by Robrt L. Pela I’m glad this one still has its (tattered) dust jacket, otherwise I’d have no idea why Ruth Ellen Church is the author of Mary Meade’s Magic Recipes for the Electric Blender. Turns out, according to this book’s flap copy, that Church is Meade, although there’s no…
By Michele Laudig The last couple of weeks have been pretty brutal — I can only hope that the monsoon season will bring us a break from the extreme heat. In the meantime, there’s at least a little relief, in the form of two new gelato shops that have recently…
By Wynter Holden Bartender Scott Pierce (a.k.a Pandora) is a quirky, outspoken and totally flaming queen who isn’t afraid to let it all hang out. He loves to wear tight leather corsets, although he switches to muumuus in the hot summer. He digs beehive hairdos. And he wants to open…
By Michele Laudig If you’ve ever seen the kooky headlines I come up with for my restaurant reviews, you know I appreciate a little wordplay once in awhile. So I’m loving the name of Local First Arizona’s annual celebration of groovy local businesses: Independents Week, which runs June 30 through…
By Jay Bennett Is there a restaurant you love so much that you’d go there four times a week? Me neither. I live four blocks from La Grande Orange and love its pizzas and salads like nobody’s business, but still, I eat them, like, twice a month, tops. The other…
Photo credit: TracyKreck.com By Michele Laudig Friday night’s supposed to be the big night out at the end of the work week, but half the time I feel so frazzled I’d rather be a couch potato, snarf down a pizza, and crack open a bottle of Three Buck Chuck. Chef…
By Jonathan McNamara Even the great Hindu sage Valmiki surely could not have predicted that when he penned life into Hanuman, the monkey god in the Hindu epic The Ramayana, the character would end up on a bottle of beer. Yet that’s exactly what seems to have happened as an…
By Wynter Holden The rule in my house is that the person with the crappiest day gets to make the decision about what to do that evening. My roommate “A” finalized a bad breakup last Thursday, so dinner was definitely her call. My fingers were crossed for something healthy, and…
Call me a shopaholic. I didn’t realize I had a thing for grocery stores until I sat down to write this column, reflecting on how strolling the aisles of brightly lit supermarkets has been such a relaxing pastime over the years. As a kid, I had fun shopping with my…
Fuzzy photo; yummy shrimp by Sarah Fenske It’d been miserably hot and I felt like my brain was fried. I needed a pick-me-up. So of course I chose Zest. This stand-alone restaurant, at 16th Street and Indian School, is practically my favorite place in all of Phoenix. I love those…
By Michele Laudig The latest installment of Meal Ticket — New Times’ weekly dining newsletter, out tomorrow — highlights Cuban flavors around town, where to go for a lavish five-course meal, and which local restaurants are offering special deals on dinner and wine. If you haven’t signed up for Meal…
By Wynter Holden While hunting for rum raisin ice pops (yum!) in the nearest Food City today, I stumbled on something in the spice aisle that made me raise an eyebrow. Two, actually. There in the loose tea section was a package of small flowers and leaves labeled “Arnica -…
by Amy Silverman I’m going to be brutally honest here. If they’d given the AIMS test when I was in school, that’s where I’d be today — in school. And if Maricopa County’s restaurant inspectors came to my own kitchen, I’d fail that test, too. But I’m damn glad we’ve…
By Michele Laudig Ah, the perks of summer in AZ. Order three courses off of Bourbon Steak’s regular menu, and I promise you won’t come in at under $55 a person. But for that price, you can get a three-course tasting menu at the swanky Fairmont Scottsdale steakhouse — as…
By Megan Irwin The Green “Soynami” and peanut tofu = my favorite summer snack. By now, faithful readers should know plenty about Green, the Valley’s best (and, um, only) place to get vegan comfort food. I’ve been trying to write about less well known veggie-friendly restaurants, but I have to…
By Wynter Holden Recently, a boba-loving girlfriend recommended the durian shake at Lee’s Sandwiches in Chandler. Great, I thought, but what the heck is a durian? I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. The durian is a prickly fruit that’s native to Southeast Asia and has a rather…
By Paul Rubin We didn’t get three steps inside James Porter’s wonderful Tapino Kitchen Wine Bar last Thursday night when a woman asked, “Are you slow foodies, or just foodies?” Since I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, I responded, “I guess you could say I’m a hungry.” The occasion was Tapino’s…
By Michele Laudig Oregano’s seems to draw a crowd at even the most unlikely times of day — I don’t think I’ve ever been to one without at least a little bit of a wait. a home-grown Arizona restaurant chain with eight locations around the state and three more in…
By Steve Jansen One of my favorite drives in town, which I enjoyed yesterday afternoon, is Main Street Mesa. Despite gentrification and the encroachment of light rail, the old drag’s retro glory still remains intact. Many of the ‘60s era roadside motels are open for business. There’s the diveiest dive…
by Robrt L. Pela A lot of my favorite kitchen stuff came from my mother. Mom appears never to have purchased a single kitchen item herself; point to any implement specific to food prep in her kitchen, and she’ll tell you who gave it to her as wedding or bridal…
By Jonathan McNamara As the headline suggests, you’ve just stumbled into a new Chow Bella segment focused on the gods’ proof that they want us to be happy: beer. Keep checking back each week for reviews of the sudsy stuff. This week’s brew: Oak Creek Brewing Co.’s Nut Brown Ale…
by Robrt L. Pela What is it about Fifties cookbooks and the word “Fluff,” anyway? You can open practically any cookbook published during the middle of the last century and find a half-dozen recipes with the words “Fluffy” or “Fluff” in their titles. My favorite is Fried Cornmeal Fluff, which…
