for 25 cents a slab from a trolley barn at 19th and Highland. To say that this was successful enterprise is an understatement. Before long Perry opened up a BBQ joint in down town KC and built a business of loyal customers. The business eventually was by purchased by Charlie Bryant and then a few years later was sold to his brother Arthur. It has been a going concern ever since. To give you a little perspective of how amazing this establishment is they have had their smoker going continuously for longer than JFK’s eternal flame. The Bryant family took what Henry started and perfected it. They changed the sauce to make it less spicy and that made all the difference. There are several restaurants that can trace their beginnings to Bryant’s including Gates which was started with Charlie Bryant’s head pit master.
Nice story Kevin but this does not prove anything.
Hold on I am not done yet. Now that we have determined that the best BBQ is in Kansas City we will need to take a look at the competition. There is some great Q all over KC. Each neighborhood can boast better BBQ than most cities have. There is a place in Spring Hill KS (pop: 4,800) called J&R’s that rivals anything that I can get in New York and that place does not even crack top ten in the Kansas City area. From what I can gather, if you were going to put together a list of good BBQ in KC, it would have to include Jack Stacks, Bryant’s, Oklahoma Joe’s and Rosedale. Hayward’s would have been on this list even 5 years ago but alas it has gone downhill. Hayward has lost the fire and his place is just not as good anymore.
For some reason Zagat’s decided to rate Jack stack’s as best Q one year. I have no idea why they think that they would know what they are talking about. If I want a nice bistro with good ambiance I will ask the Zagat’s. For BBQ… no. Gates like I said is very good and from a meat standpoint is a good choice. I just can’t get past the fact that they are just a knockoff of Bryant’s; a very good knockoff but knockoff just the same. I have to admit that from the outside looking in; Rosedale has the chops to be the best in the city. It has been going since the 30’s and has a great back story. Truth be told, I have never been to Rosedale but that alone should say something. I have meat several people in KC to whom I have expressed my fondness of BBQ and no one has taken me to Rosedale. Didn’t even come up really until this trip. It is on the list simply because it is supposed to be good. I will go the next time I am in town but I just don’t think that it can be the best.
This leaves the newest and the oldest BBQ places on the list; Oklahoma Joe’s and Bryant’s. Apparently the Kansas City star did a write in survey to rate the best BBQ place and apparently Oklahoma Joe’s won. I know several people who would put up a spirited defense on why Joe’s is better. There are a few reasons why they are mistaken. First off Oklahoma Joe’s is outside KC city limits. It is in one of the various strip malls that fill the Kansas prairie these days. The food may be good (and truth be told it is) but the place has no atmosphere. Bryant’s by contrast is in a rough part of town but the place is all you could want from a BBQ Joint. It is not pretty but it is beautiful. I think the problem is for most of the population it is difficult to get to Bryant’s and when you have other places close by you may not make the pilgrimage. I would bet that most people would rather believe that they are going to the best BBQ place so that they don’t have to travel into a sketchy neighborhood in the city. The second reason is the sauce. Bryant’s sauce is by far the most potent of all the KC sauces. It has a bite that is an acquired taste for people who are used to the sticky sweet sauces that you find in most supermarkets. If you are used to sweet, your taste buds are going to be confused by tangy and most people will go for the sweeter one. I have personally seen this happen. I had a BBQ taste test in my house with a bunch of New Yorkers who did not know a Gates from a Jack Stack and what did they pick? J&R’s, the sweetest of the lot.
The last reason I am sure that Bryant’s is the best is simple. During my last visit a few years ago there was a lot of talk that Oklahoma Joe’s was the new King in town. My Kansas family did a side by side taste test to settle it. My father and law and I went out one day and hit Bryant’s and Oklahoma Joe’s. We got a little of everything and came back with several pounds of smoked meats. We all got stuck in and I have to admit that it was a difficult to come to a decision. People went back and forth on the quality of the ribs and the beans and looked at it from all angles. At the end it came down to 1 question: If one of these places had to close their doors tomorrow and you were only left with the other, what place would you choose? It was unanimous; Bryant’s won hands down.
There is a luxury to be able to argue the merits of this quality of food. Any city would kill to get any one of these places though I am sure it would not be the same. You may be able to get close to the quality of the food but you can’t recreate the experience of getting good BBQ in the town that perfected it. There is no place like 18th and Brooklyn. Even in New York.

There is a general feeling that the Irish do not have a cuisine. This is feeling that I share. I would not call anything that I ate in Ireland “cuisine”. Truth be told, I have not been back for 10+ years and I am sure that there is some food made in the country now that will blow the shoes off an epicurean. I have never been to those kinds of restaurants in Ireland. I lived there in a time when 20% unemployment was the norm and the food I ate came from Chippies, Pubs and the kitchens of my relatives.
My love and knowledge of this kind of food travels the linage of my mother’s side. My Mom grew up in Derry and even though she moved to New York in her 20’s, her palate was irrevocably changed by the food (or lack thereof) of her youth.
