F-Mart’s Mural Provides Beacon for Asian Community in Lawrence

F-Mart image by Chikara Hibino

Being noticed is different than being seen. More than a year ago, F-Mart’s south-facing gray concrete wall wasn’t worthy of much attention. Passersby saw nothing eye-catching about the East Asian food market’s nondescript building located next to Hertz Car Rental. Now the wall is covered with a mural featuring renderings of local landmarks and Kansas sunflowers alongside images of Taiwanese bubble tea, Korean gimbap, Chinese moon cake, Japanese mochi, and other food iconography.  

Japanese-American graphic designer and illustrator Emmi Murao created a digital layout of the mural in the summer of 2022. Her sister Juna Murao, also a graphic designer, teamed up with other artists to bring it to life, painting the wall white to create a blank canvas. Then they added the colorful imagery using blue, green, yellow, orange, and pink paint.

F-Mart image by Chikara Hibino

Owned by Endi Shengcao Chen, F-Mart sells an array of fresh vegetables, meat, fruit, live seafood, spices, dumplings, snacks, beverages, noodles, vinegars, soy sauces, seaweed, and other goods to customers like the Murao sisters. 

Meant to be noticed, F-Mart’s mural is one of five public art projects in Lawrence that are part of the People’s Market Program. Kansas Healthy Food Initiative and other area partners developed the program under the purview of the Kansas Department of Commerce’s Ethnic Markets Initiative. The city-wide project paired different local artists with five culturally specific food retail shops. Beyond adding aesthetic value, the program highlights ethnic cultures, local food policy, and the effort to strengthen equitable food systems in Douglas County through the lens of art. 

Connie Fiorella Fitzpatrick, a community-based public art organizer and muralist, invited Emmi to create the mural. Fitzpatrick served on the Douglas County Food Policy Council for four years and has been actively involved with local mural projects. 

“Connie and I were vendors at a craft event in Lawrence several years ago and kept in touch through social media,” said Emmi. “When Connie approached me about the project, I was still living in Kansas but knew I would be moving soon. I asked Juna if she would be interested in painting the mural in my place.”

Born in Japan, Juna and Emmi moved with their family to Lawrence years ago when the sisters were children. Emmi now lives in Boston and works full-time as a product designer at Converse and illustrator. Juna studied typography at the London Royal College and graduated from the University of Kansas. 

F-Mart’s long wall inspired Emmi to design a horizontal landscape. 

“With uneven ground and deep textures on the wall, I wanted to keep the design pretty straightforward and simple to execute, especially since I would not be there to direct it,” said Emmi. “It was also my sister’s first time painting on such a large scale. I wanted the icons to be simple and do the storytelling.”

Inspiration for the food icons came from data collected by surveying people in the community on their favorite East Asian food and dishes. 

“Overall, I wanted the colors and theme to be happy with all the icons and elements working and co-existing,” said Emmi.

Co-existence underscores an important aspect of the People’s Market Program. As the only East Asian supermarket in town, F-Mart serves as more than a destination to purchase weekly groceries. Standing out from others shapes one’s outlook and existence, internally and externally. 

“Whenever we feel homesick, we would go there to shop. I believe grocery stores like F-Mart are important for immigrants to feel at home in an unfamiliar place through food and community,” said Emmi. “It’s also an accessible place for people to explore and learn about cultures they did not grow up in.” 

Sustainability and Community

The 2019 Ethnic Food Retail Study, prepared by the KU Center for Community Health & Development for the Food Policy Council, reported on “the place of local ethnic food retail stores in Douglas County and helps inform priorities for promoting a sustainable food system.” 

Findings from the report helped shape the People’s Market Program and Ethnic Markets Initiative. The report indicated that regular customers shared details about ethnic store locations, goods available, and other information with other potential customers in their community. 

F-Mart image by Chikara Hibino

Ethnic businesses must spread awareness through personal networks if they hope to sustain growth. These stores typically lack an advertising or marketing budget. They cannot compete with national grocery stores and retail chains that advertise weekly promotions and offer coupons in local newspapers. Instead, they must rely on word of mouth and social media to attract customers and build community. 

In return, ethnic retail stores play a crucial role in community food systems, helping to ensure food access, foster health, and reduce the likelihood of food deserts in underserved areas. 

Customers have a stake in these stores not only for easier access to food that’s connected to their culture, but also as community building blocks.  

