Posted
by Ben Palosaari
on Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 12:56 PM
Unlike in other cities, the local Occupy camp went quietly.
Starting at about 11:45 this morning, members of the Kansas City Police Department and cleanup crews descended on the Occupy Kansas City encampment in Penn Valley Park and began to dismantle it. The action was hardly the chaotic raids that Occupy sites in Oakland and New York endured. Almost an hour after the eviction started, it appeared to be nothing more than a determined shooing. Police allowed camp dwellers to take their tents and belongings, while crews in body suits loaded couches, hay bales and other debris into dump trucks.
City communications officer Dennis Gagnon said the reason the city chose Friday to evict the occupiers is simple: Summer is coming. "When you see that the weather has warmed up, it's time to get things seeded, it's time to get things ready to go. We couldn't put it off any longer," he said, as a man broke down his tent a few yards away.
"The parks are booked for lots of things," he added. "If you take a look at the grass and things like that, they need a little bit of time to get some grass seed growing and get things back into shape."
The population of the encampment had dropped in the last couple of months, down from more than 60 residents when The Pitchwrote about it last November. Gagnon estimated that when police showed up today, there no more than five people in the tents.
Earlier this week, Occupy KC protesters said they believed that they were the longest surviving Occupy encampment in the country, having stood for 182 days.
There was an event at the Replay Lounge last evening, and it went like this, in real time: A local band that's going national, if it hasn't already gone national, decides to stage its record release show with a few local openers. TheRoseline (an alt-country band dedicated to the concept of emotion, and three-to-four-minute songs that package emotion like little gifts) allows Monzie Leo & The Big Sky (a band of dudes interested in pain and hardship) and 1,000,000 Light Years (a one-man act of bleep-blop dance-trance) to open up for them, for a solid evening of camaraderie and tight jeans.
Stiffed. Ditched. The Big Donut. It doesn't really matter how you say it - a bad tip is a bad tip. And for the purposes of this discussion, let's call a bad tip 10 percent or less for sit-down drinks or food.
In a bar last night, I caught a server on an off night. The table next to mine walked out before they were even served, tired of waiting for a beer, and our table had a lot of trouble getting the check when it was time to leave. There may be no more frustrating feeling than trying to make eye contact with a server, who seems to look everywhere but your table. That said, I had a beer when I needed it and was content to wait because I was catching up with friends I hadn't seen in some time.
I left a fine tip, but it got me to thinking: When is it OK to leave a really bad tip?
Bacon is very much the cockroach of food trends. You're ready to pronounce it dead, and then you wake up in the middle of the night, feel something crawling across your chest, and are disturbed to discover that another bacon product has appeared while you were sleeping.
And now it would seem that we can't escape bacon, even in death. Perhaps it's only fitting that something that brings our end closer can now be closer to those who love it so. Boing Boing has the story of the bacon coffin. I'm officially calling it. This is the death of the bacon trend. Time of death: 10:15 a.m. Friday, March 30, 2012. If you'll excuse me, I want to tell its family - the shoulder and rump - what has happened.
Fire has long been intertwined with the history of the prairie.
Just as ocean storms have defined coastal towns in Maine and Massachusetts, the unpredictable nature of fire has altered many lives on the prairie. Julie Courtwright, a Kansas native and assistant professor of history at Iowa State University, looks at how prairie fires have determined the course of history and even made their way into pop culture in her her new book, Prairie Fire: A Great Plains History.
She approaches the region's unique relationship with fire by weaving together first-person accounts over the last six centuries, from the Native Americans to Little House on the Prairie. Courtwright is giving a talk at the Central Branch (14 W. 10th St.) of the Kansas City Public Library at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 1.
Not every Easter brunch in Kansas City has a man in a bunny outfit, but damn it, they should!
Fat City has tried to find out all the different restaurant venues where the Easter Bunny - or a reasonable facsimile - might be appearing on Easter Sunday, but the only definitive confirmed appearance will be from 9 to 10 a.m. at Powell Gardens, which is hosting a "Breakfast with the Easter Bunny" featuring a Chris Cakes breakfast of pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage, orange juice and coffee. (The price for breakfast, including Garden admission, is $16 for adults or $9 for Powell Gardens members. The price for children, including breakfast, admission and the Easter Egg Hunt, is $9.25 for members and $11.25 for nonmembers.)
Alas, there will be no costumed Easter Bunny greeting the youngsters at the most expensive Easter brunch in Kansas City: the decadent buffet hosted by the Capital Grille (4740 Jefferson on the Country Club Plaza, 816-531-8345). For $46 per adult and $18 for children (kids under age 5 eat free), the restaurant will lay out a spread that features a breakfast station, raw seafood station, a carving station and a dessert bar. The choices range from citus-glazed salmon, roasted kona tenderloin, smoked turkey, oysters on the half shell to scrambled eggs and french toast with berries. There will be menu-only brunch items as well, including a lobster eggs Benedict. Reservations are required.
You can eat bourbon pork belly like this on Sunday.
Brunch is the most underrated meal of the week. You're supposed to dine leisurely, catch up with friends you haven't seen in a while, and eat both sweet and savory dishes. Slow Food KC is hosting a brunch at the Farmhouse (300 Delaware, in the River Market) at 1 p.m. Sunday. The reason to circle this on your calendar: the slow-cooked bourbon pork belly with black pepper grits, braised collard greens and a fried egg. Brunch costs $25 for Slow Food members ($30 for nonmembers) and includes a complimentary bloody mary or mimosa.
These were just a handful of the cats recovered last August from Metcalf's home.
A serial hoarder was again found to be in possession of her favorite keepsakes - cats - on Tuesday. According to KMBC Channel 9, the city seized 16 felines from the Northland residence of Delores Metcalf in what was apparently the fourth time that Animal Control officers have been sent to the 3700 block of North Bales.
Metcalf was in the news last August, when the city recovered 153 cats from the same home. A decade ago, Animal Control officers in Liberty found 94 living cats, as well as a refrigerator filled with their dead breathren, at a home occupied by Metcalf. She has not been cited in the latest incident, but she is still facing animal-abuse charges from the intervention last summer.
Posted
by Nick Spacek
on Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 11:49 AM
Brown Bird, a duo hailing from Providence, Rhode Island, has been generating some acclaim over the past year. With a sound best described as post-Nick Cave folk, they've got some catchy songs that nevertheless brook a feeling of impending doom. Their set from last year's Newport Folk Festival was featured by NPR, and they keep snagging the opening slot on some wonderful tours. Brown Bird came through last November with the Devil Makes Three, and tonight they warm up the audience at Liberty Hall before Yonder Mountain String Band takes the stage. Check out a live version of "Nothing Left," off last year's Salt for Salt, above.
I've often wondered why more places don't serve soup in a bread bowl. It's like a one-pot meal for your plate. If done right, you might not need utensils. That's probably not the case for the Pane Rellenos at El Salvadoreno (7926 Santa Fe Drive) - you will be picking up your fork and knife at some point - but the stewed chicken sandwich is exactly what every bread bowl should aspire to become.
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