I don’t particularly remember liking my mother’s cooking growing up. She had 4 kids to feed and no background what so ever in American cooking. Coming from a very poor family where one was lucky to get something to eat, coming up with new and interesting dishes were not on the top of her list. The goal in the McGinley house was to make sure that everyone had something to eat and that something was generally potatoes.
My Parents lived in Ireland but after the children started coming they moved to Middle Village in Queens NY which was and still is a very Italian neighborhood. She was shocked to see the abundance of food. The fact that Mr. Colombo, the fruit and vegetable guy on Metropolitan Ave had a display that was outside the store completely flummoxed her. She could not figure out why people were not stealing the fruit left and right. This was a woman who would get one orange at Christmas and only one! The Italians in the neighborhood ate their fair share of fruits and vegetables but Colombo didn’t have to worry. This was Middle Village and you did not mess around like that.
My mother always got the food on the table and while cooking was not her passion she did manage to rise to the occasion every once in a while. There were some gems Mixed within the “Shake ‘n’ Bake” dinners and various meals that had the trinity of meat starch and canned vegetables. She made a very good meatloaf and her lasagna was always a hit. We rebelled against liver and onions and pigs knuckles where were her favorite kind of food. We were spoiled Americans who wanted to eat spaghetti and macaroni and cheese and hamburgers whenever we could get our hands on them.
I think the simple fact of the matter was that she did not get any joy in cooking for us. She would rather have a green onion sandwich than have to make anything more complicated. For all who have not ever had the pleasure; a green onion sandwich consists of green scallions lined up in a row between two pieces of white bread. After one of those your breath could knock over a postman.
My mom was also fond of a good buddy. A buddy is a sandwich with whatever you want in the middle between two pieces of buttered white bread. Most folks outside the UK tend to sneer at the brilliance that is the buddy sandwich. I love them and I trace my need to put just about every food I eat between 2 pieces of bread back to it. I will mention here that my best sandwich invention to date is the spaghetti sandwich which does not actually qualify as a buddy but is a brilliant use of starch products, but I digress.
The three best buddies’ in order of yummy goodness are as follows:
1. The sausage buddy- Irish sausages cut length wise on 2 buttered pieces of buttered Irish white bread with a dollop of HP sauce in there for good measure. This is the Cadillac of buddy sandwiches. I bet the queen has even snuck a sausage buddy or two in her travels.
2. The Chip buddy- French fries between buttered bread. This buddy is a transcendent experience of you put curry sauce on the chips first.
3. The Crisp buddy- I have no idea who was desperate enough to come up with this sandwich which is essentially a potato chip sandwich. I can’t actually bring myself to eat this outside of Derry but I will say that a bag of tato cheese and onion between two slices of mothers pride bread with a little bit of Kerry gold butter makes a perfect drinking binge meal; the only downside being the mess that a drunken person will make trying to eat a potato chip sandwich.
The buddy sandwich ran the gambit from ham and cheese to tomato and cucumber. The two things that frustrated my father and his childhood friend Jimmy (who also married an Irish girl) was the lack of ingredients in the sandwich and the need of every sandwich to come with butter inside. Jimmy tells a story about being so fed up with the size of the sandwiches that he bought 4 or 5 of them, put all the meat together and threw away all but two pieces of bread. He said that it was the only decent sandwich he ever had in Ireland.
My Aunt Betty used to make us late night egg sandwiches that for some reason were not called buddy’s but were made with the same principals. I only mention this here as they were the best egg sandwiches I have ever eaten. As she is no longer with us the sandwich is all but an un-producible memory. I have tried on a number of occasions to replicate Betty’s egg sandwiches and you would think that it would be a walk in the park to do. I have come close a few times but I have never matched their goodness. My mom thinks that I should just stop trying.
Betty was a no nonsense person who had to fee an army every day. Betty and my uncle Peter had 9 children between them and were not well off. They had to figure out how to feed the family every day with the only money coming in provided from the dole. I can’t fathom how they managed this day in and day out as we eat out in my house nearly once a week out of sheer laziness. I bet Peter and Betty could relate to the parable of the loaves and fishes. I can see my uncle say “Aye but Jesus only had to do it once!”
In an act of utter lunacy, Peter and Betty took me in for one summer while my parents looked for a house for my family in the town. I slept in a small room with 4 of my mail cousins of various ages. Even though it was a tight fit, I never had more fun in my life. 10 kids living in the same house is madness. We ate in shifts. The younger kids ate first followed by the older kids. When I first got there I was in the first sitting which was meant to be a form of deferential treatment. I soon graduated to second seating after being there long enough to be deemed not so special. Second seating was by far the better meal because you did not have people trying to nick your chips and wishing you would hurry the hell up so that they could eat.
There was not enough room for a proper kitchen table so we all ate on in the living room furniture watching TV. I remember watching the commonwealth games and asking my cousin James for some salt. He reached his and between the pillows of the couch and pulled out a shaker. It seems that there were various condiments in the furniture ready for deployment when needed.
**I will also note here that the entire British Isles are sports mad and will literally watch anything as long as someone is keeping score. Eating with the McGinely family opened me up to such amazing events like the British Darts Championship, Snooker, Cricket (a sport that I sort of understand but still have no Idea how it came about) among other more standard fare as soccer and tennis. I had no idea there were sports under than the ones I grew up with in America.