Six local ethnic food store owners and regular clientele were interviewed about the retail businesses. Over 60 percent of the customers surveyed shop at these stores for daily meals that they cook at home. The report’s findings also confirmed that “the stores and the goods they offer are important to customers in supporting, celebrating, and maintaining their cultural identities.” 

Douglas County, the fifth-most populous county in Kansas, is predominantly white (83.4%). Asians comprise only five percent of the county’s population. Overall, nearly 6.5 percent of the population in Douglas County is foreign-born. Lawrence, the seat of Douglas County, is home to the University of Kansas. Whether or not community members are affiliated with the university’s diverse campus population, the city’s ethnic residents, Asian and otherwise, are a visible minority.

As the report points out, stores like F-Mart draw people who are looking for more than frozen soup dumplings, lumpia wrappers, or daikon. 

Customers “feel a sense of community and culture when they enter the stores.” They’re united by similar customs, language, values, and world views. The stores “honor the diversity and cultural uniqueness of their customers” and provide a safe space for Asian clientele “to celebrate their diversity, not just shop for the next meal.” 

Ethnic food retail stores function as a beacon for the Asian community. These stores are the modern equivalent of trading posts in the early 1800s. Westward-bound pioneers sought these outposts in Westport, Missouri, before heading to the Kansas Territory, home to many indigenous tribes before colonization, and upon arrival in frontier towns. For minorities, ethnic food retail shops offer their customers relatable identities, cultural touchstones, and goods that can ease existence in the Midwest without fully abandoning native customs and culture. 

F-Mart image by Pete Dulin
Photograph: Pete Dulin

The F-Mart mural is a lighthouse signal for new and returning customers who can “read” painted imagery that transcends native languages. It communicates what people of Asian descent in particular might find on the other side of that wall – food, culture, acceptance. F-Mart and other ethnic stores provide a hub of social, educational, and community services.

“I hope F-Mart will be a place for East Asian people and allies to meet, learn, and connect through food and culture,” said Emmi. “I hope this mural celebrates and energizes the cultures that F-Mart and the community represent.” 

To truly be part of a community requires more than being seen and noticed; it means being welcomed and accepted.

Creating the mural also offered Emmi an opportunity for introspection.

“I was surprised at how much I learned about myself. I realized I had a lot of unpacked trauma growing up as a Japanese-American,” she said. “This project helped me heal by confronting the past. I was able to make something fun with these sad memories. I’m so thankful to be able to work with Juna on a project in our community where we grew up together.”


This story was commissioned by the Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission, Kansas Department of Commerce. Food and drink journalist Pete Dulin was one of ten writers selected for the 2022 Kansas Creative Arts and Industries Commission’s inaugural Critical Writing Initiative.

Photography by Chikara Hibino.

People of Craft Beer: Sloane Dominick, Kansas City, Missouri

Sloane Dominick

Sloane Dominick got her dream job at Kansas City Bier Company in Kansas City, Missouri, on February 14, better known as Valentine’s Day. Less than four months later, she worried about how a major life change might affect her career.

Previously, Dominick worked as a beverage manager at World Market but sought a change.

“I wanted to be on the production side of brewing,” Dominick said. Even after Dominick landed the brewery job, she said, “I felt like I was missing something.”

Professionally, the job fulfilled Dominick’s goal. She was initially hired in 2017 to work as a bartender and server at Kansas City Bier Company. She worked on the brewery’s bottling line and volunteered for odd jobs as the brewery grew. As a draft technician, she cleaned lines and even devised a method that saved Kansas City Bier Company around $1,800 a year. Personally, Dominick had a long-buried secret hidden behind a wall of uncertainty.

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Valentine’s Day is named after St. Valentine of third-century Rome. The name Valentinus is  derived from the Latin word for worthy, strong, or powerful. Over time, Valentine has come to represent the patron saint of couples, marriages, and the romantic February holiday. For some, Valentine’s Day is celebrated with flowers, heart-filled greeting cards, chocolate, and expensive dinner. Others reject the day as a make-believe ritual of commercialized marketing or view it through the prism of heartbreak and longing.

After launching a brewing career on this day, Dominick faced a pending choice to be strong and powerful enough to disclose her secret, or she could maintain a make-believe way of life that had already taken a toll.

In June 2017, Dominick chose to come out as transgender with a new assumed name.

“I talked about it with a friend,” said Dominick. “We discussed it and decided that I would go forward with coming out. I came out with my name Sloane on Facebook. I was afraid.”

