Note the boat pulled up there at the dock. Couples can rent a gondola from Ambiance on the Water. Check out my other posts about the art at the 2010 Plaza Art Fair, and about the food at the Plaza Art Fair.

I will remember Betsy Youngquist‘s art for its detailed beadwork and eerie quality. I had the idea that food writer Denveater would like it, especially Penguin Boy. I thought some of her pieces were stunning, but I have to confess: I don’t think I could have them in my house. If I’m alone in the house, and there is a statue on a table, I will start thinking it’s looking at me. Same for a painting with a face looking out. Nevertheless, I loved this pelican. Moving here from birds of the sea to sea creatures (though I’m not sure where the gnome fits into that, or the propane tank in the background, for that matter). Thanks, Fred, for making art from recycled materials. Go to his Sugarpost website and play Gnome-Be-Gone.Is this Robot-Gumby, or some other character altogether? Most of all, I enjoyed the expressions on the faces of the people passing by.Finally, you can’t have an art fair without free entertainment, via this violinist-busker.The first post in this series presents some of the food at the 2010 Plaza Art Fair.

Food was my first priority, and my famished state may excuse my inability to remember exactly which restaurant sold me these Cajun Rice Fritters, which were hot and light and laced with herbs. Because I thought I’d bought them at Figlio’s booth, I compared them to the arancini I had at Panzano in Denver, much more dense and infused with cheese.

I even offered one to the couple who joined me at a table, one of whom had grown up in Denver. They liked them as much as I did.

Continuing on the Cajun+rice theme, I then turned to my Gumbo Z’Herbs, thick with okra and tomatoes and greens and offering just a little spiciness.

It’s also possible these snacks came from Starker’s Restaurant, one of the last privately owned restaurants on the Plaza. Certainly Starker’s menu has more Cajun food in it, though Figlio’s catering offers a Bourbon Street selection.

Once nourished, I left the KC couple behind and headed down to Brush Creek to sit under this bridge on top of which a band was playing.

At least I know where this lemon truffle came from: Christopher Elbow chocolates, sold at Hall’s Department Store. It wasn’t identified as Meyer lemon, but the cream and gel filling certainly tasted like it. Of the caramel infusions I bought with it (raspberry, rosemary, and ginger), the ginger was my favorite.

Eating a handful of sweets should decompress anyone, but I think variety really helped me that Friday night. During my last two visits to Kansas City, I spent most of my time out south, in the deadening suburbs that seem to stretch to the western end of Kansas.The Plaza has fallen victim to the chains as well, but during the art fair it’s not so noticeable. It was good to walk in a crowd interested in individual expression instead of sameness.

And good hair doesn’t hurt either. Tyson Leslie here, playing bass in the band 90 Minutes, reminds me of a character in Reservation Blues: Junior, president of the Native American Hair Club.

***

Another post, with closeup pictures of the art at the 2010 Plaza Art Fair, to follow soon.

Then I drove to Loose Park, just south of the Plaza on Wornall, and stopped by the Rose Garden, where roses kept blooming, and would, I suppose, until a hard frost stopped them. The wind, as usual, made close-ups a challenge, but I found some details that I liked.

And even signs of the changing seasons.

Loose Park’s other main attraction is its pond with swans, but I didn’t visit that today. I drove down to the Plaza, got another rosemary caramel latte at LatteLand, and meandered over to Highway 71, which took me to I-70.

By the time I reached Kansas exit 299 (featuring Tim’s Party cabin), I had seen 33 hawks, including some red-tails. The others I couldn’t identify at 70 miles per hour. I drove on to exit 275, otherwise known as Abilene, my destination for that day.

***

There’s so much more. I’ve lived away from Kansas City and my family for so long (3 decades, except for 1 year in the late 1980s) that I always have this nagging thought upon departure: If I could just go back and do one more thing, everything will be all right.

It’s not true, of course.

It was great to get reacquainted with the city where I grew up, see how much it has changed and grown. The changes out south are mostly sprawl, which I dislike, but the changes up north intrigue me.

Next time I come back, I’ll know where to continue my exploration. But now, here are a few of the places I missed: Extra Virgin and Nara restaurants (Crossroads), Trezo Vino (Leawood), Le Fou Frog (River Market), Plaza III (that old standby), Volker Park (near the Plaza and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art), the Liberty Memorial (Crown Center), the Arabia Museum (River Market), and the jazz and Negro League museums (east of Troost on 18th). Not to mention the many historical museums that dot the city.

And to my shame, I must confess I ate BBQ only at Jack Stack’s. No Arthur Bryant’s this time for me.

