So let me see if I got ya right:
You enter your kernel source, then run:
make menuconfig
and all that pops up are the 2 choices to load and save, and NO other choices like to configure you kernel? Sounds like you don't have the full kernel. Instead of installing the kernel source, just head over to
www.kernel.org and download the latest, or head over here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxquestions
and download the latest with the LQ patches.
Then just compile from scratch.
Cool