The announcement was a decision to finally and publicly part with her previous gender and step into her feminine identity. In a way, coming out was both a breakup and an embrace of a true self she always knew existed.

That same night, she also made the announcement to friends and brewery coworkers while attending a Dogfish Head Brewery event at Bier Station, a local craft beer taproom. However, she was unsure how her coworkers would respond.

“The next day I went into work and my new name was listed on the schedule. Everyone was accepting of me,” Dominick said. “I didn’t want to give up my dream job. I feel like I was Sloane since I began working at Kansas City Bier Company. They have been nothing but supportive.”

Dominick suffered from depression for years. After making the announcement and sharing her new name, Sloane, she felt relieved and knew it was the right decision.

“I’ve known my entire life. I’ve been working on this since I was a small child,” Dominick said. I tried to bury it and focus on other things. But it’s like putting the wrong fuel in the car. It won’t run right. For twenty years, I’ve known something wasn’t right.”

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“I didn’t know that transgender was even a thing until I was 13 or 14,” Dominick said. “I had to find information on a computer and find out myself.”

Growing up, Dominick didn’t like to be made to play sports or placed into a male gender role.

“I just wanted to be me. I didn’t understand until I figured out the word for it,” Dominick said. “For ten years, I buried it. Bottled it up. Sometimes, something would trigger me and I would express it.”

Long before coming out as trans, Dominick saw a therapist to address her feelings.

“The therapist gave me bad advice,” Dominick said. “I went back in the closet. I kept it hidden as  a teen. I felt guilty about what I was doing. I told my mom when I was around 22, but nothing came of it.”

Later, Dominick told her mother about being transgender a second time. “I told her that she knew. She did,” Dominick said. “She’s been accepting of me and uses my name and correct pronoun.”

Dominick explained that the pronouns “she” and “her” apply to her as a female. “I’ve never been anyone else.”

–––

Dominick first took estrogen on September 8, 2017. Before taking the prescription, she was required to see a therapist. Then Dominick was referred to an endocrinologist.

“The whole process took three months,” Dominick said. “It was the hardest three months I’ve ever had.”

Initially, Dominick wasn’t sure how quickly the estrogen would affect her. She had planned to transition socially at first. The physical impact of the prescription would take time to manifest, but the psychological response was more sudden.

“Twenty years of depression were gone when I took estrogen,” Dominick said. “I thought, ‘This must be what normal people feel like.”

Dominick’s figure began to develop more curves. She said, “I began to see myself how I wanted to see myself. The depression was gone. I finally was allowed to be myself. My brain runs better on estrogen.”

To formalize the gender transition, she legally changed her name to Sloane Dominick.

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Kansas City Bier Company continues to be the place where Dominick clocks into her dream job. She also works a second job as a draft technician at The Belfry taproom and helps owner Celina Tio with beer and spirit tastings, dinners, and events.

Naturally, she continues to be a fan of craft beer. “Beer is so interesting and enjoyable,” Dominick said. “It has so many flavors.”

Socially, Dominick feels at home within the craft beer community.

“The Kansas City community is cool and accepting,” Dominick said. “It’s good to feel part of it.”

Dominick actually didn’t drink until she was 23-years-old and started drinking vodka and whiskey.

“I caught onto craft beer about four years ago and got into it as a hobby,” Dominick said. “There’s so much to discover. It’s interesting. There’s a sense of community, where I can hang out. There’s always something going on.”

Now, Dominick favors saisons, wild ales, and sours. Lambics and brett.-based beers were some of the first she explored.

“Boulevard Brewing’s Spring Belle was a formative beer,” said Dominick, referring to a 2015 seasonal Belgian-style saison made with flowers.

Dominick continues to expand her role at Kansas City Bier Company. She proposed a collaboration beer with Bier Station dubbed Wrong Place Radler. The beer will feature two syrups made by Eric Jones of Bier Station that may be added to Kansas City Bier’s hefeweizen.

Dominick said, “I came up with the name and concept, then pitched the idea to John Couture at Bier Station.”

That’s the beauty and heart of craft beer. As one of mankind’s oldest beverages that predates even St. Valentine of Rome, beer is not trapped in traditional styles and roles. Craft beer continues to evolve and grow. The talent, creativity, and imagination of skilled brewers and collaborative partners defy limitations. Similarly, the community of craft beer grows stronger by resisting limits and being true to each other and to the social and inclusive nature of beer.

