Phoenix Food Blog

By Wynter Holden

My original plan this week was to dish on the spotted dick (tee-hee) at George & Dragon, but our own Robrt Pela stole my thunder with his creative post on the can of spotted dick (I just can't resist saying it again) gathering dust in his pantry. Guess we both had spotted dick (one last time) on the brain. Oh, what Freud would say.

Instead, today's wacky item of the week was "spotted" on the menu at Tommy Bahama's Tropical Café at Kierland Commons in Scottsdale. It's not quite as deliciously unusual as the aforementioned British dessert, but it does have a funny name: pattypan. It's in the Ocho Rios Roasted Chicken, an all-natural half bird with accompanying veggie side dish. Even though the name "pattypan" sounds like a cake-y dessert to me (maybe because I had an Aunt Patty who liked to eat sweets, or because of the kiddie rhyme "patty-cake"), their presence amongst carrots, snap peas and corn clued me in that it was likely a veggie.

Yup. Pattypans, also called button squash or white squash, come in white, green or yellow varieties and are often served fried or scooped-out and used as edible containers. They're low in calories, about 20-30 per serving, and have zero fat -- well, unless they're served fried, of course. Most people say the tiny 2-3 inch summer squashes (they're picked young for best flavor) look like tops, but I see UFOs, or tulips, or creepy mutant baby feet.

Hey, what are those phallic-looking white veggies in the picture, snuggling with the pattypans? Too bad they're not spotted...

By Wynter Holden

Common sense says use what you have, right? If you live by the sea, catch and cook fish. On the plains or in the forest, pick berries and hunt game. And in the desert -- well, unless you want to hack up a cactus and start chowing down, you're pretty much stuck. Then again...

A few years ago, I caught an episode of a Discovery Channel reality game show where two contestants were challenged to cook and eat cholla cactus buds. Since then, I've been fascinated by local fare involving this plentiful desert ingredient. Prickly pear jelly and cactus lollipops can be found on any kitschy Scottsdale souvenir shop shelf, but truly gourmet cactus foodstuffs are hard to find.

Chef Travis Dimmick fills that gap with exotic creations like Roasted Quail stuffed with Cholla Bud Risotto, currently on the menu at The Gathering Restaurant at Camp Verde's Cliff Castle Casino. Not only does he use the buds -- which have to be plucked and the needles removed before use -- the dish is also garnished with sweet saguaro syrup, a rare treat in Phoenix.

Yes, we have those giant three-armed green bandits on every friggin' mountain, hill or nicely xeriscaped lawn in town. But apparently their protected status extends to the "fruit" they bear, which can only be harvested and cooked by a handful of folks (mainly Native Americans) licensed by the state. Go figure. Guess that just leaves roadrunner stew. No, too gamey. Scorpion puffs? All crunch, no meat. Javelina BBQ ribs? Now, that could be interesting.

By Wynter Holden

Holy basil. I giggled like a schoolgirl when I saw this heavenly sounding herb on the menu at Thai Elephant in downtown Phoenix. You know when something you see or hear just makes you bust a gut laughing -- and no one else at your table seems to get the joke? Yeah, that was me.

I imagined Buddhist monks spending hours praying and chanting over little plant sprouts, infusing them with love. "Om, mani padme grow. Om, mani padme grow." Or...wait! Maybe it's basil that's loaded with round crevices, like Swiss cheese. No, that would be "holey" basil. Perhaps the plant, when ingested, is reputed to fill you with the holy spirit. Cure all wounds. Cause you to have angelic visions. Of course, if the latter were true, I'm thinking more people would be growing holy basil (instead of other green, leafy plants) in their basement.

So what's the real deal? Holy basil, or Tulasi, is a spicy purple or green-leafed plant native to India. Tulasi is hairier than it's cousin, the standard bright green Thai Basil found in many ethnic restaurants. Sadly, the cultivation of holy basil doesn't involve monks or exotic chants, but the plant is considered sacred in the Hindu culture and is known to have antiseptic and anti-bacterial properties. And it is used in Hindu ceremonies, which involve chanting and rituals. Guess I wasn't that far off after all.

