Fusion co-owner Jennifer Long is apologizing that the restaurant has run out of field greens. Would romaine be okay in my melon salad, she wonders? Absolutely, I assure her. By the way, she adds, the menu description of “melon” salad is kind of misleading, too, seeing as there’s no melon…
I’m in mourning. My favorite Mexican restaurant in the world has closed. It blew up, actually. Earlier this month, Costa Brava was flattened by a gas explosion. So what if the cafe is an almost five-hour drive away, in Rocky Point, Mexico? I’ve been known to make the journey for…
There’s no question why my mom and I have decided to eat at the new Franco’s Italian Caffe tonight. We can pretend it’s convenience — the restaurant is located in the Esplanade, arguably the center of the Valley, and other members of our dinner party are driving in from different…
I’m feeling like that guy in Mystic Pizza, the cozy Julia Roberts movie from 1988. Remember him? He played “The Everyday Gourmet,” a TV restaurant critic who traveled to Mystic, Connecticut, just for a bite of Mystic Pizza pie. He was endearingly pompous when he arrived, making high theater of…
The war has stimulated some interesting conversation in my group. As my friends and I reflect on what’s been unfolding on our television sets, one question keeps coming up: “What do people in Iraq eat?” Hey, it’s not just my food obsession. An internationally award-winning photojournalist friend of mine just…
No, I haven’t seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The premise rankles my sensibilities way too much (really, a chick is dried up and desperate because she isn’t married by 30?). Even though the public at large seems to love it, I have to keep in mind that this is…
The hook was a good one: the opportunity to hang out with a dozen of the nation’s favorite celebrity chefs and purchase autographed copies of their cookbooks. Yet really, the only truly big name in attendance at the recent Scottsdale League of Arts fund raiser was Jeremiah Tower, chef/owner of…
The best place to eat in all of Arizona is a tiny spot hidden away in Paradise Valley. It’s got limited seating: just one formal table, with eight chairs. If need be, overflow can fit more casually at a three-chair glass-topped nook table, or, in a real pinch, four diners…
Last week, the Cactus League got off to a soggy start, and so did my efforts to find decent eats near one of the meccas of springtime desert baseball, the Peoria Sports Complex. The results, you’ll know if you’ve been paying attention, were disappointing: Despite a superabundance of eateries near…
For the first time in my life, I’m wishing that I adored baseball. Specifically, baseball as played by two teams: the San Diego Padres and the Seattle Mariners. Because then I could be as excited as the rest of the world seems to be over the new, improved northwest Valley,…
The morons who built my backyard fire pit had everything figured out to the last detail, except for one thing. They forgot that fire – a critical component of any fire pit, I would think – is hot. The first time I used the contraption, it collapsed. The weak concrete…
Imagine chef Vincent Guerithault as cafeteria server, ladle in hand. Or Christopher Gross behind the counter at a 400-seat hotel coffee shop, cranking out breakfast, lunch and dinner in a never-ending blur. Or picture Eddie Matney’s uniquely eccentric cooking style repackaged for vending machines across the nation. It just doesn’t…
Too many people I’ve met wrinkle their noses at the prospect of joining me for a Vietnamese meal. I can’t get them to seek out delicacies like pho bo vien, a magical masterpiece of soup that’s rich and complex with slender rice noodles, beef meatballs, bean sprouts and a flurry…
I remember with remarkable clarity the first time I realized that fish wasn’t just something you ate breaded, deep-fried and dipped in tartar sauce. Oh, I’d seen real seafood, and I was suspicious. That stuff that grown-ups ate was weird, flat and slimy, and it smelled like old sweat. The…
Sometimes I think I’ll go nuts if I’m faced with another plate of ho-hum restaurant chicken-and-vegetables, steak-and-potatoes, or fish-and-pasta. So the opportunity to try something new – and not just a new restaurant, but a new style of cooking altogether – has me champing at the bit. I can’t wait…
Silvana Salcido Esparza must know what it’s like to be loved. Since opening her Barrio Café last summer, she’s been positively drowning in adulation. The fickle dining public has embraced the chef in such passion, lines of would-be diners snake down the bistro’s sidewalk, thanks to a “no reservations” policy…
If I’d blinked, I wouldn’t have noticed it. But there, tucked in a nameless Fry’s shopping center in a particularly anonymous-looking part of bland, sprawling Mesa, lay a hidden jewel: a Peruvian restaurant. My new game had paid off. I was trying a new experiment in driving. I decided that,…
It’s a few minutes past the noon hour, and my hot dog lies limp and ruined, a wizened gray tube of half-eaten meat on a soggy heap of celery-salt-dusted bun. Around it sprawls a litter of neon green relish, bits of slippery pickle, sliced tomato and sports peppers. To the…
Most days, it seems, there’s not much in life I’m sure of. But there’s no doubt in my mind now that this is the best tortilla soup I’ve ever had. Of the countless versions I’ve sampled over the ages, there have been chicken-stock broths that almost brought me to my…
I’ve got an idea for a fail-proof, get-rich-quick scheme. First, eat out. Do it a lot, and be sure to finish everything on your plate. Next, go home and park it on the couch, exercising only your fingers for the remote control. Soon, you’ll turn into a blubbery tub, get…
After days of eating sleep-inducing Thanksgiving turkey, I’m ready for a jolt to my taste buds. And Bradley and I are absolutely starving. After spending the day fastening a new, remarkably heavy metal roof to my barn, struggling in the chill and gusting winds of a wintry Sunday, we’ve worked…