Dominick summed up her connection to craft brewing as a simple yet powerful statement.

“Craft beer is part of my life’s calling,” Dominick said. “I was meant to be in beer.”

Kansas City Star Reviews Expedition of Thirst

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A couple years ago, author Pete Dulin hit the winding roads of eastern Kansas and western Missouri in his red Ford Focus. He visited 150 wineries, distilleries, and breweries to research his fourth book, a travel guide titled Expedition of Thirst. Writer Anne Kniggendorf’s reviewed Expedition of Thirst: Exploring Breweries, Wineries, and Distilleries Across the Heart of Kansas and Missouri for The Kansas City Star.

She shares facets of the book’s dive into the winemaking and grape-growing culture in Kansas and Missouri. Kniggendorf chose this quote of mine that sums up how much there is to explore in Expedition of Thirst which was published by University Press of Kansas.

“We think of wine and terroir in France, but the bi-state area also has these distinct regions and climates and types of soil that will have a significant impact on the flavor and aroma of wine and the grapes that are grown,” Dulin said during a recent phone interview from Thailand, where he was visiting family.

The review shares how I drove more than 2,000 miles across eastern Kansas and western Missouri to visit multiple businesses in a day. After a long day of driving, talking, and tasting wine, beer, and spirits, “taste-bud fatigue” can set in, Kniggendorf wrote.

She cites some of the many off-the-beaten path destination featured in the book, such as Fly Boy Brewery and Eats in Sylvan Grove, Kansas. Those looking for a day trip might consider a jaunt to Columbia, Missouri, where the city has a distillery and multiple breweries.

Kniggendorf does a fine job of capturing the spirit and intent of Expedition of Thirst. It’s a fine, thorough review. Visit the link to read the full review of Expedition of Thirst.

The 288-page book has many color photographs that I shot to accompany the travel guide entries on the 150 breweries, wineries, and distilleries. Signed copies are available by ordering directly from my site. The book is also available at local retailers and major online retailers.

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Essay Excerpt: When Kansas Was America’s Napa Valley

“When Kansas Was America’s Napa Valley” is the title of an essay I wrote for the series What It Means to Be American, a project by The Smithsonian and Arizona State University in conjunction with Zócalo Public Square.

Los Angeles-based nonprofit Zócalo Public Square, an ASU Knowledge Enterprise Magazine of Ideas, syndicates journalism on its site to media outlets worldwide. Zócalo editor Eryn Brown contacted me in October 2017 and commissioned an essay for the series, What It Means to Be American. After discussion, we decided on a topic that would explore the history of winemaking and grape-growing in Kansas before and after Prohibition. I wrote the essay over a month’s time, building on research I had unearthed while writing Expedition of Thirst: Exploring Breweries, Wineries, and Distilleries across the Heart of Kansas and Missouri.

Below is an introductory excerpt from the essay. Visit the links below to read the entire essay.

When Kansas Was America’s Napa Valley

Located in the northeastern corner of Kansas, Doniphan County’s eastern edge is shaped like a jigsaw puzzle piece, carved away by the flowing waters of the Missouri River. The soil is composed of deep, mineral-rich silty loess and limestone, making it ideal for farming—and, it turns out, for growing grapes and making wine.

California wasn’t always America’s winemaking leader. During the mid-19th century, that distinction went to Kansas and neighboring Missouri, where winemakers and grape-growers led the U.S. wine industry in production. Bold entrepreneurs, industrious Kansas farmers—many of them German-speaking immigrants—produced 35,000 gallons of wine in 1872. That volume jumped more than six-fold by the end of the decade.

But the growth in Kansas’ wine industry (and its sister industry, brewing) coincided with dramatic changes in the state. From 1860 to 1880, Kansas’ population mushroomed from 107,206 to nearly one million people. Kansans battled over slavery in the Kansas-Missouri Border War (1854-1861) and again during the Civil War (1861-1865). Kansas vintners faced a dynamic and challenging moral, social, business, and political climate. The region’s civic and religious leaders railed against the use of alcohol, which they believed contributed to moral decay and spiritual rot, leading them to implement the first statewide prohibition on selling and manufacturing alcohol in the United States in 1881. For more than a century, this ban caused a slowdown from which the Free State’s winemakers are only now beginning to emerge.

