I (Laura) am just back from a week of spring break-ing in Phoenix with my two children. This trip seemed to be very largely about eating, and about meeting family I never knew. All in the space of one week, I seem to have acquired at least 4 more cousins (a second cousin, and several 1st/once-removed’s), plus a promise of 2 more who actually live in my town! And all of this meeting and greeting was done over food of some variety. Here are my notes on things we ate and where–in no particular order. (Note: the food this week did not look anything like the virtuous diet I’ve been on since the first of the year.)
We had a large cousins-cookout at my brother’s house, involving burgers and brats, and hors-d’oevres. For my part I supplied cheese and crackers for the hors-d’oevres, but not just any cheese and crackers. I went to Trader Joe’s, one of my favorite fun-food stores, and bought several varieties of water crackers, including a box of Vinta crackers (yum!!! very buttery and substantial!) and several kinds of imported cheese. My favorite, and it is THE BOMB, is Italian Truffle Cheese. It’s a soft white cheese, a bit like Fontina, only with a garlicky overtone, and little bits of truffle. Oh MY!!!
My mother took me to lunch at a fun chain Caribbean-themed restaurant called Bahama Breeze
where we had an appetizer of spinach/artichoke dip with a hint of nutmeg, scooped up with tortilla and fried plantain chips. Mom had a bowl of chicken tortilla soup and coconut fried shrimp (very naughty!) I had a wonderful BBQ chicken flatbread, with a Breeze salad. I loved the salad dressing so much, I asked if I could have the recipe. The hostess told me that it involved 45 ingredients and several hours of prep, but that I could find a streamlined version on the website: Island Vinaigrette Lunch was delish!
We also had dinner one night at Garcia’s. I’m told that the original restaurant, which is on 35th Avenue, south of Thomas, has the best food, since the family that started the restaurants sold off all but that one. But I’m also told that one should only have lunch there–the parking lot is badly lit, and the neighborhood is dicey at night. We went to one further north and west. I had my one obligatory chimichanga, and found myself thinking that my own chimis are more satisfying, even though I did enjoy it. Maybe by that time I was starting to get food-ed out (I know, this is a food blog–am I supposed to say that? but there it is–one gets to the point where enough is too much.)
One other enjoyable lunch we had was at the Phoenix Art Museum, where we had gone to take in the Rembrandt exhibit. The Museum is fantastic, the art was great, and then we went out in the courtyard and had yummy sandwiches from the Arcadia Farms Café. You can eat inside, and have linen and crystal and menus and such, and Mom said the food there is terrific. But we had boys who needed to run and play and chase pigeons, so the sandwiches on the terrace were perfect.
Oh, one more note: I caved in on the Northwest flight last night. I had a boy who had not had enough dinner, and I hadn’t had any. So I bought the $5 snack box, which I had sworn I wasn’t going to, on account of it being such a rip-off. Turns out, it’s not a bad deal, considering. There were wheat thins with a cheese dip, a bag of mini-Oreos, a stick of summer sausage, and a bag of dried fruit and nuts. I wouldn’t opt for that every flight, but it was substantial enough to help with the hungry-mungries, and not altogether unhealthy.
All in all it was a great week, full of food and family. We are all three VERY glad to be home, though, and back to our own beds, our own food, our own routine…and Daddy!
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