Our vacation from our vacation from our vacation.

Prepare for a marathon post. This one covers all our activities during two weeks in the southwest United States (New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado). We were hit with a lot of snow and rain, but that won't stop us from bringing you some excellent food shots along with a few pictures of us...where we are surely thinking about food.

Regular readers may recall that on the way home for Christmas, we passed through the Dallas airport, where we did everything short of selling a kidney to get to Cousin's BBQ before they closed for the night. Unfortunately, they had closed early and I had some belligerent words for them. Well, we ended up going back through that airport on our way to Albuquerque, so we decided to try them. The food looks nice, but it wasn't actually very good. We've had worse, but it tasted like they use an electric smoker rather than wood (which will mean nothing unless you eat a ton of BBQ like we seem to).

We arrived in Albuquerque, a very funny name for a city, and met Tara's aunt, Judy. We stayed in Albuquerque the first night and ate at a New Mexican restaurant called Little Anita's. This dish is called Carne Adovada, which I suspect translates to "Meat so salty that one serving is enough for a heart attack." Needless to say, it was good.
After a night in Albuquerquequequeque, we were off to Santa Fe, a much easier city to spell. We took a route called the Turquoise Trail between the two cities, mostly because we thought it would be more challenging to spell turquoise when doing this entry than to spell I-25. The route turned out to be very nice in places. Here is a view from Sandia Peak, where there was lots of snow.
After becoming depressed that the Tinkertown Museum was closed for the season, we stopped at a gift shop/museum in Madrid, New Mexico. In addition to lots of turquoise from their own mine, they have apparently crossbred Elvis with a chicken.
As we headed into Santa Fe, we went straight for food. We went to Bobcat's, which is supposed to have some of the best burgers in the area. Mine had green chile peppers on it for a bit of heat. Very good, though not as good as Ray's Hell Burger that Tara wrote about in the last post.
We then thought we should go see something and take a picture so that we could prove we did more than eat. We don't have pictures of our first stop, but I will mention that Judy (Tara's aunt) decided that she wanted to go visit a friend from high school whom she hadn't seen or talked to in 25 years. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, she got his address and we showed up on his doorstep. Fortunately, people in that part of the country don't shoot strangers and he was happy to see her.