Read the entire essay.

http://www.whatitmeanstobeamerican.org/places/when-kansas-was-americas-napa-valley/

http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2018/02/05/kansas-americas-napa-valley/ideas/essay/

Image caption: Still photograph of teetotaler women from the satirical short film Kansas Saloon Smashers (1901), which spoofs the Wichita temperance activist Carrie Nation. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Kansas Public Radio Review of Expedition of Thirst

Rex Buchanan

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There are a number of independent breweries, wineries and distilleries across Kansas and Missouri.  Author Pete Dulin has been to more than 150 of them in the course of researching his new book, Expedition of Thirst.  Kansas Public Radio commentator Rex Buchanan took a look and turned in this book report.

Listen to the review on Kansas Pubic Radio.

(Transcript)

This is a great time to be a beer drinker.  There are so many high-quality local beers out there, so many brewpubs, keeping up with them is an almost-impossible but highly desirable task.

Fortunately, the University Press of Kansas has just published a guide to the breweries, wineries, and distilleries of eastern Kansas and western Missouri.  Called Expedition of Thirst, it’s by Kansas City writer Pete Dulin.  The book covers more than 150 locations in the two states.  Putting it together, he drove more than 1500 miles.  Researching this book had to be good duty.

Dulin covers all the local breweries he can find.  That includes the Free State Brewing Company here in Lawrence, the granddaddy of the modern brewpub business in Kansas.  Established in 1989, it was the first local brewery in the state since Prohibition, and remains one of the most popular.  Dulin covers other long-time establishments like the Blind Tiger in Topeka, the River City Brewery in Wichita, the Little Apple in Manhattan, and the Boulevard Brewing Company in Kansas City, Missouri.

But Dulin doesn’t just cover the older places in the larger towns.  He finds the breweries in little towns, like Sylvan Grove, population 279, and the unincorporated town of Beaver, both out in central Kansas, places that seem too small to support any businesses, let alone a brew pub.  Even if you’re somehow not a beer drinker, this is valuable information, because many of these brewpubs are also good places to eat.

While I claim some hard-won beer expertise, I readily admit that I know far less about wine and spirits.  But Dulin’s book seems just as comprehensive when it comes to wineries and distilleries in both states.  Once again, he covers not just those wineries that you might know about, like the Holy-Field Winery in Basehor, but all sorts of others, like the Smoky Hill Vineyards and Winery north of Salina, the Holladay Distillery in Weston, Missouri, and the Shiloh Vineyard and Winery way out west in WaKeeney.

This book isn’t just a comprehensive guide to all these establishments.  It’s filled with color photos and the story behind each place and its owners.  It includes suggestions of drinks you should try.  The book even has a waterproof cover in case you happen to, uh, spill something on it in the course of your own research.

I know lots of people who brew their own beer and make their own wine.  And some of it is pretty good.  But with all places described in this book, many of them producing incredibly interesting, really drinkable products, it seems like a shame to take a chance on something homemade.  Especially when Pete Dulin has already done much of the work for you.

Kansas and Missouri may have their differences, but this book makes it clear that the two states share common ground on the beer, wine, and distillery front.  I can’t think of a better way to bring us together than by crossing state lines for a cold one.  I know I’m willing to do my part.

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Sneak Peek: Expedition of Thirst cover

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I’m excited to share the cover for Expedition of Thirst: Exploring Breweries, Wineries, and Distilleries across the Heart of Kansas and Missouri. Any guesses on where this photo was taken? Hint: It was shot in Missouri.

Published by University Press of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, and due out in October 2017, my fourth book is a regional travel guide. Expedition of Thirst maps routes that crisscross eastern Kansas and western Missouri. In summer and fall 2016, I made many trips and stops at most of the 150 breweries, wineries, and distilleries in the book. Yes, the research was tough as I sipped and sampled beer, wine, and spirits.

In the book, I introduce the men and women behind the craft. You’ll meet interesting characters and gain a sense of place in each locale. During my travels, I explore varied landscape from the Flint Hills of Kansas to the plains of Missouri and Ozarks. Between reading the travel entries and expedition notes, you will find some insight into the history, culture, and geography of the territory I traveled. A wide range of color photographs also bring these people and places to life.

I look forward to retracing my routes in fall 2017 and spring 2018 with the book in hand. Hope you will too. Meanwhile, I hope you will pre-order a copy now. I’ll sign copies and ship them direct to you, beginning in October once the book is available.

Watch this site and sign up for my newsletter to learn about upcoming author events and book news.

Until then, safe travels. Cheers.

