KC Confidential

It’s gonna be hard to top Brandon Leftridge‘s tongue-in-cheek, holiday gift suggestion of a totally real Opossum…

Or Jack Poessiger‘s dream holiday meal of a "crisp" Christmas Goose. But I’ll try. Shouldn’t be too hard to make it a little easier on the gift givers as well as the recipients.

Let’s start with the $12.50, handmade, pewter Atahualpa bottle stopper at Hobb’s in Lawrence.

"You know who this guy is?" asks Hobb’s owner Mark Swanson. "He was the last Inca emperor."

Who doesn’t need something like that to jam into their favorite bottle of Mezcal?

Looking for something at a higher price point? Not a problem.

For a mere $56.50 Hobbs will sell you a lovely set of six Whisky Stones and a pair of hip-looking glasses to put them in. Sound bogus? Hold on.

"You get the whiskey rocks really cold and then you put them in your drink and they make it colder without dilluting the whisky like ice," Swanson explains. "This is a cool deal for a whiskey drinker."

Lest you assume that any old backyard rocks will do, Whiskey Stones are "soapstone cubes" designed by Andrew Hellman, a big fan of single malt scotch. Hellman found that natural soapstone chills drinks owing to "its unique ability to retain temperature for extended periods of time" without scratching the glass. The stones are milled in Perkinsville, Vermont by the oldest soapstone workshop in the United States.

Let’s move on to an old boyhood favorite, Space Food Sticks. They sell for $3 each at Urban Outfitters.

Space Food Sticks were a snack first sold in the late 1960s by Pillsbury. Think of them as the gummy forefathers of today’s granola bars. And they were the first solid food eaten by a NASA astronaut – Scott Carpenter to be exact – aboard the Aurora 7 in 1962.

To be honest, after trying one recently, I can’t for the life of me recall what I ever saw in them besides the name and the fact that they were a whole lot cheaper back then. They taste kinda like a grainy Tootsie Roll.  But as "out of this world energy sticks" go, I can’t think of a better stocking stuffer.

Now something that’s pretty cool for the friend who smokes cigarettes; the My Smokeless Electronic Cigarette. Here’s the spiel:

"My Smokeless elecrtic cigarettes utilize advanced technology to give you the same smooth, satisfying burst of flavor just like a traditional cigarette, but without the negative health risks. No flame, no ash, no tar, no harmful toxic chemicals; just nicotine, flavor and water vapor."

For around a hundred bucks or less you can buy a rechargeable cigarette married to replaceable nicotine cartridges (in varying strengths) and smoke up a storm on airplanes, in bars and restaurants or at your office. And blow the smoke right into the flight attendant, server or your bosses faces.

It’s crazy…

Puff on the electric cigarette and its tip glows fiery red – just like the fake flame atop Liberty Memorial – and you get a strong jolt of nicotine. Then what comes out of your lungs and mouth when you exhale looks exactly like real smoke, but it isn’t. Go figure.

You can buy them online or at kiosks in malls like Oak Park.

Have a great Christmas and holiday!

The past three weeks have been tough for Jardine’s founder Greg Halstead…

Halstead opened Jardine’s in 1992 as a restaurant and bar, but within months realized he’d made a mistake. The joint was losing money and Halstead called his pal Ron Schoonover – the former manager of Kansas City’s Playboy Club – to ask advice. Schoonover was running a successful jazz-themed bar and restaurant downtown called The Phoenix. He greenlighted Halstead’s idea of adding jazz to Jardine’s mix and the rest is history.

In 2003 Halstead sold Jardine’s to its longtime manager and current owner Beena Raja.

And as Jardine’s 19th year nears – as turbulant as things have been – it remains Kansas City’s leading jazz club.

What Halstead doesn’t get is why Fox 4 News in particular took such an interest in the story. He ran into Fox 4 reporter Kathy Quinn at a local restaurant recently and discussed the matter with her, he says. Halstead declined to say exactly what was discussed in that conversation.

However, Quinn’s daughter Kaitlin was one of the three servers Raja says she found partying at Jardine’s at 4 a.m. Thanksgiving morning. Raja says the servers were consuming alcohol, illegally after hours and had not paid for their drinks.