Then, off to downtown Santa Fe. It is tiny and looks almost entirely like this. Not really as exciting as I expected.
So, off to the most famous of Santa Fe restaurants: Harry's Roadside Diner. I had the Moroccan tangine in honor of our upcoming trip to Morocco. It was decent for a diner in New Mexico.
Tara and Judy split the turkey meatloaf, which proved wise since this is the amount they each got. They still had leftovers, which Judy ate for breakfast. It sat in the cold car all night since we didn't have a fridge in the room, so the car smelled like meatloaf for several days.
Harry's is most famous for their desserts, and they lived up to that. The banana cream pie was amazing.
Santa Fe has a couple of expensive museums, but we only had time and money for one, so we went to the International Folkart Museum. The special exhibition was on Indonesian shadow puppets, which apparently involve nine hour performances put on by a single puppeteer. Some of the more modern artists use more modern themes. Here's a George Bush puppet.
These are more traditional figures. You can see the shadows they cast, which is all that the audience will ever see. The elaborate decoration of the puppets is purely for the artistic value.
For sale in the gift shop was this handmade item. For only $80 or so, it could be yours. It surprises me that you don't see more skeleton mermaids. They're just so darn cute.
While visiting a local store, Tara discovered that they carried Cascade Fresh, one of her favorite yogurts. I can see why--they make apple pie flavor. Still, yogurt is bad.
On our way from Santa Fe to Phoenix, we went to the Albuquerque Aquarium, which turned out to be very nice. Here is me doing my best impression of the puffer fish.
Here is Aunt Judy thinking about how tasty this fish would be on her dinner plate.
As we drove towards Gallup for the night, Tara took this sunset picture from the car. You can see the mesas in the distance.
On our way to meet the rest of Tara's family in Sedona, we went through the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Parks. Both were much nicer than I remembered them being. The colors didn't exactly shimmer in the dingy grayness, but you can still see all the different colors present.
It started to snow as we were getting to the petrified part of the park, but you can still see the petrified logs behind Tara. Minerals replaced the wood millions of years ago when the trees fell and conditions were such that no bacteria or fungus decomposed the wood. Okay, enough school for today.
Sedona is famous for its red rock for a reason. The whole place is surrounded by structures like this one. The red, like nearly all red in rock, is caused by iron oxide, aka rust.
Sedona is also the world center for new age quackery. I find it hard to believe that even the author of this book could keep a straight face when looking at it.
It was rainy while we were in Sedona, but here Tara and I are in front of one of the more famous formations. I think it is called Bell Rock.
With Tara's family, we took a little excursion south of Phoenix and ended up in Saguaro National Park. The area really is remarkable for anyone interested in plant life. Here are Tara and her dad in front of a medium sized cactus.
We also went by an ostrich farm. It was closed to tourists that day, but we took some pictures over the fence. I had never thought about it, but thousands of ostriches together smell really, really bad.
Back in Phoenix, Tara tried In-N-Out Burger for the first time. Verdict: burgers were good, shakes were average, fries were subpar. Very affordable, though.
Tara's sister lives in Phoenix, next to the best dollar store we'd ever been to. I bought two pairs of $1 sunglasses since I can't seem to keep a pair without breaking them. Tara bought mango flavored pineapple. This brand is made in California, but we saw it all over in Latin America. We never saw these, so we had to try them. They aren't bad, though they have a slight buttery aftertaste for me, which is strange.
One of the highlights of this trip, if not my life, was going to a donut factory that Tara's cousin helps manage. They make thousands and thousands of donuts all day long. And he told us that we could eat any of them. The only thing that could have made it closer to heaven is if it were a joint donut/ice cream plant. Here are the cinnamon rolls going through the fryer. One side fries, then a wheel flips them, then the other side fries, then they fall onto a conveyor belt where they are iced, then I eat them as fast as I can. Thanks for taking us, Joe!
Tara has much extended family in Phoenix whom we met a couple years ago when we were in the area. They are really great, and this time we had dinner with all of them that could make it at a place called Chino Bandito's, which is a Mexican-Chinese fusion restaurant. For example, sweet and sour chicken in a burrito with a side of fried rice and beans. Interesting, tasty, affordable, and the staff was extremely nice. We recommend them.
Kathy and Joe, the cousins with whom we spent the most time, introduced us to two excellent restaurants the last time we were in town, so we went back with them this time. The first is Flancer's, a local sandwich shop. They make unique and amazing sandwiches. The one pictured is a prickly pear chicken sandwich (and Tara's favorite).
The second restaurant is called Crackers. Yep, sounds offensive to me, too, but they make french toast from slices of cinnamon roll (pictured below) that is so good I would forgive anything short of genocide. Tara got the yogurt parfait, which she said was good, but it can't have been as good as my french toast. (If Tara were writing this, she would point out that the last time we were there, I ate so much of the french toast that I got sick for much of the day while we were hiking. To the point of asking her to carry our back pack, which means really sick for me. This side story won't surprise anyone who has known for more than five minutes.)
The real reason that we went to Phoenix was to visit Tara's sister, Brooke, who is an up-and-coming Broadway singer/dancer. She is appearing in Gypsy as June in Phoenix, and she was absolutely terrific. We expect her to go from really poor almost-Broadway performer to moderately poor Broadway performer any day!
After Phoenix, we spent a week in Colorado visiting some close friends. I haven't ask if I can put them on the website, so I won't put up pictures of their two very cute kids. However, here is the very cute pie that our friend Laura made for us. It also tasted amazing. I tried to share, but still ate about three-quarters of it...
They also have a Dairy Queen nearby. (We visited several DQs while in the Southwest.) As we entered, they had a sign saying it was 99 cent cone day, so I got two. And then I apparently tried to look as terrible as possible for this picture. Then I found out that it was buy-one-get-one-free waffle cone day, too. So, I got two waffle cones (I gave Tara a bit of one). A very successful trip.
Colorado had about four feet of snow when we arrived. I don't have any pictures that do it justice**, but it was a lot of fun to play in that much snow. It came to my waist when I would take a step. A good trip before we take on the heat of the Sahara in a couple weeks. Thanks to all the people with whom we stayed and who made this a great trip!

