There are so many websites covering all things food around this town that another one is hardly needed, however, I feel it’s my duty to continue with the coverage of cheap foods and places that don’t rip you off.

I recently visited La Cocinita Mexicana – a place where my friend Chimpotle has been grazing lately gaining fat for upcoming winter hibernation. This place is located in a usual Johnson County strip mall so despised by people looking for “character” from across the county line. I am happy to admit that I never ate in Mexico outside of the buffets of Cancun so I will not be judging authenticity of the food, it looked Mexican to me and everyone behind the counter was speaking Spanish, which is the case for many restaurants around here, including Chinese. The owner/manager/chef XX was extremely enthusiastic and insisted that we try a variety of fillings before we made our selections. He mentioned several times that they are better than Chipotle, I would have to agree. Two large tacos, one good tamale and a Mexican pop – little over $7, that’s my kind of place. Both tacos – beef and chicken – were pretty spicy, with good amount of filling and plenty of toppings we chose from the topping bar. I’d definitely go there again for good food, low prices, friendly staff. Plenty of seating is available.


Speaking of Mexican food, I finally bought salsa mix from Bebo at the City Market. I see Bebo at the Market every Saturday and he frequently calls into local radio shows never forgetting to plug his products after every conversation. A co-worker recently brought some excellent salsa to work and it was apparently made with one of the Mama Socorro’s mixes made by Chef Bebo (see I can play that “chef” game too).

Chef Bebo recommends to mix one package with a 28 OZ can of crushed tomatoes or a similar amount of chopped fresh tomatoes and let it set for 1 hour or overnight. Mine is doing it right now. Chef Bebo is offering other spice mixes and prepared salsas at the City Market and many local grocery stores. Here is another review of his products.

Lastly, as if this being the Best Kansas City Blog of 2008 and recent presidential elections were not enough to make you think that the secret communist takeover of this country is going on as planned, Russian vodka now has its own billboard over I-35.

“The Russians Are Coming” is so 1966. The Russians are already here…

Continue reading →

The singer “was a virtual skeleton – barely eating and with only pills in his stomach at the time he died”, the paper said.

Imagine you are a coroner, crappy profession that it already is, your days are filled with horrible, bloody, disgustingly smelling, disfigured things that no one in the right state of mind would even want to be in the same building with, and instead of enjoying a nice sunny LA day you have to dissect a skeleton-looking, hairless, needle-ridden body of a weird celebrity. Not only do you have to chisel off the layers of plaster and artificial prosthetic parts, you for some ungodly reason have to cut his stomach open to see what he was eating before he croaked. It’s in the times like this that you must feel that you should’ve picked another specialty like a podiatrist or a proctologist, albeit their worldview is somewhat constricted.

That’s why I think every person should carry a card at all times with the contents of their stomach for the past 48 hours as a way to make the job of forensic pathologists just a little bit easier.

Let’s see, today my stomach contains:

• a cup of coffee
• cheese and turkey sandwich
• a orange/apricot jelly (from Bermuda) and toast
• cherries
• persimmon
• apple
• some frozen yogurt from Yummo (mix of 3 flavors) because they don’t sell Korean tacos on Monday
• chicken patty
• a piece of dried banana
• salad (Caesar dressing)
• cheese quesadilla
• corn
• some lemonade
• a piece of Tippins coconut-creme pie

I think that’s it. There maybe some leftovers of this cinnamon roll from Barb’s Kolache Bakery in Shawnee from a couple of days ago
and just a little bit of the cherry kolache ( I gave the other ones away)

but that’s just being too thorough.

See this is not so hard.
Maybe your coroner will be grateful for not having to dig through your rotting guts and will not “leak” embarrassing details of your autopsy to the media. In my book, that’s just paying it forward.

Continue reading →

This was originally written on my FB page where I post pictures and links almost daily and which you immediately should follow. I remembered about the stool samples when I was writing this post about the Soviet medicine of my day.

*Warning: please don’t eat while reading this.

Soviet kids had to be healthy whether they wanted it or not. And healthy meant parasite-free. So once in a while, my school (and I imagine all the other schools in the area) put out a call for stool samples. By a certain deadline every child had to submit a matchbox full of you-know-what, tightly wrapped and marked with the name of a producer.

At that time (and maybe still) the Soviet toilets (in places with indoor plumbing but not in public restrooms) were different from the American model we are all used to. Instead of a small pool of water ready to accept your deposits, it was more like a vase with hardly any water at all. When done, a person would pull a chain and a waterfall coming down from the high-mounted tank (if the water was on that day) would flush the stuff down through the hole located in the front part of the toilet.
That technical aside was necessary to explain that at least our parents didn’t have to fish for floating crap, it was all right there, nice and piled. Clearly no 8- or 9- or even 12-year-old wants to have anything to do with putting their own crap in a small box, so that somber duty had to be fulfilled by our parents. Many years later, as a parent myself, I’ve done many disgusting things and touched some substances that would make a grown man gag (and they did). But even after thousands of diapers changed I am still not sure I could go ahead and do what my mom had to do. This is something that would make you think twice about having a child.
The next day, the matchbox was proudly delivered and submitted to school, securely wrapped in multiple layers of paper and plastic (we didn’t have zip-locks or any bags of that nature) and tied with a string, with my name proudly scribbled on it like a designer brand. To this day I have no idea if anyone did anything with those nuggets. You can imagine that a school with 800 or a thousand kids can produce enough crap to fertilize a small organic beet farm. (Note to self: submit this idea to the school district as an extra source of income in light of recent school budget cuts by Governor Brownback.)
I always imagined that a lab in lower circles of socialized healthcare hell, populated by medical school dropouts, dimly lit and smelling worse than a meatpacking plant on a summer day, did nothing else but unwrapped the packages and examined the contents for parasite eggs and the signs of dinners past.But in reality I think they just threw these boxes away and faked the results. After all, sooner or later the parasites show their ugly heads, if you know what I mean.
Epilogue: When we came to the United States we had to pass some medical tests (in addition to the overpriced testing we were required to do in Moscow before we left). Then we received a mail-in stool sample kit, which consisted of some Popsicle sticks and cardboard envelopes. I was tempted to send my stuff in a box, but reconsidered and just threw the kits away.