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Author Talk at Kansas City Central Library

Kansas City BeerAuthor Talk – Pete Dulin
Kansas City Beer: A History of Brewing in the Heartland
Sunday, April 23, 2017 | 2 p.m.
Central Library, 14 W. 10th St.

As part of the Missouri Valley Speaker Series, I will present a talk about my most recent book. Stockyards Brewing will also serve beer at a reception before the talk.

About the talk: To the delight of local beer aficionados, Kansas City has seen a proliferation of new breweries in recent years, building on a history that dates to the 1850s. In a discussion of his new book Kansas City Beer: A History of Brewing in the Heartland, author Pete Dulin explores how factors such as advancements in transportation and technology, European migration, and industry competition fostered early growth in the local brewing industry. And how the rise of major breweries of the post-Prohibition era – including Muehlebach, and more recently Boulevard Brewing – led to a modern wave of craft brewers that continues today.

Above image: The former Heim Brewing bottling warehouse and plant located in the East Bottoms.

Kansas City Beer: Rochester Beer a Hit in England

Rochester Brewery, J.D. Iler Brewing

While researching Kansas City Beer, I came across some interesting facts and trivia about Kansas City’s breweries, including the maker of Rochester Beer.

In 1897, Kansas City-based J.D. Iler Brewing Company, also known as Rochester Brewing Company, sent a shipment of its Rochester beer to Yorkshire, England, customers on demand for “holiday entertainments.” Previously, a group of Brits toured numerous breweries and sampled beers across the U.S. They were referred to Joe Iler’s brewery in Kansas City. The touring Brits preferred the superior quality of light Rochester beer to heavier English ales, porters, and stouts of the era. They had Rochester beer shipped across the Atlantic to drink it with guests at holiday parties.

Also, J.D. Iler Brewing Company promoted its Rochester Beer through unusual advertising. It sponsored a set of color lithographs depicting exotic scenes from around the world for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The name of the brewery and beer were both displayed on the artwork created by Harper’s magazine illustrator Charles Graham.

To learn more about this Kansas City brewery and others, pick up a copy of Kansas City Beer.

Kansas City Beer Now Available

Kansas City BeerKansas City Beer: A History of Brewing in the Heartland is now available. Since the official book release date of Oct. 24, 2016, the book is available at many local retailers and online. The History Press published this brewery history book as part of its American Palate Series.

Official Book Description

Westbound immigrants, pioneers and entrepreneurs alike arrived in Kansas City with a thirst for progress and beer. Breweries both small and mighty seized opportunity in a climate of ceaseless social change and fierce regional competition. Muehlebach Brewing Company commanded the market, operating in Kansas City for more than eighty years. Built in 1902, the iconic brick warehouse of Imperial Brewing still stands today. Prohibition made times tough for brewers and citizens in the Paris of the Plains, but political “Boss” Tom Pendergast kept the taps running. In 1989, Boulevard Brewing kicked off the local craft beer renaissance, and a bevy of breweries soon formed a flourishing community. Food and beer writer Pete Dulin explores Kansas City’s hop-infused history and more than sixty breweries from the frontier era to the twenty-first century.

This book was fascinating to research because it involved finding “facts” in several ways. I studied old city records from the mid-1800s and dug through publications and marketing brochures of yesteryear. I contacted historical societies and reviewed digitized copies of books on Google. For any brewery that existed prior to 1989 when Boulevard began, research involved sifting through print and online sources. No one from the late 1800s to early 1900s before Prohibition was alive to interview!

For more contemporary breweries, such as Boulevard Brewing which was founded in 1989, I was able to interview key people including founder John McDonald and others. I reached out via social media to track down people that once worked at former breweries and brewpubs in the 1990s. Again, I perused online articles, websites, and other resources as well as reading book and print material. Perhaps the most fun part was interviewing the modern generation of Kansas City brewers from the 1990s to present, knowing that their stories fit in the sequence of history I was assembling as a book.

In the introduction to Kansas City Beer, I link the history of the city with its brewery history. The latter is innately tied to the former. During the process of writing and after completing the manuscript, I felt keenly aware that I was recalling, defining, and recording history from past and present. In a short span of time, my book will seem like ancient history. Even now, I find myself observing and thinking about current events, whether it is brewing or politics or social change, through the lens of history to provide a long-term perspective.

I’m pleased with the final result of Kansas City Beer. It’s easy to read with short profiles of nearly 70 breweries from roughly the 1850s to 2016. Much has happened in the history of Kansas City and its breweries.