(**Note from Tara: How about this one?)

Eating Our Way Up the East Coast

A few days after Christmas, it was time to bid farewell to Indiana and head east. When our ride to New York fell through, Andy's brother and sister-in-law were kind enough to let us hitch a ride to the DC area with them...and crash their overnight pit stop in Wheeling, West Virginia...and move into their guest room for a few days while we rejiggered our New Year's plans. Thanks, guys!

And if all that wasn't enough, they took us to Ray's Hell-Burger in Arlington, VA, where we had some of the best burgers of our lives.

Behold my pepper-crusted slab o'beef, complete with sherry mushrooms, sauteed peppers, grilled onions, roasted garlic, and a side of sweet potato fries. Yummmmm.
What's bigger, Andy's burger or his head?
These burgers have us seriously thinking about moving to Arlington when we return from our travels. I hear that Obama likes them, too!

Moving on--our next stop was the Philadelphia area, where we spent the night with some of my cousins. An outing to a nearby mall afforded me the chance to try Taco Bell for the first time in my life. Here I am with a bean burrito--not bad for $1!
Here is the only non-food picture you'll see in this post--me dancing with two of my cousins. They also performed an awesome rap about grammar, in which I did not participate...but as a former editor, I heartily approved.
On to Allentown, PA, where we spent New Year's with our friend Julie and her family. We decided to go pretty much for an all-Asian food theme, starting with a Dim Sum lunch at a local restaurant.
Then, for a New Year's Eve project, we made dumplings! Zillions and zillions of them--turns out that an assembly line of three people gets the job done pretty efficiently. We made some pork-and-scallion ones, and some chicken-carrot-curry ones. Both types came out amazingly delicious.

Not to mention artistic-looking! Here are some raw dumplings, featuring the lovely fluted edges that Julie taught us how to make.
Cooked--browned on the bottom in a little oil then quickly steamed in the same pan. (This picture makes me hungry.)
Cooked through? Affirmative!
Finally, we boarded a Bieber Bus and made our long-awaited return to New York on January 1, 2010. Our first few days in the suburbs at my parents' house were pretty quiet, involving a lot of sleeping, laundry, and oh, just a little adventure with bot flies.

To shake things up, we did a family outing to a BBQ restaurant in Long Beach called Swingbellys, which is supposed to have the best 'cue on Long Island.

What we liked: the big portion sizes, the free spicy peanuts on the table, the excellent sides, and the smokey BBQ sauce.

What we didn't like: the flavorless meats (they were tender, but had no smoky taste), and the sickeningly sweet honey-based BBQ sauces.

Verdict: Andy and I probably won't be going back...though my parents liked it better than we did and might return. (If I go back with them, I'm getting the side-dish combo!)

But here are some pictures for ya. Andy got a half-rack of ribs and some very tasty sweet potato fries...
...and I got the brisket and pulled pork combo with some deliciously creamy mac and cheese. I also tasted my dad's side of beans, which was delicious, and my mom's sausage, which had a bit of zing and was the best of all the meats we ordered.
Speaking of mac and cheese, I was very excited to have access to a kitchen again, and on our second night at my parents' house, baked my favorite mac and cheese recipe ever. It's not exactly health food, but with whole wheat pasta and spinach, it's not the worst thing in the world for you. And so delicious! (Andy and I also baked some ratatouille, but who wants to see pictures of vegetables?)
If you've ever spent any time in Manhattan with Andy, then I'm sure he has taken you to Pongsri Thai for coconut rice, followed by a visit to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. It wasn't long before we made this pilgrimage ourselves, and a warmly-gloved Andy was enjoying his customary pint of coconut and pineapple ice creams.
Here we are reuniting with our friends and fellow world travelers Ben and Megan, of the Ben and Megan Round the World Blog! Hm, I guess that there is technically no food in this picture, either, but there were some delicious birthday cupcakes just out of the frame of this shot...
Later that night, Andy finishes off some Hoppin' John at a friend's place--no plate needed.
The next day, we met my friend Kate and her adorable baby in Harlem for lunch at one of our favorite Ethiopian restaurants, Zoma. We got a veggie combo and a meat combo to share--here's the meat one. Their injera isn't our favorite, but the food itself is terrific, and two combos are the perfect size to feed four adults. (Or, um, three adults with big appetites, like me, Andy, and Kate!) And they even brought out a plate of unspiced chickpea puree for the baby!
Final food pic: The "mango flowers" appetizer at Regional Thai in Chelsea. It's not our favorite place for the more standard Thai dishes, but these steamed balls of peanut and chicken drizzled with mango sauce and ginger soy sauce may just be the tastiest (and prettiest!) dumpling dish I've ever had. I recommend skipping the curries and getting an order of these to yourself for dinner if you ever go there!
That's it for now for the east coast. Coming soon: Food, theater, and adventure in the American Southwest!

