By Roger McKinney
rmckinney@joplinglobe.com
SCAMMON, Kan. — Southeast Kansas is well-represented among the 24 finalists for the Eight Wonders of Kansas Cuisine contest. The area has two entries: Josie’s Ristorante in Scammon and the many Crawford County fried chicken restaurants.
The contest is a project of the Kansas Sampler Foundation.
“I was excited,” Josie’s owner Sally Saporito said after learning that her restaurant had been named a finalist. “I couldn’t believe it, really. It was just really a neat honor.”
The promotional entry describes the restaurant this way: “Josie’s Ristorante has a reputation as having the best Italian food in Southeast Kansas, using recipes that grandmother Josie brought over from Italy in 1904.”
Saporito and her late husband, Michael Saporito, opened the restaurant in 1986. It was named for Michael Saporito’s mother, from whom the recipes came.
As for the other area finalist, the entry says: “Crawford County Fried Chicken consists of six fried chicken restaurants and as a group have made Crawford County legendary for fried chicken dating back to the 1930s.”
The restaurants are Chicken Annie’s Original, rural Pittsburg; Chicken Mary’s, rural Pittsburg; Gebhardt’s Chicken and Dinners, Mulberry; Barto’s Idle Hour, Frontenac; Chicken Annie’s Girard, in Girard; and Pichler’s Chicken Annie’s, south of Pittsburg.
Saporito said the chicken restaurants also are deserving.
“They’re very good,” she said. “It will be interesting. I think it’s kind of neat for all of us.”
Saporito didn’t discuss her chances of being named among the top eight, but she said she has been urging customers to vote. She said she placed 25 ballots in the restaurant on one recent night, and they were gone before the restaurant closed.
“If people vote, that’s the key,” Saporito said. “There are restaurants on the list in Wichita and Topeka and Lawrence. We have some stiff competition.”
People may vote online for their top eight choices at www.8wonders.org. People may vote three times from one e-mail address, or one time by paper ballot available at the finalists’ locations. Voting is open to anyone and is not restricted to Kansas residents. Voting ends at midnight June 15. The eight winners will be announced a few days later.
Other finalists include the Brookville Hotel, in Abilene; the Grand Central Hotel, in Cottonwood Falls; and Pho Hoa, in Garden City.
