I can't blame the bands that have skipped town or gone into hibernation for the summer. Hell, I have to carry a bottle of water with me just to drive down the block, and that's with the air-conditioning blasting. In the local lexicon, I suppose that makes me a pussy...
This weekend's Cinco de Mayo Phoenix Festival is set to celebrate Mexico's 1862 Battle of Puebla victory in a big way: by piling up the world's largest plate of nachos. Some 200,000 revelers are expected at the three-day fiesta, where the chips will be stacked so high that the Guinness...
Thursday, May 29 Many celebrities owe their success to the early-'90s TV variety show In Living Color: the Wayans brothers, Jim Carrey, David Alan Grier, Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Lopez. Tommy Davidson can also include himself in that list, having launched to stardom as one of the comedy hit's original...
4/25-4/27 One of the more interesting aspects of this particular planet's people is the way we compartmentalize ourselves into identifiable groups. Nations are formed; flags are waved; and beliefs, customs and practices become identifiable over time as part of individual cultures. The word "culture" also can mean the enlightenment and...
People in different parts of the world take pride in their local specialties, especially if they have a high alcohol content. So in the Southwest, with our proximity to Mexico, it's practically patriotic to knock back some mighty fine tequila, which takes its place in the pantheon of world libations...
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...
"Phoenix, MEXICO!"² Lupillo Rivera's shout is swallowed up by a deafening roar from the tightly packed audience in front of him. The singer grins at what he sees. Men in cowboy hats and women wearing tight jeans and halter tops fill Club 602, a large nightspot in west Phoenix and...
THU 2/27 The word "masterpiece" comes up frequently in reference to The Decalogue, written and directed by the acclaimed Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski. Unfortunately for North American audiences, screenings of the 10-part film cycle, loosely based on the Ten Commandments, have been as elusive as the Holy Grail.Now, The Decalogue...
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...
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...
The Spike is no judge. The Spike is only an arbiter, an ambassador, a weapons inspector. But you readers decided to write like a pack of damn dirty apes. A quiet little contest offering small bits of South African gold turned into a major pain in the butt because you...
La Grande OrangeTypically, our farmers’ markets are a collection of locally grown produce, maybe some kettle corn, perhaps some bottled salsas and honey lined up on tables under a tent in the park. We’ve usually got to plan our weekend around them, since they’re open intermittent Saturdays, depending on the weather. Now we’ve got La Grande Orange, […]
La Grande OrangeTypically, our farmers’ markets are a collection of locally grown produce, maybe some kettle corn, perhaps some bottled salsas and honey lined up on tables under a tent in the park. We’ve usually got to plan our weekend around them, since they’re open intermittent Saturdays, depending on the weather. Now we’ve got La Grande Orange, […]
In a converted stand-alone garage in the backyard of a midtown Phoenix home, an artist saunters in to his 20-year retrospective exhibition. The exterior of the garage-cum-gallery is painted eclectically in hundreds of exploding colors by the artist -- an eerily omniscient eyeball, a village of leaning buildings, three-dimensional arrows...
And my dog died, too. For some months I believed, simply enough, that this year was just a bad year, a particular period with much death and cancer. So when my 17-year-old hound dog passed on this winter, it was more than just her time. Missi's demise was one more...
I'm so full of Rosie McCaffrey's beef stew, dunked in great quantities with thick, soft biscotti-like soda bread, that I'm suddenly having a hard time seeing straight. But the waitress assures me that I'm okay; it's just the local phantom playing tricks again. It happened after that last bite of...
The craving for tacos was all-consuming. It was an unpleasant lust. No ordinary taco would suffice — no abomination of greasy ground beef and plastic cheese from Taco Bell, no deep-fried corn tortilla coffin serving as the final resting place of long-past parched steak from Macayo's. These tacos had to...
I'm hoping that they've got my all-time favorite: garlic octopus. I can only pray they serve that other mouthwatering meal, whole fried snapper tumbled over rice, beans and French fries. Surely, shrimp endiablados will be on the menu — no self-respecting restaurant specializing in, and I quote, "seafood selections found...
I've heard of a disturbing movement toward making soul food healthful. There are recipes circulating from a group of Phoenix cooks who are adapting traditional recipes to make them lower in fat and less sweet. These people are crafting mustard greens and black-eyed peas with smoked turkey instead of salt...
Food decorates my refrigerator like international artwork. Tucked on the top shelf is the crock of Maui strawberry jam I discovered at a roadside stand in Hawaii. Next to it sits the hermetically sealed cup of Meiji yogurt that wandered from the breakfast buffet at Tokyo's Imperial Hotel into my...
Screw the Duff -- when Groundskeeper Willie is lookin' to get his swerve on, he's likely to be sipping one of the arse-kickin' brews featured at the second annual Strong Beer & Ale Festival, put on by the Arizona Craft Brewers Guild at Papago Brewing Company in Scottsdale. The libations...
Last September, Roger Clyne organized a gathering at the Sonoita Fairgrounds to celebrate the Festival of the Chubascos -- chubascos being shorter and fiercer Mexican versions of the monsoons that Arizonans contend with every year. The part of the chubascos phenomenon that Clyne really loves is that people in Mexico...