Expedition of Thirst: Pome on the Range Orchard and Winery

Pome on the Range Orchard and Winery owner Mike Gerhardt

Before arriving at Pome on the Range Orchard and Winery in Williamsburg, Kansas, the drive from Kansas City involves reaching escape velocity along the twisting construction zone lanes of I-35 South. Past the suburb of Olathe and outlying towns of Gardner and Edgerton, uninterrupted prairie stretches out lean and flat.

By early June, hot dry winds blow across green and golden fields bleached by the sun. Purple prairie clover and white clover blankets ditches and subtly sloping hills. Highway patrol cars in the median shine like beetles and bask like turtles in sunlight, waiting to bolt like jackrabbits and strike like rattlesnakes.

The Sioux word “Kansas” has been interpreted to mean “people of the south wind.” After an hour’s drive, I take exit 176, rumble along Idaho Road, pull into the gravel drive of Pome on the Range Orchard and Winery, and find a Kansan before me. Owner Mike Gerhardt, dressed in a faded beige shirt and navy shorts, stands next to a tractor and chats with another man. They both exhibit the copper-red tan of farmers and ranchers, men at home in the sun and soil.

 

blog Pome on the Range barn

 

Inside the tasting room, I introduce myself and explain that I’m researching regional wineries, breweries, and distilleries for a forthcoming travel guidebook, Expedition of Thirst. Gerhardt, looking gruff at first behind a blond, thick bristle brush mustache, leans back against a counter. He answers questions about the orchard and winery that he owns and operates with his wife Donnie. Later, I learn that Kelly, a tall young woman with blue eyes that works at the shop, is also a fourth-grade teacher.

Gerhardt reels off details about apple varieties that make the best cider and fruit wines. He doesn’t grow grapes or use them to make wine. Instead, he blends fermented apple juice with juice concentrate from blackberries, raspberries, blackcurrant, and other fruits to produce his wines. At 2,000 gallons, the small-batch winery is only part of the orchard’s business operation. The shop and tasting room also sells locally-grown fruits and vegetables and preserves, honey, and other goods produced in the region.

During the course of our talk, Gerhardt talks about customers that unknowingly use fruit as a device to access memories of childhood. A customer might ask for a certain variety of peaches or Black Diamond watermelon, convinced that the specific variety of fruit is the best ever. Gerhardt locks eyes with me and slowly shakes his head. No, he says, there are other peaches or watermelon that taste much better. When the supermarket or a farmers market stand carries “peaches and cream” sweet corn, customers snap it up by the dozen. Actually, Gerhardt points out, that corn is most likely Ambrosia or another variety. It is only called and marketed as peaches and cream because that’s the name the public has associated with sweet corn.

People often latch onto the idea of fruit from a farm, a specific variety in particular, not because it is truly the best, but instead the fruit reminds them of a childhood memory. Gerhardt shares a personal story of growing up on a farm, where the house had no air-conditioning. During summers, the family ate evening meals on a wooden table in the south part of the yard under a shade tree. It was too hot to eat in the house. After dinner, the family dined on cold sliced watermelon. Gerhardt doesn’t recall the taste of that watermelon but it prompts the memory of his youth and family meals.

Of course, Gerhardt’s observation reminds me of author Marcel Proust and his famous insights from “Remembrance of Things Past” that ties a memory to madeleines, or small cakes.

Buying peaches, watermelon, sweet corn, or other farm-grown foods becomes a device for tapping into memories and a prop for sharing stories around the kitchen table. Most of us do not live, or haven’t lived, a rural agrarian lifestyle. These trips to the farm or supermarket to buy “farm fresh” produce helps us access an idealized nostalgia of childhood, even if the memory is imperfect. Or, the trip inspires a feeling of something pure and authentic although we didn’t experience farm life firsthand growing up. None of this commentary is meant to suggest that visiting and buying at the farmers market or direct from the farmer isn’t worth your while.The best best is to venture to the source. Talk with the farmer, rancher, winemaker, brewer, and baker to learn, taste, and touch the food, wine, and farm-produced goods. Before recollection, there must be the collection of experience.


Expedition of Thirst: Exploring Wineries, Breweries, and Distilleries in Central Kansas and Missouri (University Press of Kansas) will be published in fall of 2017. This series of posts documents stories and observations of the people and places I encounter during my research and travels that won’t necessarily be included in the travel guidebook, due to its size and format.