Dave, A review suggestion: Newman's Deli in the Liquor Barn at 36th Street and Indian School. They have a screamin' deal from like 11 to 2--for $1.95 you get a good deli sandwich on your choice of bread or roll, a little side salad and a deli pickle. Can't beat the beverage selection!
Beth in Production
Even though spring training is about totally flushed by now, the game remains with me a chief topic of conversation. The best conversation I've had came recently when wildman and official Cap'n Dave field correspondent Bob Hemmerle called. Bob and I have been having an ongoing dialogue about the meaning of life for about a year, starting when he phoned out of the blue just to talk baseball.
Normally, Hemmerle devotes his month of March entirely to attending ball games. Devotion, in this case, is the ideal word. I'd been wondering how Bob was making it this year when he called. This happened on March 8 or 9, just when things were looking pretty bleak. I didn't take notes or anything, so I'm paraphrasing heavily here.
"Hey," I said.
"I almost got arrested last Sunday," he said. Bob had hopped the fence at Scottsdale Stadium, his home park for reasons of being a Giants fanatic. The place was empty, of course. The first thing Bob did was take a big lead off first. After diving back into the bag a couple of times, Bob stole second and third, finishing each run with a big slide. Then he went over to sit in the dugout. "I felt like crying," he said.
After a few minutes he went to his usual game-day spot, a section of low fence out along the left foul line. He had been leaning there for a few minutes when the cops showed up. Bob says they let him go. But Bob's big news during the call was a paranormal sensation his mom had had concerning the resolution of baseball's labor dispute. Bob's mom dreamed that some kind of settlement would occur in time for spring games to start about March 15. Or maybe the settlement would be reached on the fifteenth, I don't remember. Bob questioned his mom carefully about this premonition. "You got a gut on it, Mom?" he asked. "Yes," Bob's mom answered. "I got a gut."
As for the letter at the top of this column, let me explain. Last week I started a new series devoted entirely to joint suggestions offered up by my co-workers here at Pravda. Last week we went to the outstanding Omega Burger at the prompting of Brian in Classified. This week we went to Newman's Deli, which proved to be yet another outstanding tip, offered up by Beth in Production.
More and more I'm convinced that the hippest people on this paper work with X-acto? knives or telephone headsets.
It turns out that there are Newman's Rush Street Delis in several of the Liquor Barn locations around town. Unless you go to Liquor Barn (and I have a soft spot for any retail business that establishes its image with consumers by using the word "Barn" in its name), you'd never know sandwiches were available. In the Barn we visited, the deli is a classic counter setup about midway back in the big room. There was only one long table, so my guess is they do mostly carryout.
Me and my pal Harvey ordered a huge amount of food, including two sandwiches and four small salads, plus sodas. Harvey had one of the theme sandwiches, a Cubbies Combo, essentially a turkey sandwich with cheese ($2.95), and I had a corned beef/pastrami combo ($3.25). Our sides included German potato salad, slaw, a macaroni salad and something else. "I wish I had ordered what you got," Harvey almost immediately said. His sandwich looked fine to me, but I trust his judgment. My sandwich was your basic cold-cut sandwich on bread with cheese. The price was right, however, and selecting a sandwich off the daily-specials board would have made it even more so. The sides were all fine. The pickle was good, too.
Brian was right about the Omega. Beth was right about Newman's. Bob's mom's gut was very close to being right on the baseball thing. Will editorial department administrator Heidi Ewart be right about Gus' Chicago-Style Hot Dogs? Tune in next week and see.
Till we eat again . . . What's eating you? Write to Cap'n Dave and tell him where to go. Send your napkin notes to: Cap'n Dave, New Times, P.O. Box 2510, Phoenix, AZ 85002.