They would have to pry a stool sample out of my……….

Continue reading →

WARNING: This post is not kosher on any day of the year.

My imaginary friend Moxie Mama wants to celebrate her 1/4 Ukrainian heritage by eating what real Ukrainians eat. Well, that’s real simple and no cooking required to boot. Ukrainian National Food is salo which is non-rendered pork fat. There is nothing like a thick slice of salo with a piece of rye bread rubbed with garlic. The only thing better than regular salt-cured salo is smoked salo and just for saying that I expect a mob of angry quarter-Ukrainians attack me with pitch-forks (which is Ukrainian national weapon). Salo is usually salt-cured and can be kept outside of the fridge for a long time. Smoked salo doesn’t have the same shelf-life but it has tender buttery texture with a more delicate,slightly smokey taste and chewy skin if you are lucky to get it. (Sorry I had to run to the fridge and take a bite).

In Kansas City you can satisfy all of your salo-eating needs at the Russian Store, which coincidentally carries real-tasting rye bread. For an alternative for ethnically-challenged, head on over to Fritz’s Smoked Meats around 106th and State Line in Leawood, where I procured some smoked salo (ask for smoked bacon, they are Germans) just yesterday. The difference between this bacon and some crap in a vacuum packaging at the grocery store is that it doesn’t contain any unknown liquid (WTF is that anyway- formaldehyde or something?). Your friendly employee will slice it from a giant slab right in front of you. (Sorry I am off for another bite). DO NOT order it sliced thin, go with the medium or thick. I have a feeling that some synagogue is obtaining a restraining order against me as I type this. Well, if God didn’t want us to eat salo…, you know the rest.

Your next step is to obtain rye bread. American people between the coasts have been deprived of real bread and forced to eat who knows what, albeit sliced. We have to hunt the bread down. Baking it is not so hard, but generally you can’t go wrong with Farm-to-Market bread CO (Hen House on 135th and Metcalf bakes it fresh) or pick up a loaf at the Russian Store. There are few places like this one and others where you can obtain normal crusty bread.

You are all set. Get your favorite bottle of vodka from the fridge, peel yourself some garlic (rub it on the bread crust,see that’s why you needed the crust), pour yourself a shot and take a bite of your sandwich. Your Ukrainian Grandma would be proud.

After a shot or three, listen to this song. You’ll notice you can now understand the words.
Na Zdorov’e!

More Photos

Continue reading →

During the course of my (long) life I have tried many variations of the beet and cabbage soup otherwise known as borscht: hot and cold, with meat or vegetarian, chopped and  shredded, home-made and not, but no one ever managed to make it better than my Mom. Now my daughter says that mine is even better than that, I guess this is just how life works. Borscht is delicious and good for you, but most importantly it’s cheap and easy to make. A word of caution: you can’t make a small amount of borscht, there will always be more than you expected.
First, assemble the ingredients: beets (I had 4 medium), 2 carrots, small or medium head of cabbage, 1 red pepper, some fresh parsley, 2 stalks of celery, 1 medium onion, 1 tablespoon of tomato paste, 3-4 potatoes and a can of V-8 or tomato juice.

Cut off the beet greens and discard them unless you have a pet goat or a vegetarian friend. Peel the beets.

Put the beets in a large pot half-full (half-empty?) with slightly salted water.

Cover, bring to a boil and simmer for about an hour until a knife can easily go through a cooked beet.
In the meantime, chop an onion and sauté it in a small amount of (olive) oil. While this is being done, shred carrots and chop parsley and celery.

Add all of this to the skillet with onions and continue to sauté.

Now you have time to slice the cabbage, red pepper (I used half) and cube potatoes (not too small).

When the beets are ready, remove them from the pot and set aside to cool down. Add all the vegetables and the contents of the skillet to the pot. Cook until potatoes can be cut with a spoon, about 20 minutes. When the beets are cool enough to handle, shred them and add to the pot. Bring to a boil. At this time add tomato paste and V-8. Bring to a boil and adjust the salt. You are done.
Since this borscht is virtually fat-free, a dollop of sour cream will add a bit of substance and contrast the sweetness of the beets. You can serve it cold, warm or hot and it will only get better the next day and even better after that, if you still have any left.

There are thousands of borscht recipes on the internet and every schmuck with a video camera posted one on  Youtube; I have no idea and no desire to try what they taste like, most likely they are disgusting vinegar-tasting pots of overcooked cabbage and beets. The only recipe you’ll ever need is here. Enjoy it or else!
Here is a video of the yesterday’s borscht-cooking session.

Continue reading →