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Sep 11
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Pop-up phenomenon: Here this week, gone the next
By Sarah Gish, The Kansas City Star – Mon, Aug. 22, 2011
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Port Fonda — a cross between a food truck and a mobile restaurant — has since become one of the city’s hottest foodie destinations. On Friday and Saturday nights, Ryan parks it in a lot at 20th and Main streets and starts selling $3 tacos out the window. The chef also accepts reservations from customers who want to dine at the cozy table inside Port Fonda. A four-course meal for six people costs $250.
“We started joking when we opened, telling people this is the hardest table to get in Kansas City,” Ryan says. Now that might be true: Reservations are booked through September, and Ryan won’t even accept reservations for October until Sept. 1.
Port Fonda embodies planned spontaneity: It’s parked at the same location every Friday and Saturday, but because it’s a food truck, eating there feels spur-of-the-moment.
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Port Fonda Food Truck
Written By: Around the Block – June 05, 2011
Wow. What a treat. I stopped by the Port Fonda food truck last Saturday afternoon to sample chef/owner Patrick Ryan’s Mexican fare, cooked to order at the truck’s stove. I had been reading for months about Ryan’s project, a retrofitted airstream trailer. And this is not any old trailer. The interior is wrapped with gorgeous wood and has a chef’s table to match (more on that below.)
The truck is only open on weekend nights, with the exception of Saturday afternoons when you can usually find Port Fonda in the Rieger Hotel Exchange and Grill parking lot for about a 14 hour stretch. During the day the menu is limited to a few items, but when evening comes another handful of offerings take shape in the kitchen, ranging from tacos to tortas (Mexican sandwiches.) With our ever-increasing reliance on social media, the best way to discover where the truck will be parked and what will be on the menu is to follow Port Fonda on Facebook or Twitter.
I had the great fortune of going to Port Fonda on a day when they were serving chilaquiles– tortillas layered with a tomatillo/habanero sauce and chorizo verde, and topped with a fried egg. I’m a big fan of Frontera Grill in Chicago, and when I heard Ryan used to work there, I knew this was going to be good. Even with high expectations, it blew me away. I haven’t been this excited about a dish since I first had a pizza at Pizza Bella and dreamt about it that night.
Ryan nailed the salsa. It sang with the roasted flavor of the chiles and had a marvelous kick to it. The tortillas had been softened by the sauce but weren’t soggy, as tends to happen if the dish is allowed to cook too long. And the egg was perfectly cooked, its runny yolk melding with the other ingredients to complete the happiness in my mouth. The pozole was also authentically prepared. Red chile base, chunks of hominy, topped with radish and lime. A hearty and warm soup for a chilly, dreary day.
I wanted to try a taco and the only one they were serving that day had a tripe filling. For those unfamiliar with tripe, it’s part of a cow’s or pig’s stomach and is the main ingredient in a traditional Mexican soup called Menudo. Not a fan of Menudo, I was not overly enthused, but I ordered it anyway. It came in crisp strips and had I not been acutely aware of what I was eating, I may have mistaken it for meat. It was simply garnished, as are most street tacos, with pickled onions and just a touch of sauce. Not my favorite taco ever, but worth sampling.
Within the truck is a cozy table for 6, with a U-shaped banquette. The dining room (known as el comedor) is available by reservation only on weekend nights. Ryan is offering a 3 course meal centered around a pork shoulder and served with all the fixings to roll up in tortillas. I’m excited for that experience– based on my initial visit to Port Fonda, it should be a blast.
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Also see: Port Fonda, KC Magazine, Eldo Recommends, Yelp, Fonda History
More Updates: Patrick Ryan is ready to get rolling with Port Fonda in Westport (June 18, 2012)
Mexican restaurant Port Fonda now has a home in Westport (June 18, 2012)
Port Fonda Restaurant Set to Open Tuesday, June 26 (June 18, 2012)
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Sep 11
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Fondas celebrate 50th wedding anniversary
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Bruce and Yoshiko Fonda of Radcliff will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary June 1, 2011. They were married June 1, 1961, in Okinawa. Mr. Fonda is a retired Sgt. Maj. from the U.S. Army and retired from service as a loan officer at Fort Knox Federal Credit Union. Mrs. Fonda is very active in a bowling league and Soka Gakai International. They have two children, 13 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Mr. and Mrs. Fonda then
Mr. and Mrs. Fonda now
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Sep 11
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Pebble Beach war pilot recalls surviving missions
By DENNIS TAYLOR, Herald Staff Writer, Posted: 09/05/2011
After flying his 50th bombing mission over Europe, Bill Fonda of the United States Army Air Force was rotated back to the U.S. to a base in Greenville, S.C. On the day he got those orders, he briefly considered asking for a transfer to a fighter plane squadron.
“I had always wanted to fly fighters, and if I had asked, they might have given me the transfer,” says Fonda, now 91 and living in Pebble Beach. “But I didn’t ask, and they didn’t offer, so I came home.
