As you may have gleaned from perusing this space previously, I take a dim view of conventional wisdom and the morons who spout it. Al Pacino’s character Ricky Roma in the screen version of Glenglarry Glen Ross sums up my P.O.V. when he states that he subscribes to the law…
What would you eat if it were your last night on Earth, and you could have just about anything you wanted? That’s the hypothetical dilemma I’ve been mulling since a friend of mine gave me this odd little book titled Last Suppers (Loompanics Unlimited), which is all about the final…
, Redendos Pizzeria and Pasta
I’m no urban planner, and Lord knows I have no inclination to be one. But whenever I hear my fellow diehard metropolitans talking up the Holy Grail of downtown dwelling — something that seems to happen like clockwork every First Friday — I inevitably shake my head in disbelief. I’ll…
I’ve always wanted to summer in Baghdad, and now at last I can. No, silly, I’m not joining the Army National Guard. I may be the size of John Candy, but this is no rerun of Stripes on basic cable. Rather, my imaginary journey to the banks of the Tigris…
Nineteenth-century journalist, poet and author Charles Pierre Monselet once stated that “a true gastronome should always be ready to eat, just as a soldier should always be ready to fight.” How right you were, Chuckles, but of course, it doesn’t hurt if the cuisine in question happens to be the…
One dilemma I face as a restaurant reviewer is how long of a grace period I should allow an infant establishment before writing about its fare. Some of my pals in the eatin’ biz assert that a newbie grub shack should be ready from jump, while others say that the…
Having spent my formative years in the Land Time Forgot (i.e., the South), soul food is as dear to me as pasta is to the Italians. How fortuitous, then, is my current place of employment, which so happens to be smack dab in the soul food section of town. Right…
With roasting temperatures, food items containing chile peppers are usually a hard sell. But throw in some fresh fruit and a little ice, and people will beat a path to your door. At least that’s been the experience of Jaqueline and Alfonso Carrizosa, who opened Oasis Raspados in south Phoenix…
Before I dive into this week’s review, I should take a moment to reply to some of the correspondence I receive on a regular basis. To the female admirers who deluge me nonstop with perfumed hankies and declarations of undying love, please see my secretary for an application to my…
A colleague of mine left me a copy of a certain publication the other day with the attached note, “Well, I guess someone feels threatened.” The someone in this case was a fellow food scribbler whose surname rhymes with “Puke-cannon.” I’d never bothered to pick up the rag in question,…
Clad in a tight white tank top, his wiry body adorned with tattoos, Jesus “Chuy” Chavez looks every bit of the gangbanger he claims to be — except for the fresas con crema the 19-year-old Phoenician is spooning into his mouth. Even the Valley’s most hardened residents have a soft…
Burgs like Snottsdale and Parasite Valley may get all the kudos when it comes to living arrangements, but were I run out of central Phoenix on a rail and forced to choose, I’d take that toddlin’ town of Chandler over either one of those two swells-zones. Here, as in all…
Descending from Pinnacle Peak the other day, after a repast at Sassi, the new, resort-like restaurant fashioned to resemble an Italian villa, the initial stanza of Coleridge’s Kubla Khan rang in my noggin. You know the lines, “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/a stately pleasure dome decree . . . “…
It is bad enough when your male peers disrespect your music because you’re female. But when your audience begins requesting Tupac Shakur and Busta Rhymes, that is not only dissing the music. That’s disrespecting the Mexican culture. Fortunately, the members of Mariachi Pasión — believed to be Arizona’s first all-female…
Those of you old enough to have lived through any part of the Cold War — or to have suffered through a political conversation with a devout Libertarian — will be familiar with the oft-repeated mantra that capitalism is the most efficient system on earth, unlike communism, which is grossly…
I was in Tempe last week, sitting in a cafe and flipping through my recent purchase from a nearby bookshop of a rare copy of Valentine Penrose’s The Bloody Countess: The Atrocities of Erzsebet Bathory, when a bizarre desire took hold of me. Those of you familiar with this 16th-century…
So I was over at Mikey’s the other day, doing bong hits and watching episode after episode of Cartoon Network’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force, which makes a lot more sense once the sinsemilla turns the reasoning center of your brain to oatmeal. Mikey had Tivo’d a mess of them, and…
Salsa music conjures images of virile men spinning graceful women on the dance floor, a sexual pantomime of a man trying to seduce a woman while she pushes him away, only to encourage him to try again. It depicts unresolved sexual tension between a man and a woman in their…
One of the joys of writing a weekly column for New Times is that I’m pretty much given carte blanche to cut through the ca-ca that other news outlets lay on with a trowel. Take, for example, the current coverage of former president Ronald Reagan’s demise: the tearful remembrances, the…
I suppose most folks have their own, somewhat flattering image of themselves, and I am no different in this regard. In my mind’s eye, I’m a cross between Sydney Greenstreet’s character Signor Ferrari in Casablanca and the so-called “wickedest man in the world” Aleister Crowley, though I lean more toward…
What better way to kick off the weekend than by dangling upside down while a barmaid pours a kamikaze shot down your throat? How about standing before a chanting crowd, while your significant other pushes a lime through one pants hole and out the other without the use of his…