Our Hoosier Home Visit

For all our readers who have complained about our lack of recent posts (most of whom are related to us), we apologize. I'd like to say that we were off fighting rebels in Sudan or that Tara had to go accept her Nobel Prize in Literature, but the truth is that we have spent the last couple weeks negotiating with Somali pirates to join their ranks when we are in Somalia. And visiting friends, family, and a donut FACTORY in the American Southwest. More on all that later. Now, we take you all the way back in time to December, 2009. We bring you the sights and foods of Indiana.

Before we get to Indiana, it is necessary to tell how we got there. From Belize, we flew to Dallas. Here, we planned to spend the night in the airport before flying to Indiana the next morning. (The next morning, by the way, was Tara's birthday. Feel free to send me your jeers now for letting my wife sleep in an airport on her birthday.) We really wanted to try a BBQ place at the Dallas airport that closed at 9pm and our flight arrived just after 7pm, so we thought we would have time. We painlessly got through customs, but then had a problem: the restaurant was inside security and we were outside.

We went to security and showed them our boarding passes for the following morning. The guard, in a Gandalf voice, said, "You shall not pass." He informed us that he could only let us through if our flight was that night. While discussing what to do, Tara realized that an Indiana-bound flight had been delayed, so we made the decision to try to switch to that flight so that they would let us through security and we could try the BBQ place.

So, we run to the counter and stand in line behind about 10 people whose flight was canceled and who all seem to need to desperately get to Paris. We finally get to the front around 8:35pm, and they happily give us seats on the Indiana flight that now is scheduled to leave around 11pm. Great! But they tell us there is no way the bag we had to check (because it had liquid presents in it) will make that flight and won't arrive until the following morning. Not so great. But BBQ is more important than luggage, so we run to security and wave our new tickets in the security guy's face. We had left our guns at home, so we got through quickly and ran to the BBQ place.

We arrived there at 8:47pm. Closed.

The people cleaning said, "Maybe next time." I replied, "There won't be a next time." As it turned out, we return there a couple blog posts from now. We were forced to settle for some fries at Popeye's. Though we discovered on our travels that Americans do not have a monopoly on deep-fried goods, we did miss seasoned fries.

So, we decided to stay on the Indiana flight. It arrived at Indianapolis at around 3am. I didn't trust the luggage people that our luggage wouldn't arrive, and so Tara started making our bed while I waited for 20 minutes on the luggage. That was smart since our luggage turned out to be on the flight. Indianapolis has a lovely new airport where we had never been. In this airport, they have benches in the luggage return area that push together and form a full-sized bed. Here is Tara in our "bed", which was better than some hotels in South America, though no one ever came into our hotel rooms to collect their luggage.
My brother and sister-in-law collected us the next morning from our sleeping quarters, and I announced that we were going to Steak'n'Shake for Tara's birthday lunch. Yep, strike two against me. I made her sleep in the airport on her birthday and then decided where we were going for lunch. However, going to Steak'n'Shake on the way home from the airport is somewhat of a family tradition, and my family's traditions are not to be ignored. For those who have never been to Steak'n'Shake, you should fly to the nearest city that has one. They have very tasty milkshakes and great burgers for very cheap (by American standards). Here is my triple burger and Tara's shake (mine was already gone), along with her biscuits and gravy.