“I’ve always wondered how my life might have turned out if I had pursued that option,” Fonda muses. “I might not have married the woman I married, might not have had the children and grandchildren I have. My whole life might have been very different — assuming I had survived.”
His survival, he believes, is the reason he was awarded the Silver Star, for “gallantry in action against the enemy,” along with nine other military medals, for his service in the European Theater during World War II.
“It’s not always true — there are exceptions — but my feeling about medals is that you get them for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and managing to survive,” he says.
Read the complete story in The Herald’s print or e-edition of Sept. 4
(If anyone has the text of the full article, or a photo, please forward to webmaster@fonda.org)
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Sep 11
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Floodwaters can’t stop Fonda Fair
Spirited effort to clear damage preserves 170-year-old tradition
By Carol DeMare, Staff Writer – Friday, September 2, 2011
FONDA — For 170 years, the Fonda Fair has gone on as scheduled, attracting those from the surrounding farm communities as well as outsiders who come for the food, the rides, the entertainment and even the monster trucks. This year, Tropical Storm Irene and the Mohawk River got in the way, delaying the opening by two days. But even the onslaught of floodwaters couldn’t make this popular fair a wash-out. Fair-goers and exhibitors alike — all of them fair lovers, of course — came to the rescue. They cleaned the 60-plus acres of the Montgomery County fairgrounds over more than two days, doing what amounted to grunt work.
On Thursday, as he drove around the property in a golf cart, past the numerous amusement park rides, the cotton candy stands, the barns with the livestock and horses, the junk cars that the monster trucks would go to work on, the huge arena where Kellie Pickler will perform Saturday night, no one could be prouder of how it all came together than fair president Richard Kennedy. Officially, the gates opened Thursday at 5 p.m., and the fair will run through Monday. The seven-day event originally was scheduled to open Tuesday.
Kendall Kennedy of Fort Plain, 11, stays with her holstein Tish in the 4-H Cattle barn at the Montgomery County Agricultural Society's Fonda Fair just a few hours before the 5 pm start of the annual fair on Thursday Sept. 1, 2011, in Fonda, NY. (Philip Kamrass / Times Union)
This year’s fair theme is “American Made, American Pride,” Kennedy said. “And the pride is showing through,” added the owner of a horse and dairy farm in Fort Plain. Hundreds of volunteers, some from as far as Lake George, converged on the fairgrounds Tuesday morning.
The Mohawk runs alongside the fairgrounds and Fonda Speedway, which are adjacent to each other — actually, the fairgrounds owns the speedway and leases it out. On Sunday, the river, fueled by water from the Schoharie Creek, overflowed its banks and Kennedy was taken in a sheriff’s boat to assess the damage. That was at 7 a.m. and by noon that day, the water was down by 2 feet.
As soon as the locks opened, the water dramatically receded and by Tuesday morning, it was 90 percent dry, Kennedy said. The Cook family of Bleecker, Fulton County, had smiles Thursday as they walked around a clean fairgrounds, not far from their stables where they will show eight of their 12 horses from their “hobby farm.” Ron “Chip” Cook, 44, and his wife, Becky, 41, along with children David, 11 and Bethany, 18, were all involved in the cleanup. Three other daughters, Abigail, 15, Moriah, 14, and Sarah, 12, also deserve credit, their mother said.
Everyone shoveled out stalls, pressure-washed the walls and disinfected everything, the parents said. The kids — all are members of the 4-H — cleaned and painted the poultry barn where they will exhibit their rabbits. “This has been our family vacation for years,” the father said. “We look forward to it.” “It’s an agricultural fair,” he said. “It’s all family down here, not blood-related but family.” In years past, some 70,000 to 80,000 turned out over the seven days of the fair, Kennedy said.
The flood ruined equipment in the four concession stands at the speedway, concession manager Randy Yurkewecz said. At 6 foot 2, he was removing food from freezers as the water rose to his chest and he was told to get out. The 49-year-old Yurkewecz said a flood in 2006 also destroyed equipment in the concession stands, but the track still stands, and the resilience of the speedway workers will come through again. There will be races Sept. 17 and the 24, Yurkewecz said.
Kennedy, who also is a territory manager/equine nutritional consultant for Cargill Animal Nutrition, is in his 11th year on the fair’s board and sixth year as president. He was around for the 2006 flood as well. This time, he told the eight to 10 superintendents of the fair to get the word out a massive cleanup would begin at 8 a.m. Tuesday and he needed volunteers. The local newspapers and radio stations also put out the word.
By 8 a.m. 100 to 150 volunteers had showed up, including the Mohawk Fire Department with a pumper truck and high-pressure wash for the buildings. “It took them 12 hours and it would have taken us two weeks,” Kennedy said. “The volunteers shoveled and swept and carried tables and chairs out of buildings.”