By Wynter Holden

While house hunting a few years ago, I saw one cottage with a lovely orange tree in the backyard. The house itself was nothing special. But the tree was perfect. I imagined myself picking plump ripe oranges and making fresh juice; the first step on my way to becoming the domestic goddess of my new domicile.

Then my husband snuck up behind me and squashed my dream like, well, an orange beneath his big, clumsy foot. According to him, the tree was decorative and would produce bitter, inedible fruit. I'd forgotten all about that house and the sweet little tree, until a recent exploration of the menu at Scottsdale's Pepin Spanish Restaurant yielded "fresh pork leg marinated in sour orange." Yum!

I looked up sour orange and lo and behold there was a picture that looked just like the pretty orange tree at that cottage in East Mesa. The sour orange tree (also called bitter orange) produces edible fruit just like its sweet cousins. The taste is pungent enough to dissuade most people from eating sour oranges raw, but it's perfect for making marmalade or other sweetened sauces like the one used on Pepin's pork legs.

I could let my hubby in on his little citrus snafu, but that would just sound like sour grapes. Or oranges, in this case.

by Wynter Holden

I do love a good fennel sausage. They had a mean spiced sausage with sweet, licorice-y fennel at my local organic market back in Portland, where I spent the past year and change. I sautéed it with apples and pasta in a light olive oil and garlic sauce. Yum. So when I glimpsed this on the menu at North Scottsdale's swank Sassi, I was intrigued:

House made fennel sausage with "blind husband" style beans.

Blind husband beans? At that point, I forgot all about my fennel sausage. I cocked an eyebrow at my hubby and wondered what kind of interesting side dish Sassi had cooked up. I imagined there was an interesting story there. Unfortunately, my trusty Internet guides Ms. Yahoo and Mr. Google came up completely empty on this one. What to do? I picked up the phone and gave Sassi's home office a ring.

GM Stephen Plunkett had the answer I was looking for. Or at least, part of it. Chef Wade Moises was inspired by an old Italian recipe for a multi-bean dish nicknamed "blind husband soup". Sassi's version is more like a stew, and contains several varieties of beans (including French navy, garbanzo, cranberry and scarlet). The bean base is mixed with garlic oil, broccoli rabe, and spicy bread croutons to form a mushy, thick stew.

Seems like an odd combination of flavors, but according to Plunkett, this dish is a winner -- so much so that guests often ask for it as a side dish even if they don't want the fennel sausage. I never actually got the explanation behind the name, but my own clever husband proposed that perhaps a blind husband searching in the dark for stew ingredients might hand over fistfuls of mismatched beans. And the wife, feeling sorry for her poor feeble mate, doesn't say anything and puts the odd ingredients into her soup.

Yeah, I'll just let him think that.

By Wynter Holden

It all started at a recent weekend brunch. Things were running pretty smoothly, until two of the girls at the table next to me started a vicious sauce debate that threatened to come to blows. Or at least a good catfight. Now, don't get me wrong, I love sauce. I can't eat my shoe-leather-like well done steak without A-1 or Heinz 57, I'll eat cardboard if it's dipped in a good barbecue sauce and penne ala vodka practically makes my toes curl in delight. But the great béchamel vs. béarnaise vs. hollandaise debate of 2008? Does anyone really care?

I changed my mind after a recent trip to Bacchanal Greek Restaurant, where my citrus-allergic friend Mr. T (sadly, not the Mr. T of A Team fame) spit out a mouthful of meat-stuffed grape leaves in avgolemano because he failed to realize that the Greek sauce is made with lemon. Inside I was screaming, "Duh, ask the waiter if you don't know what it is," but instead I offered him some of my béchamel-coated moussaka (think eggplant lasagna). After all, who am I to judge?

By Wynter Holden

Reading an ethic restaurant menu can be like trying to decode a mysterious ancient parchment; at least, if you don't speak the language. It can also get you into a lot of trouble if you're remotely picky about food, or allergic to any ingredients. Does pesche mean chicken or fish? What exactly is Avgolemano? Does pecan pie have nuts in it? (Ok, not that last one, but I always loved Ben Stiller's bad date story in the movie Keeping the Faith.)