To try to redeem myself for making Tara sleep in an airport, I asked my brother to buy a pinata and fill it with Reese's products for Tara's birthday. This is because: a.) every time we saw a pinata in Central America, Tara would tell me this story about how great it was when she once had a pinata as a child; and b.) Reese's products top the list of things most missed while away (we found peanut butter cups in only one place for a ridiculous $4 for two). My brother had the genius to find a Dora the Explorer pinata. Here is Tara ready to swing.

Here is Tara after the swing. Dora appears to be laughing at Tara.
Dora was finally disembodied after some swinging by the whole family. Fortunately, my brother thought of this possibility and cut a separate hole in Dora's head so that he could fill it with candy, too...

Despite finding a Dairy Queen in Panama, it is always nice to be back at the home DQ. Here is Tara at the year-round DQ in Terre Haute with my mom in the background. Mom won't be happy about being pictured here. Hi, Mom! [Note: As expected, my mother threatened me physical harm if I didn't take her out. Instead, I replaced her with someone who didn't mind being in the picture.]

Tara was incredibly excited about having salad again, which isn't common south of the US. I wish I had something funny to say about this salad, but Tara's excitement about it is funny enough.
Tara's favorite store in Terre Haute is Baesler's, which is probably most comparable to Whole Foods. The main prize for Tara is the Trader's Point drinkable yogurt from a nearby dairy (Tara is snuggling it in the picture). She loves the stuff. In New York, she decided to buy a bottle of this yogurt instead of a house. In Terre Haute, it only costs as much as a car.
Tara is continually amazed at the local park where many of the schools and some other organizations decorate a shelter for Christmas. This was one of my favorites because it had a lot of stuff moving. Yep, I'm that simple. It moves; therefore, I like it.
We also discovered Peanut Butter Lovers Reese's cups. This is a great innovation. I personally eat them only for the peanut butter. In this version, they ripped off the top layer of chocolate and replaced it with a much tastier peanut butter top. Good job, Reese's!
The holy grail of Terre Haute cuisine (haute cuisine, get it?) is Square Donuts. These are the best donuts in the world, and they are square. From left to right and top to bottom: strawberry with cream filling, vanilla with cream filling, cinnamon and sugar with apple filling, vanilla with lemon filling, strawberry with cream filling, peanut butter with raspberry jam filling, cinnamon and sugar with apple filling, vanilla with lemon filling, strawberry with cream filling, cinnamon and sugar with cream filling, vanilla with cream filling, cinnamon roll. Hooray, Square Donuts!
While at home, our friend Jan was kind enough to make some South American haute cuisine for us. This one is dulce de leche ice cream. So as to appear civil, I took only a small amount in my bowl. I repeated this process four more times.
Jan also baked some Colombian cheese bread. Tara found it quite good. I gave it the evil eye.
Terre Haute is home to a sushi place called Sushi Umi. It is considered by many on the Internet to be some of the best sushi in the Midwest, if not the country. We didn't believe this possible, so we had to try it. I don't like sushi, so here is my chicken katsu. It was good, but it also fulfilled my other criteria: it was big.
Here is some sushi. Looks like a couple nasty eel things in the back and a nasty eel tempura roll in the front. Tara said it might be the best sushi she has ever had. So, congratulations to Sushi Umi. Who knew that you could get such great fish out of the Wabash River?
My sister took on the project of baking something different that each person requested. This seems crazy to me, but she seemed to enjoy it. The hardest part was baking the devil cat in the back which looks just like Quincy, our cat.
Lastly, we tried the local Indian buffet, which started out as food being sold in an Indian-owned gas station, and then became a real restaurant. It was not the best Indian food on earth, but was substantially better than we expected from Indiana. I certainly ate my $9 worth. In case you wondered, you can tell this is Tara's plate rather than mine because it is not overflowing off the sides.

We had a really good time during our week in Indiana and tried some really great food. It was nice to be home for awhile, and we look forward to returning, even if it might be in another year or so...