tdjohnsn | Friday, December 23rd, 2005

happy, but sticky, holidays!

The gingerbread show at Fiesta Inn.

Sorry I haven't responded to any comments. We are on a dial-up connection, so I just stay on long enough to post and read mail. I will try to respond to people if we ever find an internet cafe.

One of the frustrating things about Phoenix is it is basically the midwest with spanish style roofs. Case in point, looking for a place to have breakfast this morning. First we tried citysearch, but that has become a tool for advertisers, not for consumers. I miss the old city web pages from when the web was all shiny and new and people who were passionate about their city searched out all the good stuff for you. We searched under the term "Breakfast" and most of the results were barbecue places and steak houses, none of which mentioned breakfast in their descriptions. Then we tried the newspaper's website. In Seattle, the newspapers city resources pages are pretty good. Here they weren't so good. Only four breakfast places were in the "featured breakfast" section, and two of those were bagel places. Bagels are so ten years ago (and foul, but that is just me...) Narrowing the search just turned up IHOPS and lots of places with "egg" puns in their names.

Ron, and especially I, really like going out to brunch. Our needs are modest. I like to be able to get a mocha, Ron likes Chai or English Breakfast Tea. Sometimes I will get English Breakfast too. We both prefer owner run places since you tend to get professional wait staff rather than abused high school/college kids like you get at the chain places. And we like, though we don't require, plenty of menu options that don't involve dead mammals. It is also nice when there are special baked goods or entrees depending on season and fresh ingredient availability.

As far as we can tell, in the entire metropolitan area, breakfast places do not have espresso machines and hot tea means a (one) bag of Lipton's Red Rose (with lemon rather than sugar and cream.) And apparently, breakfast is not breakfast without bacon, ham, or sausage. No one serves hashbrowns, only variations on country fried potatoes. There is no lingering with your tea. Its in and out, we have other people to seat. Everyone has another location (or two.) There are lots of skilled cooks but very few chefs.

"Eating out" is just plain not a past time here. You have steak on special occasions, you go to the chain Mexican restaurants to drink, and when you don't feel like cooking, you go to Applebees.

We are very spoiled in Seattle. Even our taverns have award winning chefs.

Today we went to Taliesin West. I have a great deal of respect for Frank Lloyd Wright, but I am not a worshipful disciple like some people. I think it is because I am a designer so I am aware of all the other amazing people who were working at the same time but are not marketed as successfully. As a result, I took a great deal of amusement in how different the story of his involvement with the Biltmore hotel is depending on whether you hear it on the Biltmore Tour or the Taliesin tour. Short version is that according to the Talieson people, he was an instrumental part of the process, according to the Biltmore he was a pain in the you know what and got kicked out. In any case, Taliesin is a really neat place, full of amazing architectural experiments and it sounds like the school is an amazing place to study as well.

We poked around in old town Scottsdale for a little while. I used to love doing that, but I have been down here enough now that kokopelli is annoying rather than a "spirited symbol of the southwest." And exactly how many Gilbert Ortega's are there in Old Town?

Tonight after dinner (which upset my stomach, again...yeesh) we went looking at Christmas lights and to a gingerbread house display at a local hotel. I was kind of excited about that because in Seattle they have one at the Sheraton that pairs up area chefs with local architects. The results are amazing. This show, not so much so. Lots of entries from area K–12 schools. There were one or two cool entries, but there was not really enough room to display everything so they kind of got lost in the crowd of frosting. Ron's mom liked it a lot which was what mattered.

Then we went and looked at lights. First in downtown Tempe, then someplace else. I never did figure out where. I had to go to the bathroom and I felt like barfing the whole time, but considering how long we drove, I think we were in New Mexico.

I was very proud of Ron. When his mom said, "I don't care which way we go home, but if you want to take the freeway, I'll understand" he was able to translate that she meant, "please take the freeway home."

We are both in desperate need of being around guys for a little while, but we didn't bring any clothes that we don't have to wear again and they smoke in the bars here (we got spoiled fast when the anti-smoking law went into affect for us a few weeks ago...I totally disagree with it on civil liberties grounds, but it is so nice!) so now we are both updating our journals and planning tomorrows fun filled day of adventure.

Friday, December 23rd, 2005

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