Fox 4 did not disclose this potential conflict in the reports about Jardine’s I saw that it aired.

"They just butchered the place," Halstead says of Fox 4. "Channel 4 was the one who was all over it. But like, who gives a (damn)?"

Did Fox 4 go too far?

"Let me put it this way," Halstead says. "I was upset about it. I mean, it’s just a jazz club. This isn’t Jack Dempsey’s in New York."

It may be "all quiet" along the battle lines in the Jardine’s jazz club saga but…

The staff is gone – a couple of them fired, others told that they’d been fired. Many of KC’s top jazz musicians have joined a boycott of Jardine’s. A boycott allegedly spearheaded by Sons of Brasil trumpet player Stan Kessler, whose stepson – now former Jardine’s server – Raja called the cops on minutes before Kessler’s band showed up at the club to play, but then walked out.

No two ways about it, it’s been ugly. Not to mention confusing.

Yet while things have been relatively quiet lately in the media, that doesn’t mean there’s not been a lot going on behind the scenes among interested parties, in places TV cameras are of little use.

And that’s exactly where this story appears headed, with at least three separate buyers indicating an interest in buying the Plaza jazz club from owner Beena Raja.

Raja declined to comment for this story.

However the one-two punch of a staff walkout and musician boycott coupled with a media piling on has taken its toll. Jardine’s reopened last week for the KC Confidential holiday bash and featured acts through Saturday.

Since then its calendar has been blank.

One potential buyer is Paul Wilson of Olathe. But is he a serious buyer?

"It’s absolutely something we’ve been looking at doing since we first became aware that it was an option," Wilson says. "We’d be buying it just for the love of the place and the musicians."

At this point, there’s not much more to say than may the best man (or woman) win.

Something for everyone today, even Jardine’s haters and future Jardine’s lovers…

One of my all-time, good-for-the-earth, suburban pet peeves is taking a step towards being eliminated. Starting in January, yard waste will no longer be picked up in Johnson County and dumped in landfills. 

Hats off to the Johnson County Commission for doing the right thing.

 Starting in January, "Yard waste collected curbside will be required to be composted rather than disposed of in a landfill…" the Johnson County Sustainability Program Web site says. "The changes to the Code will require all residential trash haulers operating in Johnson County to provide specified minimum solid waste services to their residential customers to divert more recyclable and compostable materials away from landfills to beneficial reuse."

Why should you care?

Because bagging grass and leaves is pointless and wasteful. Mulching with a lawnmower is not only better for your lawn, but it saves fuel guzzling trash trucks from having to lumber around town to pick everything up and dump it in landfills that are filling up fast.

Don’t believe me?

Here’s what the Grounds Maintenance, a site for "golf and green industry professionals" says: "The easiest and cheapest way to dispose of leaves is to mulch them into the turf. This is not a new idea, but universities have only recently compiled enough data to determine that tree-leaf mulching has no long-term negative effects on the turf. Studies at Michigan State, Cornell, Rutgers and Purdue have concluded that mulching tree leaves is an excellent disposal method that does not harm healthy turf."

The new JOCO ordinance requires trash haulers to offer composting services (for an upcharge) to Johnson Countians who persist in bagging clippings and leaves, which the county (and I) hope will result in more mulching and less needless trash disposal.

Huzzah!

H&M on the Plaza

It’s been a while since there was this much advance buzz on a retail store opening…

The countdown and excitement over clothing store H&M was huge. Including my 14 year-old daughters who had the esteemed pleasure of checking out H&M in Tucson last summer. And make no mistake, H&M has been packed since its recent pre-holiday opening.

So down I went, fashion conscious teens in tow to get a first hand read on the place. To my surprise, here’s what I got; disappointment.

"Forever 21 is for younger people," says daughter Savannah. "You can shop at H&M if you’re older. It’s cheaper than Urban Outfitters but it’s not as hip as Urban Outfitters,"

So what’s missing?

"I just don’t like the clothes they have right now. They had more stuff that I liked in Tucson last summer."