My sister and I have always wanted to sample the South Indian Thali Platter at Udupi Café in Tempe. She’s a vegetarian, and I dig ethnic food, so this is one of the few places we can both eat together without complaint (and from my diet-friendly point of view, without sinking into a carb coma).

The sharable dinner plate is listed as: Roti, white rice, sambar, dhal, kootu, avial, poriyal, rasam, curd, pickle, pappad, payasam and coffee or tea. Sounds cool, but who knows? Rasam could be marinated leaves and twigs for all I know. At least I can say with confidence that it isn’t pig’s liver, caterpillars or any other meat product, since Udupi is strictly herbivore grub.

By Wynter Holden

Unlike the infamous "mouse shit chili" incident I blogged about in the inaugural What the Fork, sometimes I just get plain lucky when ordering an unidentifiable item at a restaurant. One case is Kataifi, an item I discovered on the menu at Razz's Restaurant in North Scottsdale. I'd never heard of it, but based on their description of the appetizer, I thought I couldn't go wrong.

It was listed as Baked Cheese in Kataifi, with a spiced pear, apple and greens salad. How could that be anything but delicious? I may be a girl, but I still subscribe to the theory that cheese makes everything taste better. Macaroni. Potatoes. Broccoli. Ice cream. (Ok, maybe not ice cream, but the Sweet Republic honey blue cheese flavor fanatics might disagree.)

I guessed that it would be a tasty, crisp pastry shell; like a more exotic version of the French brie en croute. And thank the gods, I was dead on. Kataifi is Greek pastry dough that's more brittle than phyllo and kind of stringy. Basically, it looks like a yellowish version of shredded wheat.

It's nearly impossible to make at home without special tools. Manufacturers of the stuff ladle the kataifi dough onto a giant grooved turntable and then gather it between their fingers like haystacks of spun sugar. By itself, the dough doesn't have a strong taste, but combine it with ground meats or honey and almonds (or cheese!) and it gives the dish a crunchy texture that pairs well with savory or sweet.

By Wynter Holden

When I was a kid, my mom would sauté liver with onions and unconvincingly try to pass it off as steak. The funny part is, she tried to fake my dad out, too. He bought it. I didn't. Maybe it was my keen sense of smell, or the fact I was always suspicious of her cooking, but there's just something heavier and more pungent about liver. I always thought it tasted like red meat that had been cooked with iron railroad spikes so the metallic taste would leech into the flesh. Yuck.

Whenever I see leberkase listed on a German restaurant menu, I cringe. My high school German's a bit rusty (ok, it did come in handy, Mom), but I can translate that word, and it means "liver cheese." Why couldn't it be lieberkase, or "love cheese." That I'd eat, no matter what it was! I adore cheese, from the zing of sharp cheddar to the mild tanginess of Emmenthaler and the creaminess of ripe brie. But liver + cheese? How could that atrocity be allowed?

In fairness to Bavaria, I didn't know if leberkase was a literal translation of what goes into the dish. So, when I spied it on the menu at Zur Kate in Mesa, I figured I'd do my homework this time. Zur Kate's version is served with onions, so that's already strike one. Seems awfully reminiscent of my mom's fake steak.

The verdict: Leberkase is a smooth meatloaf made from veal liver and assorted pork products. Think if it as German Spam. It's served in thick slices as a dinner entree, or cut into thinner slices and piled on a sandwich like bologna (which I don't like either...even as a kid I knew it was just lips and, well you know).

I'm relieved to hear that Bavarian Leberkase (the only kind I'll be trying anytime soon) is made with corned beef and bacon -- no liver! The Swiss, Austrian and German varieties all contain about 5% liver. I guess that really isn't too bad. At least the Germans did a better job of disguising it than my mom.

By Wynter Holden

Occasionally I stumble across what I playfully call "sniper" ingredients - foods so deceptively named that it's like a shot through the heart when you discover what they really are. Case in point: sweetbreads.