My sister and I met two of our cousins at Eggtc., just south of the Plaza. It was busy, as you would expect on a Saturday mid-morning, and we had to wait. We spent the time catching up on work and home lives.

The hostess seated us at the large communal table in this picture.

I ordered the sweet couscous, which resembled grits but had a different flavor, and an acai shooter.

I’ve now been to two breakfast places in Kansas City: Eggct. and First Watch, on 119th out south, which reminded me of the Egg and I in Broomfield but wasn’t as good. I do recommend Eggct.

Several times on this trip I have walked the Plaza by myself, remembering Woolf Brothers, a Kansas City department store established in the nineteenth century, and other stores that used to be here when I was growing up. There were chains then, of course, but they seemed a little closer to home. Or, perhaps, just smaller.

Of the stores I remember, Halls, the department store founded by Joyce C. Hall, who also founded Hallmark, still anchors the eastern end of the Plaza; and Tivol, a jewelry store, is located at 220 Nichols Road. I doubt I ever shopped at Tivol, having no budget for high-end jewelry. Eddie Bauer occupies the Woolf Brothers location.

The Plaza is still the area that gives Kansas City its reputation as the city of fountains (this mermaid fountain graces the courtyard outside Eddie Bauer). One Saturday night in high school, my friends and I collected all the change we could from the fountains on the Plaza. It was illegal, but we didn’t get caught. We used the money to buy a meal at Denny’s.

Winstead’s location just east of the Plaza on Main (opened in 1940) still serves square steakburger patties on a round bun, cherry limeades, and Skyscraper Shakes big enough for four. (Winstead’s was originally founded in Springfield, Illinois, but I don’t think that store exists anymore.)

Some things have even changed for the better. Brush Creek used to flow in a narrow channel hardly wider than a sidewalk, but now it has more room. Hard to believe it used to be a swamp before the Plaza was built in 1922, isn’t it?

I headed first for the photography exhibit. The museum’s collection was expanded by a gift from Hallmark of 6,500 photographs dating from every period of photography since its invention in 1839.

I learned many, many things from that exhibit, but I’ll tell you this one: by 1889, Francis Blake had invented a focal-plane shutter that operated at 1/2000 of a second. The historical part of the exhibit also introduced me to early female photographers I did not know: Bertha Jaques (who photographed plants by placing them on light-sensitive paper), Anne E. Brigman, Margrethe Mather (a friend of Edward Weston), Hansel Mieth, Helen Levitt, and Gertrude Käsebier (who was well-known at the turn of the twentieth century).

Dorothea Lange is famous for this photograph, “Migrant Mother.”

When I’d had enough of photography, I wandered back through the Bloch Building and stopped at Without Place—Without Time—Without Body by Wolfgang Laib. In this photo detail, 5 mounds of pollen sit in the bottom right-hand corner of the photograph. The other mounds are rice. The entire exhibit was distributed by hand, according to Laib’s belief that repetition “is the most beautiful thing that exists.”

As I wrote in the guestbook, it was the first time in my life I’d wanted to hurl myself into an art exhibit. While I took notes, a guard came over and handed me a pencil, saying it was the preferred writing instrument in the museum. He sounded just like the replicant maker in Blade Runner.

If visiting the Bloch Building was a joyous experience of newness, passing through the jointure between the old and new building was like coming home. I passed this engraving

Erected

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MCMXXXI

and climbed the marble staircase. My favorite painting on this visit was St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness by Caravaggio (1604), which the museum brags is one of the few original Caravaggios in American collections. I don’t know if that’s true, but it was a spectacular work. In the same gallery, I took this picture, looking past The Entombment of St. Catherine of Alexandria by Francisco de Zurbarán (1636–1637) across the hall to Capricorn by Max Ernst (1948; cast 1963­–1964). When the museum board decided to construct the Bloch Building, they also decided to renovate the old building and integrate its collections as the same time. Now paintings and sculpture share space with furniture, silver, ceramics and glass.

I’ll leave you with this amazingly tall Dutch woman, from Fantasy Interior with Jan Steen and the Family of Gerrit Schouten by Jan Steen (1659–1660).

It turns out there is always more to do.

On the way I stopped at the Waldo water tower (I never knew it was called that) and Holmes Park, close to my first house. I walked to the roller hockey rink and wondered which home belonged to the family that also had a daughter named Beth and gave me my first cat. I still remember rushing past her to get to the kitten. Naturally, she was offended.

Near these trees was a teeter-totter. I fell off it once and bonked my head. Perhaps that’s why it was removed and replaced with poles for a volleyball net? The synagogue down Holmes is now an academy; the Jewish Community Center where I learned to swim is Paul Robeson Middle School; and J. C. Nichols, where I went to elementary school for one year, is the Academie Lafayette, a French-language immersion school.