Students showed up to work, he said, including the great-grandchildren of Mike Scott, who was a fair director and dairy farm and the legend for whom Scott Hall is named. Eileen Douglas, 68, a dairy farmer from Fort Plain organized the clean-up and then the setting up of exhibits at the Agricultural Awareness Building. Her 12-year-old granddaughter Alexis Douglas was helping set up Thursday.
“I sincerely believe the public needs to know where their food comes from … and that it’s safe,” said Douglas, who’s been exhibiting at the fair for 40 years. “Agriculture puts the roof over your head, the food on your table and the clothing on your back.” Her daughter, Sandy Douglas, 48, also of Fort Plain, helped with the cleaning. As soon as Route 5S was open for travel, “we were here,” she said. Her first reaction to the mess left by the flood waters was, “It was overwhelming.”
Reach Carol DeMare at 454-5431 or cdemare@timesunion.com
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Sep 11
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Student finds his soundtrack to success
The past few weeks of Grant Fonda’s life would not make for a very stirring motion picture.
Although Fonda participated in an international contest that tested his skill and resolve, there was no final scene of victory, only quiet affirmations. No triumphant hoisting of a trophy over his weary head, only subtler moments to be cherished and worthwhile lessons to be tucked away for a future date.
University of Missouri graduate student Grant Fonda recently traveled to Poland to compete in the Transatlantyk Instant Composition Contest.
The graduate student at the University of Missouri School of Music traveled to Poland earlier this month to compete in the Transatlantyk Instant Composition Contest, a compositional pressure cooker that tested his ability to write emotive music for motion pictures. Although Fonda did not achieve a level of glory worthy of having his own tale captured on celluloid, he came home with a better understanding of what it means to be part of the film industry.
Fonda applied to the competition — founded by Oscar-winning composer Jan Kaczmarek (“Finding Neverland”) — almost as an afterthought, engaging the process between finishing a commission and heading to his native California for vacation. In addition to submitting previously composed works, he was required to score two short film clips that were distinct but equally daunting. The first, a climactic scene from the 2009 film “Get Low,” included a stirring soliloquy from Oscar winner Robert Duvall; it was an “intense” and “delicate” moment with dialogue that needed to be preserved, not drowned out, he said. The second was from a “bizarre” French cartoon in which a young girl, among other things, falls into a bowl of alphabet soup and is attacked by zombies.
For the Duvall clip, he evoked themes of mystery and absolution through the use of unresolved dissonances, inverted chords and pedal tones; Fonda balanced “menacing” and “childlike” themes for the latter. For his work, he was selected as one of 30 participants, which meant trekking to Poland, watching a short film, and composing and performing an accompaniment before a panel of American and Polish judges on the spot.
Fonda was shown a five-plus-minute piece called “Walking,” produced by a Canadian travel commission decades ago; the work was bizarre and psychedelic, with no discernible plot or dialogue, he said. Immediately upon leaving the screening room, he sat at the piano and performed his level best. His strategy: attach a winning theme to the film’s central character and balance out its more extreme elements with a relatively accessible, melodic score. Ultimately, Fonda did not take his place among the 10 finalists. He received praise from the American panelists but was told the European judges wished he’d taken more risks; other contestants incorporated elements of prepared piano or relied on a more serial, clustered set of tones.
Although Fonda did not advance in the competition, his compositional sensibilities were advanced by encouraging, “invaluable” interactions with the likes of composers Christopher Young (“Spider-Man 3,” “The Grudge”), George S. Clinton (the “Austin Powers” films), Bruno Louchouarn (“Total Recall”) and producer Roy Conli (“Tangled,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”); these professionals offered lessons on life and art in master classes and specific feedback in personal conversations.
Among the comments Fonda received were praiseworthy pronouncements on his ability to convey mood and character and his capacity to musically captain viewers through a spectrum of emotions in a short period of time. Clinton remarked on his remarkable capacity for suggesting and creating color through orchestration. Additionally, he was told he had a fitting temperament for composition and was encouraged to stand up for his abilities, even while avoiding walking on others in collaboration. Ultimately, he was deeply encouraged by Young’s comments on the relationship between a composer’s maturity and the potency of his or her music.
“He said, ‘You’re not going to be able to evoke the right emotion for a romantic scene if you’ve never been married,’ ” Fonda recalled. “ ‘You’re not going to be able to evoke the right emotion for a funeral if you’ve never witnessed somebody close to you die.’ He said there’s just a certain advantage that being older in the industry has than being younger. … All this time I had been thinking,” as someone who’s closer to 30 than 20, “I’d missed my stride.”
Fonda said he’s likely to reapply next year — this year’s contest might not have provided a feel-good movie ending, but, as he exercises his talent and applies messages received an ocean away, there’s little doubt a sequel is in the works.
Reach Aarik Danielsen at 573-815-1731 or e-mail ajdanielsen@columbiatribune.com.
Copyright 2011 Columbia Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
This article was published on page C2 of the Sunday, August 28, 2011 edition of The Columbia Daily Tribune.