The KC Star’s new ‘913’ weekly magazine

Eat your hearts out Missourians…

New Star Wednesday insert 913 is clearly targeted to replace the dearly departed Johnson County Sun.

And so far, so good.

For the past two weeks 913 weighed in at 36 and 32 pages in length. Nearly as large as what’s left of the Pitch.

However, the similarity ends there. There’s not a hip bone in 913’s body with the possible exception of Steve Rose – who finally has a current pic of himself and he’s looking pretty good. No way Rose is used to the type of editorial scrutiny that’s mandated at the Star, but when he wants to get pissy and take somebody or something down, he knows how to play the game. Here’s hoping the Star lets him.

The Star is throwing just about everything but the kitchen sink into the mix and it appears to be a content / news improvement over what was left of the Sun the past few years as it slipped toward oblivion. It’s even got Joyce Smith from the business section. Which could be a good thing if she can come up with enough content apart from her business section columns. She had a bunch of good stuff in the first 913, but today’s column is content light with nothing more than a filler, puff piece on a Leawood nut shop. A Leawood nut shop? Yep.

Anne Brockhoff’s new dining column could be a winner, but the Star is pretty goosey about letting people other than the designated reviewer assign a ratings number. So you have to plow through the column and then guess to what extent she liked it. It’s a great concept, but the newspaper needs to entrust her to make that call, otherwise many readers may find it skipable.

The main feature news content is a little PC for Johnson Countians. And a lot devoid of much news (unlike the Sun).

Week Two’s "Breaking Free, Unshackling from the chains of hyper-parenting," for example.  And then today’s, "We’re Diverse. Really! How a 100 percent increase in our black, Hispanic and Asian residents is reflected in our schools, institutions and neighborhoods."

I’ve been living in Johnson County for more than 20 years now, and I can tell you those are not the must read kind of stories locals are looking for. Let alone thirsting for. The Star needs to figure a way to get some real news into 913 if it wants to be much more than an ad rag.

The $64 million question: Can the Star think outside its "normal" news box enough to truly matter to suburban Johnson Countians who still lump the Plaza in with downtown and consider KC’s crown jewel too dangerous to let their teenage kids roam free?  Even by day?

We’ll see.

Amidst the back-and-forth tales of Jardine’s firing its entire staff lies a single, glaring contradiction…

The local news media – including this site – bought into and reported that owner Beena Raja had fired the Plaza jazz club’s entire staff. That fifteen people had been unceremoniously turned out on the streets right ahead of the holidays.

Nevermind that none of that had been confirmed with Jardine’s. Or later, when Raja was finally cornered she denied it, saying the general manager/cook had resigned, two staffers had been fired and another walked out.  Not surprisingly a local waiter blogger championed the staff firing story without even attempting to contact Raja.

Worse yet, a local TV news organization that has lead much of the news charge on Jardine’s woes employs a reporter who’s daughter worked at Jardine’s and is alleged to have been among the three servers Raja found drinking for free at 4 a.m. Thanksgiving morning.

None of the stories I’ve seen disclosed that potential conflict to viewers.

Now let’s get to the heart of the matter.

Was the entire staff fired or is it possible, as Raja maintains, that a handful of disgruntled staffers who quit or were fired told the remaining staff not to show up at the club because everybody had been fired?

Enter concerned Raytown mom Deidra Foley Sexton whose son has worked at Jardine’s for the past year and a half, earning his way through college. Against her better judgement – but in the interest of fair play – Sexton agreed to tell the other side of the story.

Did her son get fired by Raja?

"No he did not," Sexton says. "He never got a phone call saying he was fired. His friends from work called him and said everybody was just fired, so he assumed that he was fired."

Sexton says she’s familiar with Raja’s partying rep, but has no knowledge of her alleged outbursts of temper.

"I think she’s shown a lot of kindness until this situation," Sexton says. "My son’s worked there a year and a half and I’ve never heard him say she was a terrible boss.

"I feel so sorry for her. When this first started I didn’t understand what had happened and I was just so angry at Beena, like how could she do that? And now that I understand more about it, I just feel so sorry for her."