I’ve logged hundreds of miles in recent weeks in pursuit of good drink, so I couldn’t help channeling Sammy Hagar last week. I was sitting with the husband, sipping a lunchtime beer and describing a morning spent with one of my favorite coffee roasters when he started in on the song. Maybe I was suffering… Continue Reading
This just in from Jill Silva, food editor of the Kansas City Star, who’s attending the Association of Food Journalists conference in Charleston: we won! Silva’s article on food deserts (“Far Away From Food”) topped the Best Newspaper Special Food Project category; the piece has also been included in Best Food Writing 2011. “35 People,… Continue Reading
It’s still a buzz seeing something I wrote in print, even 20-odd years on as a journalist. But I’m a perfectionist, so reading my own work can be as frustrating as it is satisfying. In today’s case, it was the realization that I didn’t list all the winners and finalists in my Kansas City Star… Continue Reading
The Fifth Annual Greater Kansas City Bartending Competition had it all: inventive cocktails, impressive bartenders, demanding judges and even burlesque. Much of what I’ve gleaned in recent weeks—including plans for a week-long cocktail extravaganza called Paris of the Plains in 2012—will appear in the Kansas City Star on Sept. 7, but so much more will… Continue Reading
Vodka is something of a lightening rod these days. It accounts for almost a third of all spirits sales in the U.S., according to the Distilled Spirits Council, and liquor store shelves are overflowing with gleaming bottles. Yet the craft cocktail movement’s largely snubbed the spirit. Trend-leading bars in New York, Chicago and elsewhere pride… Continue Reading