Food & Drink

Move over, Awesome Blossom. There’s a new vegetable on the marketing block that’s threatening to steal diehard fans of French-fried onion and potato snacks.For the past 21 years, Phoenix-based Seaphire International, a spin-off of Planetary Design Corporation, has been researching and developing sea asparagus, as this exceptionally salty cultivar is…

To draw on a line from Kermit the Frog, it’s not easy being mean.Life as a critic — be it theater, art, music, architecture or food — is a balancing act. Critics strive to be fair while both entertaining and informing their readers. A positive report is easy; everybody’s happy…

Menu writing is an art. Savvy restaurateurs go to great lengths to make their dishes sound appealing, waxing poetic about the virtues of even the commonest hamburger, meat loaf or macaroni and cheese. The more adjectives, usually, the more expensive the meal. I’m waiting for the day when it’s also…

I’m still at a loss as to why Mexico’s Cinco de Mayo is such a big deal in the U.S. when it’s not a big deal in Mexico. Most people I’ve polled labor under the illusion that the fifth of May is Mexican Independence Day. If you think that, you…

It’s a wonder we don’t hear more news of restaurant staffers going completely postal. They’ve got the motives — long hours spent on their feet, often with demanding customers, and with little control over (but ultimate blame for) the kitchen, low pay and, too frequently, lousy tips. They’ve got the…

“We want to be the Harry and David of certified organic produce. That’s our aspiration,” says Gina Verdugo, co-owner with Dan Wygocki of Boxed Greens Inc. Verdugo is referring to the much-copied originator of the now legendary Fruit-of-the-Month Club, a multimillion-dollar mail-order company founded in Medford, Oregon, during the Great…

So many events, so little time, my party companion laments, digging through the stacks of announcements crowding my desk. It’s April again, and it seems that everywhere we turn, there’s another tempting fund raiser, festival or feast demanding our attention. The Valley’s reservations-required dining season is drawing to a close,…

The Mad Hatter must have organized the menu and set the table for the First International Edible Book High Tea. The “tea” — and I use the term quite loosely — was held during one of Tempe’s patience-trying street fairs on Changing Hands Bookstore’s back patio during intermittent rain showers…

Sometimes it is so simple to bash chain restaurants, and admittedly, it can be fun. They’re behemoths with mass-feeding troughs. They’re invisible, out-of-state corporations more concerned with the bottom line than with creative cuisine. They bombard us with maddening commercials about “baby back, baby back, baby back ribs.” But it’s…

Back in 1958, when most high school guys were dreaming about cruising Camelback in a cool, two-tone Chevy, Gary Schiller was probably thinking about sausages. That’s because at age 13, he began working after school as a Boy Friday at Schreiner’s Fine Sausages, a Phoenix landmark on Seventh Street. Established…

Why do people love to tell me about their food-provoked illnesses? Perhaps they’re concerned for my occupational safety. More likely it’s similar to that perverse urge we all have to tell our newly pregnant friend about a woman who gave birth to a three-headed sock puppet. Either way, though I…

Never has one cocktail inspired so many people to produce so many memorably bad quotes (not to mention urban myths). I’m talking about the martini, of course. You know, quotes like those slung around by Barnaby Conrad III, author of The Martini: An Illustrated History of an American Classic. In…

Pulsating salsa tunes blare from a boom box as you walk into K-Rico Cafe & Bakery. The small eatery is plopped at the end of a funky strip mall at Glendale and 12th Street, two doors down from The Empire of Toys Collectibles and Comics. Filled with sweet and garlicky…

You’re enjoying a quiet, romantic evening at your favorite restaurant. It’s just the two of you, gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes. But is it? Increasingly, it may be fine to nibble on your appetizer, but not on your date’s ear — not unless you want to provide entertainment for…