I for one loved eating at Betty and Peter’s. They could not afford the salads our fresh vegetables that my parents had so they lived on spuds cabbage Irish breakfast food, buttered toast, beans and the occasional egg sandwich as I have mentioned. I was never forced to eat anything that I didn’t like because there was always someone in the family who would be more than happy to get it. As a result I lived primarily on chips, beans, and whatever meat was available. Every once in a while we would get fish that had so many bones the family developed a game around it where the winner was the person with the most bones on their plate. I remember giving my bones to my cousin Peter so that he could win. I don’t even think that there was a prize just the smug satisfaction of winning. McGinleys can be competitive.
There was one dish in Betty’s arsenal that was flat out rough to eat. Every once in a while she would make a casserole which consisted primarily of beef, cabbage, carrots, and a gravy of some sort. I remember playing tennis out the back (in a parking lot with no net and whatever we could find as a racquets) when my cousin Paul came out and told us that Betty was making her casserole. My cousin Brian made a face that I still remember to this day. One similar to a face you would make if you had to eat bugs for dinner. I didn’t understand until we say down to what was essentially a bowl of water with bits of gristle and vegetable pieces. It was as if Betty had enough to make stew for 4 that she had stretched to 9 (and now ten because of me). I had the dish once. After that I feigned illness or took off back to my house when we finally got a home to live in.

Betty’s casserole was the anomaly both in her cooking and the families as a whole. To this day my family and I make soups and stews whose origins come directly out of my grandmother’s kitchen. Mind you these are not dishes ladened with expensive cuts of meat and rich sauces but they are a testament to making the most out of what you had. Her stew and vegetable soup have made it to at least 4 continents and her bread is still going strong in the kitchens of her offspring. I know of no better praise than that.

There is a lot that I am leaving out in this post. I can and possibly will talk in depth about this subject in the future. I have not even broached the subject of how I singlehandedly brought corn to Northern Ireland. That will have to wait for another post.

If I had my way, the healthy unhealthy food paradigm would be completely flipped so that Kansas City ribs would be considered health food and too much whole grains would kill you faster than a bullet to the head. Alas it is not to be. I have been trying to keep to a more balanced diet that contains less meat and more of the complex carbs and leafy greens so popular with the Michael Pollans of the world. Not willing to compromise on taste, I am on a mission to find meals that I can make at home that are both satisfying and nutritious at the same time.
In my soul I am a stoic and part of me that knows that no matter what I eat or drink; the hand of time will eventually will come up from the swamp, grab me by the ankle, and drag me down to hades. So while I am going to try to eat better, the trick is not to be too “holeyer than thou” on this kick. I plan to take my family along with me and nobody likes a pilgrimage. Like most people on the planet, I don’t have time to plan and shop for food on a daily basis. My day oscillates between work, responsibilities at home and the general arsing about that I do in between. I have been scratching my head on how to do this and I came up with a plan to move the needle in the right direction.
When first I decided to make a diet change I thought that I would have to come up with several vegetarian inspired meals that my family and I will like to eat to distract us from the carnivoreistic life style that we have come to enjoy. After a brief look at the dinners that my family eat on any given week, I came to the conclusion that we really only eat 14- 20 meals with any consistency. We have 7 no brainers like pasta with red sauce, turkey tacos, skirt steak with roasted potatoes etc. Then we have the 7 or so that cycle in and out depending on the weather. Grilled chicken in the summer, pirogues with kielbasa in the spring and fall etc. Round off the list with 6 big meals that we have on special occasions; BBQ, Roast something, lamb something, and there you have it. What you will notice about all these meals other than they are generally good eats that you can put together in under an hour is they are all meat centric. While this was a little disheartening it looks like a jenny creag menu compared to the foods I made when Kelly and I moved to Nyack 12 years ago. That list had crap like chicken cordon blue, lasagna, and goulash as weekday meals not to mention that the fast-food that we had once or twice a week. That was the kind of everyday food I thought that people ate. I am surprised we could walk the stairs. Anyway I digress.
So what is the Idea? Since we don’t really stray too far from the weekly food routine, I figure that all I need to do is come up with 20 replacement meals that fit the healthy and tasty criteria. Over time I can gradually update the rotation with the new meals.
Since I am busy, and do not have enough time to proof read the crap that I write let alone devote copious amounts of time to documenting this endeavor; I decided to focus on one dish a week. That should get me to 52 dishes a year and if only a handful make it on the rotation, I will be in better shape than I was before.
I started the program this week with a white been dish that fell a bit short of the mark. It was ok and we ate it but I’m glad it was not my last meal on earth. In theory it should have been good. It was a white bean casserole with sharp Irish cheddar, caramelized onions, and bella mushrooms topped with breadcrumbs. I kept thinking that something was missing the whole time I was eating it. Kelly seemed to like it but felt that the dish would have been much better if it included ground sausage. So basically it was a swing and a miss. This weekend I plan to come up with a veggie curry dish that I hope will make the grade. I figure if a billion Indians can get by without meat, I should be able to figure something out. I will keep you posted.