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...
At first glance, the group assembled at the pizza joint in a Mesa strip mall seems as docile and diverse as a citizenship class. Clustered in groups of twos and threes at bright blue Formica tables, they glance around the room conversing quietly in Albanian, Spanish, Vietnamese and English. From...
There must be an international siren song calling from the building next to the Circle K at 16th Street and Campbell. This unassuming little box lures in ethnic restaurants one after the other -- most recently it was home to a spectacularly flawed Russian eatery, followed by a short-lived Chinese...
Machine-gun nests manned by teenage Indians in Mexico's army confront the eco-tourist intent on whale watching in today's Baja. The soldiers are there to search you and your sports utility vehicle for drugs. In Canada, interdiction dogs sniff for, of all things, pirated abalone. You may yearn for what Henry...
Raul Monreal was only trying to inspire his students when they turned the tables on him. In the spring of 1994, the soft-spoken Monreal was instructing a teacher-certification course at Paradise Valley Community College. For Monreal, a 53-year-old native of Nogales, Mexico, who grew up dirt poor and fatherless along...
I think I know why American cuisine is often so boring. We've never been overthrown by a hostile nation. With such a homogenous pool of settlers, Americans have never been forced to incorporate exotic cultures into their cooking. And so, our national heritage has been allowed to wallow in the...
Most musicians like to shroud themselves in mystery. Cast themselves as enigmas, riddles never meant to be solved. It's an accepted part of the marketing process these days. That somehow a bit of carefully calculated inscrutability will enhance the lure of the product. For journalists, deconstructing those fiercely guarded walls,...
The headlines scream that the Diamondbacks aren't making money. Attendance is down, and the baseball team is struggling. All eyes are on Jerry Colangelo to fix things.I've got a suggestion: Rather than pump more cash into hotshot player salaries, give the fans something palatable to munch on while cheering for...
Lurking somewhere in the dusty bins of your neighborhood record store -- just after Sade but well before Scritti Politti -- is a "new" album by the Sand Rubies called Cuacha -- except that it's really not a new album at all. It is, however, a renamed, repackaged and expanded...
It was the best of years; it was the Durst of years. Of the latter, well, Jim Dandy once had his moment in the sun, too, and the critics were right all along: Black Oak Arkansas sucked, the stoned morons who were into the band eventually grew up (or died...
Let's say, for the purposes of this article, that's it's 3:30 in the morning. Only, it's really 4:30 because the clock in your car is an hour slow. Time is of little consequence anyway. What do minutes matter when you're sick with doubt and doubled over by the weight of...
Clinton Pattea, president of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, tells with reverence the legendary story of Wassaja, the greatest of the tribe. Wassaja was a young boy, no more than 7, when he survived a bloody battle near the Superstition Mountains between his own tribe and the Pima Indians. Captured...
Tonight is a homecoming. It's been three and a half years since Dead Hot Workshop's classic lineup has played together, more than that since it's taken the stage at Long Wong's, the last remaining vestige of a scene it helped create. For a decade it was the most respected group...
