Tag: Springfield

Cost of Living

November 20, 2025

Are you looking to relocate to a place where the cost of living is relatively low? Have I got a deal for you? Come home to Springfield, Missouri. Yes, I said, come home. I have lived here for most of my life. We moved to Joplin early in our marriage. We came home as soon as we could.

I think that 15.5% below the national average for cost of living would be good. You must understand that for most of us, we consider our wages low. Our average housing cost is 15.7% below the national average. I’m not bragging, I am stating facts from Google’s AI answer to my search. Look for yourself.

We are the third-largest city in Missouri and the largest Springfield among thirty-six in the country. Once again, if you don’t believe me, check the last census numbers. I looked it up myself because people who have never heard of us can’t believe it. Is it my fault you’ve been living under a rock your whole life?

Businessinsider.com put us thirty-two in their top 32 largest midwestern cities. We don’t have to be number one; we just try harder. Our public school system is the largest district in Missouri. We have five high schools, and if you don’t like public schools, we have almost every type of private school you might want.

Our technical college is one of the best, and they have several campuses in our outlying area. We have three major universities and numerous other types of higher private education facilities. Do you want to learn non-traditional skills? We do that as well.

Do you want rural or suburban living? We have a lot of that? Farmland is close, and you can even buy eggs and milk from the producers. There are almost as many small towns and villages close to Springfield as you will find in any city of our size. We have lots of bars and churches when you need to go to a place where everybody knows your name.

What about the opera, stage plays, symphony, and other cultural activities? We have you covered there as well. Our airport is not one of the major international hubs. We have connecting flights to most of the busiest, if you really like long lines.

We have two cab companies, and most of the internet services for moving people and goods. Oh, I forgot to mention shopping. If our mall isn’t large enough for you, there are half a dozen more within a fifty-minute drive of my house. I’ve driven longer than that in St. Louis or Kansas City to get to the good shopping once I got to those cities.

The construction industry seems to be having a heyday with homes and businesses, especially car washes and some of the most popular franchise fast food restaurants. Google your favorite and see if we have one or will next week.

We are the home of Bass Pro Shops, General Council of the Assemblies of God, Convoy of Hope, and Springfield-style Cashew Chicken. You don’t know about our own knock-off offering of a favorite oriental dish? You’ve had nothing like it.

I could go on for hours, but I’ll end with this. If you would like to go to Branson, MO, for the music shows or drive Historic Route 66 from Chicago to LA, we are on your way, and you can check us out the next time you pass through. You’ve probably been within fifty miles of us and never noticed the highway signs. The group Buffalo Springfield came through in the sixties and got their name from one of our signs. We hope to see you soon.

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger

Springfield Style Cashew Kitty

September 17, 2024

Donald Trump had the right idea during the presidential debate. He just got the wrong state; his joke was about forty years late. Thirty-four of our states have cities or townships named Springfield. Some of the most well-known are the capital of Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, and my beloved hometown, Springfield, MO.

For you Yankees, MO is the abbreviation for Missouri. We are the third largest city in our state and the home to the Springfield Cardinals, Bass Pro Shops, The General Council of the Assemblies of God, Brad Pitt, and Springfield-style cashew chicken. We also hold the distinction of being the largest Springfield according to the 2020 U. S. Census. Yes, it’s larger than yours.

Springfield-style cashew chicken was developed at Leong’s Chinese Restaurant in the 1960’s. I first tasted this delicacy around 1970 when I obtained my driver’s license and first job. The second source for our hometown favorite was another oriental restaurant named Gee’s Eastwind formerly located on East Sunshine Street.

This is significant because Leong’s was on West Sunshine and Gee was a brother to the creator of this special dish. You say, “What is so special about your cashew chicken?” Your local Chinese restaurant has cashew chicken on the menu as well. Leong catered to our southern heritage here in southwest Missouri. He breaded and deep-fried the chicken chunks.

We have hundreds of cashew chicken places in the Ozarks. In the 70’s our What-A-Burger stands sold out to the Cheong family and became Cheong’s What-A-Burger. What kept them going was not their hamburgers. It was deep-fried chicken chunks, served on rice, smothered in sauce, cashews, and green onions. You could have that with an egg roll, wonton, or French fries.

Like Baptist churches, we had a cashew chicken stand on more streets than McDonalds. They did not all serve Chinese food or hamburgers. They were Cantonese, Mongolian, Korean, Vietnamese, or even Swedish. I’ll publish my cashew chicken recipe and other stories in future columns.

Leong wanted to entice Ozarkians into his place until he adulterated the traditional mostly healthy cashew chicken into something more popular in southwest Missouri. The chicken is cut into chunks, breaded, deep-fried, and served with fried rice. Some joints will give you plain white rice or noodles if you like that better. The sauce is like oyster sauce and the chicken is covered with it and topped with cashews and chopped green onions.

St. Louis has at least one restaurant I know of that serves our cashew chicken as well as the traditional. In the 80’s and 90’s when I traveled southern Missouri and northwest Arkansas as a sales service specialist, I knew which café’s had Springfield Style Cashew Chicken. Some of them were oriental. Others were not. Grocery store deli departments here serve it in their lunch counters.

Now that you know what Springfield Style Cashew Chicken is, let’s talk about Cashew Kitty. In the 1980’s a joke began circulating in Springfield that everywhere a cashew chicken place opened the number of stray cats disappeared. Other cultures, like Melmaceans, eat cats. They are definitely Alfs (Alien Life Forms). The story took on a life of its own when they associated it with immigrants who also ate dogs.

Our former president must be a friend of the founder of Bass Pro Shops and like George W. Bush before him has come to our fair city and heard the tales that we hillbillies like to entertain with. He just used a non-Republican State to prevent hard feelings with his adopted party.

And he can’t tell a joke. Some of us here still remember when he was a Democrat. Missouri’s seventh Congressional District is so GOP, they wrote Richard Nixon in during the 1976 election. By the way, did you know we Missourians once elected a dead man for US Senator? For those of you who don’t know, I’m from Missouri and you have to show me.

©Copyright 2024 by Charles Kensinger