Bowl-a-Rama Fundraiser this Thursday

There are just 11 days left to raise money for Bowl-a-Rama. We have one more fundraising event this Thursday, July 23rd at Rosita’s in Tempe or Mesa. Please come out, enjoy a great meal and support RESCUE. 15% of your purchase is donated back to RESCUE!!! Pictured is the flyer for the event (you’ll need it in order for us to receive the proceeds). I can email the flyer to you if you are interested, just ask me in the comments. All are welcome for lunch, dinner, dine in or take out. Jim & I will be at the Tempe location around 6:00pm, please stop by.

Food tasting

Via Stranger Fruit.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding (in Buenos Aires)
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp (fish allergy)
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche (in Buenos Aires)
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (chocolate covered ants/grasshoppers/crickets)
43. Phaal
44. Goat's milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald's Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV (Elephant beer at Carlsberg Brewery in Copenhagen)
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S'mores (last night)
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs' legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (Beignets at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans)
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee (I'd rather try Kopi Luwak)
100. Snake Fried rattlesnake at Rustler's Rooste

Back from Seattle

We're back from a week of vacation in Seattle--this was my third time in the city, but my first time with free time to do touristy things. We saw the usual sights--the Space Needle, Pike Place Market, Pioneer Square and the Underground Tour, and we took a Snoqualmie Falls/winery tour and paid a visit to Bainbridge Island. We also saw the Klondike Gold Rush Museum, the Olympic Sculpture Garden, the UPS Waterfall Garden, the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum, and the oddities at Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, including the feejee-mermaid-like objects pictured and a collection of tsantsas (shrunken heads). We also managed to see some local crazies--a 9/11 conspiracy theorist outside Pike Place Market, Lyndon LaRouchies at Westlake Center, a Church of Scientology "free stress test" center, and building housing the Discovery Institute.

And we had plenty of great meals, including a few with friends we haven't seen in a while (or hadn't met before in person). Lots of Thai and Indian food.

We didn't get around to visiting the Seattle Aquarium, the Museum of Flight, the fish ladder at the Ballard Locks, the Roman exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum, or trying a doughnut at Top Pot Doughnuts. Maybe next time for most of those.

Seattle is a fun city, we had great weather almost the entire time, and we were happy to see how dog-friendly it is. I'm sure we'll return.

Back from Buenos Aires

I got back this morning from a few days in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on a business trip. It was a beautiful country, with great summer weather. The people were very friendly (and patient with my attempts to use a few Spanish words and phrases, as I'm just a beginner at the language), and the food was excellent. I hope to return for a longer time in the future, and hopefully to get some Spanish tutoring while I'm there.

Buenos Aires is a huge modern city (population around 15 million) undergoing a lot of construction, especially in the Puerto Madero neighborhood, where this picture was taken. This was an old port that ceased being used in the 1960s, but is now the location of many restaurants, hotels, and businesses.

Although a website about Argentina business warned me that subjects not to discuss were the Perons and the Falkland Islands, both subjects were brought up by Argentinians I conversed with, and it wasn't a problem.

This was one of those rare trips where I returned home to Phoenix to find the weather much colder and wetter than it had been in the place I was visiting.

UPDATE (January 26, 2007): CNN Money recommends travel to Buenos Aires, and specifically offers this dining suggestion:

Tip: Cabana las Lilas in the Puerto Madero section of Buenos Aires is often cited as the best spot for grilled beef.

But Robin Goldstein, a writer for Fodor's travel guides, says you'll find a more authentic dining experience at half the cost just next door at La Caballeriza (address: Alicia Moreau de Justo 580).

I didn't visit Cabana las Lilas, but did eat at La Caballeriza with a large group of locals, and it was excellent (even the blood sausage wasn't bad).

Anybody need any oranges?

We've now completed our second weekend event attempting to get all the oranges picked from our trees--an annual struggle, as we have many (see photo, which shows most of the backyard trees). A few weeks ago, United Food Bank sent out volunteers to try to fill four large bins which each hold 1,000 pounds of oranges. We filled one and part of another one in the course of the day--the volunteers were four families and their children, who picked oranges for several hours along with us. This week, we had signs out advertising free oranges, all you care to pick, and also advertised it on Craig's List. We put out the two remaining United Food Bank bins to be filled with oranges we picked ourselves, and for any donations others cared to drop in. Unfortunately, a woman who spoke only Spanish came by while we were inside and took all of the fruit out of the bins, so when the Food Bank comes to pick them up on Tuesday they'll only get whatever Kat and I pick between now and then.

We had quite a few people come by and pick bags full of oranges, but the trees still appear to be as full as ever.

If you're in or near South Phoenix and would like to pick some oranges and take them home (or to donate to a food bank), let me know. If you're from somewhere other than Phoenix and ever plan to be here in March, April, or May, those are the months these Valencia oranges are ready for picking.