Potato Salad

Nothing says summer is coming like a Potato Salad Dance Number

City Hall (Again)

Another awful experience at St. Louis City Hall. I don't know how anyone there keeps their jobs. If I treated my customers at my job like this I would be fired. I talked to two different women in the Traffic Violations Department. The first time I was hung up on. The second time I was shouted at. They each gave me entirely different instructions for how to handle my inquiry. The irony is that I paid a traffic ticket within 30 days (this is July 2008) and the city sent the ticket in to a collection agency (9 months later?!). I never received a notice that it was late (probably because it was paid, duh!), but the inept cogs down there submitted the ticket to a collection agency anyway. I have the canceled check proving I paid it. Yes, once again, City Hall has made me cry.

I am making some promises to myself today:

1. I will never open a business in the City of St. Louis.
2. I will avoid any activity that requires me to have any transactions with City Hall. The only positive experience I ever had at City Hall was obtaining our marriage license. Every other time has been a complete nightmare.

Kansas City Road Trip Review

Our trip to Kansas City on Saturday was a gluttonous affair—no other way to put it. The drive from my parent’s clocked in at nearly two hours and we purposely ate a light breakfast in anticipation of lunch at either Stroud’s, famous for their pan fried chicken, or Arthur Bryant’s of barbeque fame. As Lindsey was the birthday boy, he got to select and chose Stroud’s. I was delighted with his decision. I think it is far easier to get good barbeque than it is to get good fried chicken. We were Stroud’s first customers of the day. Our waitress, Beanie, was fantastic. The meal was served family style, which we didn’t realize. The amount of food was ridiculous and we had plenty to take home. The chicken arrived perfectly cooked. Lindsey prefers his spicier, but to me, the spices were right on. It was moist and actually tasted like chicken. And it wasn’t a greasy mess. The entire meal reminded me so much of the chicken dinners that my Grandma Avery used to cook, it brought tears to my eyes. The French fries, green beans, and mashed potatoes and gravy—all heavenly home cooked, like hers. But the cinnamon rolls were so out of this world, they’d make you slap your mamma. How they are able to create something both dense and fluffy at the same time is nothing short of a sweet pillowy miracle. One of the best things I’ve ever eaten.

So, we waddled out of Stroud’s and headed to the Nelson-Atkins Museum. I’ve wanted to see the new Bloch Building addition since it opened in 2007. It was pretty impressive. The Homer Page photography exhibit was phenomenal. They also had four great Wayne Thiebaud paintings (gumball machine, ship, girl in bikini, and a landscape). Afterwards, we visited the Kemper Contemporary Museum, where there was another Thibaud (cakes!), along with a luminous Frankenthaler, and an Arthur Dove that I loved.

We checked in to the Q Hotel and Spa, which was cute but not quite as spa-like as their website would have you believe. There were a little too many college kids around, which I don’t mind in general, except when dudes are droppin’ f-bombs every two seconds and every girl in the conversation is a referred to as a b*tch”. So lame.

We had dinner reservations at Le Fou Frog, a French bistro that proved Kansas City is no culinary slouch. From beginning (complimentary amuse-bouche) to end (complimentary chocolate truffle) this dining experience was superb. The fact that our waiter was French added even more magic. Groups were celebrating big events and couples were having romantic dinners—everyone was enjoying themselves. I had salad with warm goat cheese and fig compote, shared a cheese plate with Lindsey that was insanely beautiful (I let the waiter select—it was lovely and the fresh berries and walnuts were wonderful) and then had a scallop dish that was delicious. Lindsey had a house salad, mussels, and the filet with asparagus, lobster, and boursin. I told you, our trip was gluttonous. Happy Birthday Baby.
To top it all off, when we got back to my parent’s on Saturday, they took us out to Charlie’s for Lindsey’s birthday. Charlie’s is buffet dining compliments of a Mennonite family. It is in the middle of nowhere (15 minutes outside of Cole Camp, Missouri) but so worth the drive. When you walk in, the first thing you see is a line at least 20 feet long of homemade desserts. I’m talking pies (gooseberry, rhubarb, chocolate pecan, banana cream, coconut cream, chocolate, custard, peanut butter, etc.), old fashioned cakes (red velvet, carrot, banana, mint, orange dream, chocolate, etc.), cheesecakes (topped with blueberries and strawberries) and cobblers (cherry, peach, apricot, blackberry, etc.). It is overwhelming. I was tempted to skip dinner altogether in order to try as many desserts as possible. But I couldn’t pass up more home cooking. This place is crazy good and frequented by folks near and far—when we were leaving a group of 40 people had arrived. But they don’t advertise and don’t have a website. What a gem.

So with our birthdays over, summer so close, and a life insurance policy to buy—we are seriously on the better diet trail. But what a sweet little journey last weekend was.