Sounds like a no-brainer. S-W-E-E-T bread. Duh! I knew that sweetbreads are often used in French or French-inspired cooking, so I immediately leapt to pastry dough. My mind conjured images of Hawaiian rolls, or better yet, a zeppole.

For the uninitiated, zeppoles (or zeppoli, depending where you hail from) are Italian fried dough balls dipped in powdered sugar. To me, they're ambrosia. One whiff of a zeppole sends me into a sugary rage, frothing at the mouth and galumphing towards the vendor like Homer Simpson to a donut. Mmm...zeppole! Growing up in New York, we had these Sicilian beauties every chance we could get. County fairs, traveling carnivals, the Jersey boardwalk...

By Wynter Holden

Recently, a boba-loving girlfriend recommended the durian shake at Lee's Sandwiches in Chandler. Great, I thought, but what the heck is a durian? I didn't know what I was getting myself into.

The durian is a prickly fruit that's native to Southeast Asia and has a rather dubious reputation. It's got sharp thorns on the outside that will easily draw blood if you handle the fruit with bare hands. If you slice one open, you'll see a large orange or yellowish fleshy sac inside that contains several golf-ball-sized seeds. This is the edible part. Kinda reminds me of a shriveled preserved organ, maybe a kidney.

So, it's not pretty. Big deal.

Looks are the least of the durian's problems. When you crack one open, the smell rivals a corpse flower. We're talking absolutely revolting...

by Wynter Holden

I've heard of it. I've seen it on menus. But honestly, I had no idea what the heck it was. So when I spotted cassava as a solo ingredient on the tapas menu at Havana Café in Phoenix, I figured it was about time I got acquainted with this starchy staple.

If you've got Cuban roots, or are well-versed in ethic cuisines, you've probably seen or cooked with cassava; but you might not know everything about its origins. Also called yuca or manioc, cassava's a small, leafy shrub which grows well in tropical climates. The plant itself is poisonous. Not Japanese blowfish poisonous, mind you, but still pretty fierce. Chances are pretty good that unless you're downing the raw leaves daily, you won't die from it. Still, one yuca plant actually produces enough cyanide from a naturally-occurring chemical reaction that it could easily kill the family pet.

The cassava root is a staple of Cuban, African and South American cuisines. It's got a thick brown bark-like skin that resembles the outside of a potato. And, like potatoes, yuca roots are an excellent source of carbs. Yeah, like I need more of those. Then again, the menu item I was salivating over at Havana Café was listed as Yuca Frita (Fries) with banana-guava ketchup, so what did I think I was getting?

The whole poisonous thing might have been a turnoff, until I realized where I'd seen manioc before. Turns out that I've been eating it since I was about five years old, and it's one of my favorite comfort desserts. Tapioca pudding is just pearls of processed yuca root combined with sugar and milk. And since I've never had so much as a stomach ache from tapioca, I'll be ordering a heaping plate of those fritas next time I drop by Havana Café for lunch.

By Wynter Holden

In my freshman year of college, this hot musician I'd been salivating over asked me to dinner at a fancy Thai restaurant. I remember seeing "chili padi" listed as an ingredient in my dish; but I wanted to keep the smart girl image in front of my crush, so I neglected to ask the waiter what it meant.

If I’d thought with my brain instead of my overactive teenage libido, I would have discovered chili padi is a Thai pepper, also known as the “mouse shit chili," 20 times hotter than Tabasco.

Next thing I knew, I was downing my date's drink, grabbing a pitcher of water off of a nearby table without asking and finally, puking on my date's Converse high-tops. He didn't ask me out again.

So, to help you avoid a similar dining disaster, I'll be your translator for those ingredients and menu items that make you scratch your head and wonder, "just what the fork is that?”

Caribbean restaurants are storehouses for fragrant, exotic fruits, spices and veggies, including "cho cho," something I spied in the Ital Soup at The Breadfruit Caribbean restaurant. To me, it sounded like something a trendy Scottsdale socialite would name her Chihuahua. Which of course would be a girl dog, no bigger than a New York sewer rat, dressed to match her owner in some prissy pink layette. "Come here, cho cho." "How's my wittle cuddly wuddly cho cho today?" Ugh.