And the Plaza, where the 350 event took place by the J. C. Nichols Memorial Fountain, is also changed, but more on that some other day.

At first I was unimpressed by the number of people at this Kansas City gathering (100? 200?), but when Missouri senator Jolie Justice noted that Missouri is last in the nation for energy efficiency and clean energy, I decided I was being too harsh. Still, there were as many people in Kazakhstan as in Kansas City. There were even 3 pictures from Mongolia. And 1 or 2 from Afghanistan.

Jeez. I have to pause to cry here. With hope. Here’s my favorite picture from the 350.org site.

Students from the KC Art Institute painted this sign, and the Quakers loaned their generator. Why does that amuse me?

The organizer annoyed me at times, but then he handed me this gem: “Our history books say almost nothing about how ordinary people have changed the world.”

Perhaps ordinary people should have emptied this trash can.

Many ordinary Kansas Citians have pledged “Five Green Things,” so I did too, even if I don’t live here any more.

As we marched down the Plaza, the “symbolic heart of capitalism in Kansas City,” I dropped out at LatteLand, after about 2 blocks. If it’s any comfort to you, I asked for a china cup and then sat in this booth. Or interrogation room. I’m not sure which. The latte, made with rosemary steeped in caramel, had a delicate herbal flavor.

I stayed there for a while and then went to Barnes and Noble to read magazines for free, because that way someone else can reuse them, not because I’m too cheap to buy People.

Finally the reason for all this waiting and reading began: WaterFire, a fall celebration on Brush Creek in Kansas City. The night was warm and dry: the opera singer made me wish I would have brought my father, though how he would have got through the crowd I don’t know; and everything was peaceful.

And then I drove home.

Last night my sister and father and I had dinner at Avenues Bistro at the corner of Wornall and 63rd in Brookside, which is considered a top restaurant in Kansas City. I wanted to go there and I decided to take them because I worried that the dinner would be expensive, but it was $150 for three dinners plus tapas, desserts, and a bottle of wine. That was a reasonable amount for very good food—not quite as artisanal as Frasca in Boulder, but not nearly as expensive either. In any case, Avenues Bistro tends toward French- and German-influenced dishes, not Italian.

We sat in the second room, beyond the bar. Behind us a large party celebrated something: a wedding, perhaps, or a well-lived life. We were rather quiet because of the background noise, which makes it hard for my father and me to hear conversation. I think the high ceilings absorbed much of the sound, but not quite enough for us.

The sommelier brought us Jade Mountain 2007 Syrah as a compromise between the red zinfandel I prefer and the merlot my father has been drinking lately. It had an aroma of blackberries and was light-bodied and soft on the tongue. He brought us 3 Riedel glasses so my sister could have a taste.

Since Avenues Bistro offers tapas as well as full-sized entrees, I ordered the ceviche, and the filet tips and the mushroom Cabreles. The ceviche was fish-forward: I couldn’t taste lime or cilantro, which were supposed to be seasoning the lobster, shrimp, crab, and tomatoes. But it was refreshing against the marvelous grilled ciabatta. The filet was wonderful; I loved the blue cheese taste of the sauce and the silkiness of the meat.

By the time we got our entrees, we were getting full, but we soldiered on. The Black Forest Jaeger schnitzel, which the menu calls “a Swiss-German specialty,” was topped with Black Forest ham, bacon, caramelized onions, and mushrooms in a white wine cream sauce. It made me feel like the queen of bacon-gooeyness. When I had the leftovers for lunch today, they were still good. But I would not call this dish subtle. Is there such a thing as a subtle schnitzel?

We still didn’t stop. We ordered the flourless chocolate cake, which had the consistency of a dark mousse, and the German apple cake, similar to carrot cake. As we drove home, I wondered if it were responsible of me to feed my elderly father so much food. But other than an occasional complaint about how full he was, he didn’t seem to mind.

***

I was having trouble deciding whether to review Brio Tuscan Grille on the Plaza. I didn’t really like the food at this national chain where a high school friend took me. (Apparently there’s one in Centennial, Colorado.)

The seasonal bruschetta reminded my friend of pizza, when it should have been more like the ceviche mentioned above. And the roasted tomato and chicken risotto with prosciutto and asparagus was to risotto what this blurry picture is to photography. It lacked the density of risottos I’ve had, in which the rice was a match for the sauce rather than drowning in it. I did enjoy the fluffy crab and shrimp cakes but not their too-sweet sauce, which my friend said tasted like Miracle Whip. I’ve never had that (at least, not willingly), so I don’t know how it tastes.

***

The presentation of food was adequate at both restaurants, though the cakes certainly took the … well, you know.