Tanya Tandoc

If you have lived in Wichita for longer than a year and haven’t made the trip to Harry’s Uptown Bar & Grill, you are missing out on some of the best atmosphere in town.

This is the time of the year when my thoughts turn to gardening.

It’s all about what I want to eat… not so much about the actual work of planting, weeding, tending and harvest. I pore over seed catalogs, plan, order and fantasize. It’s really mainly about the fantasizing. I am definitely not thinking about weeding when I place my orders!

I am delighted that Chef Miguel Larcher, of the now closed vegan restaurant D’Sozo’, has found a new location and is back to cooking amazing, interesting vegan cuisine.

His new place, the Garden Grill Café, is located inside the cool Occidental building downtown. The restaurant is a little hard to find, but just walk in the front door and enter, and you will find yourself in a lovely room, with gorgeous high ceilings and a skylight.

I will admit that I have a complicated relationship with food television. To me, it’s like a lover I broke up with, then hated, then slowly began to tolerate again, then just forgot about.

I love smoked meat, and Wichita has some of the finest pitmasters (and mistresses) around. My husband discovered Official Bar-B-Que a few months ago, while walking our ancient pug down the block.

Wichita has a relatively new fun breakfast and lunch spot, the Doo-Dah Diner, just east of the on-ramp to Kellogg, between Broadway and Market.

If you don’t already know about The Artichoke, at 811 North Broadway in Wichita, you are missing out.

My plan for today was to talk about leftovers and what to do with them, but as I sat in my office Wednesday, typing and watching snow fall beautifully onto our patio, I changed my mind.

I took my mangled friend Teri to Fizz Burgers and Bottles out at 37th and Rock Road before her orthopedic appointment the other day, to cheer her up and to eat something good.

I devour books. When I find one I love I’ll read it cover to cover, as fast as I can, and all other activities pale in comparison. I have a particular passion for food essays that started when I was a little girl.