Food & Drink

So many events, so little time, my party companion laments, digging through the stacks of announcements crowding my desk. It’s April again, and it seems that everywhere we turn, there’s another tempting fund raiser, festival or feast demanding our attention. The Valley’s reservations-required dining season is drawing to a close,…

The Mad Hatter must have organized the menu and set the table for the First International Edible Book High Tea. The “tea” — and I use the term quite loosely — was held during one of Tempe’s patience-trying street fairs on Changing Hands Bookstore’s back patio during intermittent rain showers…

Sometimes it is so simple to bash chain restaurants, and admittedly, it can be fun. They’re behemoths with mass-feeding troughs. They’re invisible, out-of-state corporations more concerned with the bottom line than with creative cuisine. They bombard us with maddening commercials about “baby back, baby back, baby back ribs.” But it’s…

Back in 1958, when most high school guys were dreaming about cruising Camelback in a cool, two-tone Chevy, Gary Schiller was probably thinking about sausages. That’s because at age 13, he began working after school as a Boy Friday at Schreiner’s Fine Sausages, a Phoenix landmark on Seventh Street. Established…

Why do people love to tell me about their food-provoked illnesses? Perhaps they’re concerned for my occupational safety. More likely it’s similar to that perverse urge we all have to tell our newly pregnant friend about a woman who gave birth to a three-headed sock puppet. Either way, though I…

Never has one cocktail inspired so many people to produce so many memorably bad quotes (not to mention urban myths). I’m talking about the martini, of course. You know, quotes like those slung around by Barnaby Conrad III, author of The Martini: An Illustrated History of an American Classic. In…

Pulsating salsa tunes blare from a boom box as you walk into K-Rico Cafe & Bakery. The small eatery is plopped at the end of a funky strip mall at Glendale and 12th Street, two doors down from The Empire of Toys Collectibles and Comics. Filled with sweet and garlicky…

You’re enjoying a quiet, romantic evening at your favorite restaurant. It’s just the two of you, gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes. But is it? Increasingly, it may be fine to nibble on your appetizer, but not on your date’s ear — not unless you want to provide entertainment for…

The toasty sweet aroma of baking bread greets customers at the door of the WILLO Baking Company. Even after the baking is done, the kitchen air clings to that scent the way perfume from a forgiving violet clings to the heel that crushed it. The neat rows of stacked loaves,…

We’re stretched out under the stars. Scattered around us are the remains of our late-night feast, darkened by the swell of our full tummies. He raises his drink to mine, glasses clink, the music soars, and it occurs to me that this little life o’ mine is pretty darn good…

It sounded like such a wonderful evening. Rubbing elbows with 100 dedicated Valley culinarians at an “Out of House” event benefiting the James Beard Foundation. Mingling with some of the Valley’s most accomplished chefs. Being feted with cutting-edge food and wines while learning about what’s hot in dinner parties today…

The first edition of The Oxford Companion to Wine devotes four pathetic little lines out of its 1,088 pages to the wines of Arizona. This definitive reference for the neophyte tippler or the oenophile in the know covers the wines of the world from scientific, historic and artistic perspectives. “Arizona,…

If you’ve ever been to a good farmers market, you know there’s not one in Phoenix. Consider the Hollywood Farmers Market in Los Angeles. Four blocks long and two blocks wide, it is an eater’s dream come true. Fresh cheese, all sorts of bakers and baked goods, freshly cut flowers,…

It was probably over 100 degrees in the shade. In fact, there wasn’t much shade. The cook was making sourdough biscuits and boiled salt pork. If he had time, he might make some pinto beans. For dessert, he was planning to make a pie with dried apples. He did all…