Monthly Archives: April 2013

Truth or Dare

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Is there a better name than Truth or Consequences? Well, not all the locals think so, given that it switched from the original, more accurate Hot Springs when the 1950s’ Truth or Consequences TV show offered to air a program in the first town or city to change its name. Guess who won?

Passion Pie Cafe is a cozy place to hang out at a brightly painted table by a big picture window with an equally big French press pot of coffee. There’s soft jazz playing in the background, with the locals chewing the fat about everything from an overcrowded turkey hunt (“It’s hardly solitude”) to desert golf courses using a million gallons of water a day. Passion Pie also serves some fabulous, thick waffles topped with a mound of fresh fruit (and whipped cream, for the kids) or eggs. An older guy works off the waffle calories by painstakingly getting up three times to wander off for more salt and then pepper.

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Cozy Passion Pie: Check the fruit and whipped cream covered waffle in background

Customer: “Your coffee’s strong.”
Cafe owner or worker: “Yeah, it upsets my stomach. I have to drink my coffee at home, before I get to work.”

While I’m checking Passion Pie’s hours, a guy across the street is picking up a couple of cigarette butts from the road. Probably going to smoke them, I’m thinking, when he calls out, “You from Saskatchewn?”
“Oh, you’ve seen my licence plates. I’m from Alberta, one province over from Saskatchewan.”
“Providence? Rhode Island?”
“No, provinces. We have provinces in Canada. They’re like your states.” “Just pulling your leg. I grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario.”

It turns out he owns the 1930s-era movie theatre behind him, when he’s not commuting to a firefighting job. We spend 15 minutes chatting about politics, war and the like (topics I wouldn’t normally broach with an American), while he gets pop, popcorn and candy ready for that night’s show. He’s running a one-man show tonight, selling tickets through the street-front window and effortlessly turning to fill concession orders (Why does it take six times as many people and three times as long in a big-city theatre?). In a few minutes, he’ll be off to turn on the projector. It’s only $5 for a first-run movie but, he says, some people still complain.

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Tales From the Road

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Hoppy band at La Cumbre 

True story. I walk up to the bar at La Cumbre Brewing Company, in Albuquerque, New Mexico to order a pint of their prize-winning Malpais stout. A customer at the counter looks over and asks, in a slightly slurred voice, what’s inside the soft briefcase I’m carrying. I say a tablet and a camera. “What do you take pictures of?” “Food, drinks, restaurants, that kind of thing.” “I’m a photographer, too,” he says. “Oh, what kind of photography do you do?” “Dead bodies… for a medical examiner’s office.” The conversation comes to a dead halt. Anyway, my stout (“a meal in a glass”) is heavy on the tongue and somewhat hoppy. The crowd is exuberant, a band is wailing on guitars and a food truck parked outside is selling hot empanadas. It makes you feel good to be alive.

In Roswell, New Mexico—where there’s a UFO museum and alien figures scattered through town—a friendly guy at a hamburger joint tells me his 19-year-old daughter had abandoned her vegetarian upbringing by eating her first ever hamburger the week before at said joint. The owner wanders by and asks the daughter how her burger was. “Best I’ve ever eaten.”

If you're going to have your first burger, might as well make it a green chile cheeseburger

If you’re going to have your first burger, might as well make it a green chile cheeseburger

Authentic Mexican Taco Stand: in Hamer, Idaho

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Thank goodness for inquisitive friends. Otherwise, who would ever take the exit off I-15 towards Hamer, a flyspeck of a town north of Idaho Falls? Just look for a little roadside taco stand before you get into town, Colin and Liz tell me. Sure enough, there it is—a little lean-to shack off a van, though at first glance I couldn’t tell if it had been abandoned or was just vacated. But a small sign says “open”, so I wander around back and look up to see a little old lady in a hairnet hustling towards me from a nearby house. “Are you open?” I ask. “Si.” My Spanish is about as good as her English, but it doesn’t take long to scan the brief menu board and order tres tacos, two pork and one beef. Cilantro? Si. Radeesh? Si. Salsa? Si. I soon have a paper plate loaded with steaming, flavourful and piquant fillings atop fresh tortillas, all for $5.

I’m not really sure of the name, Rico Taco, maybe? The hours and exact address? Who knows. It doesn’t matter. Just go. It’s a delightful experience and as authentically Mexican as you’ll get, certainly in Idaho, short of being invited into her kitchen.

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From Buena Vista to Aspirational Aspen

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Lovely Arkansas River near Buena Vista, Colorado

Lovely Arkansas River near Buena Vista, Colorado

Like many of the area towns, Buena Vista (pronounced Beeyoona by locals) combines the holy trinity of mountain biking and river running or fly fishing the upper Arkansas River. Locals and visitors can also develop an appetite by running up one of the nearby 14,000-foot mountains.

I generally research my road-food stops in advance, to maximize the odds of hitting the best eateries. But occasionally, I like to wing it, which often means following the old formula of looking for the most parked vehicles. This leads me to Evergreen Cafe just as the rush for the $5 breakfast special is ending. That gives me room to find a counter seat near the grill, which provides added entertainment as a new cook is being schooled by the exacting owner. On the second try, my over-easy eggs pass approval and arrive perfectly cooked, along with a pancake and sausage patty. The sharp-eyed owner notices me watching the action and asks, “Who are you?” “Just a traveller,” I say, as I furtively slide my notebook into my briefcase.

Evergreen Cafe
418 Highway 24, Buena Vista
Daily 6:30 am-2 pm
Evergreen Cafe on Urbanspoon

For such a small place, Buena Vista is a serious coffee centre. At the south end of town, there’s Brown Dog Coffee Company (713 South Highway 24, daily 6:30 am-9 pm), where you can get a nice in-house-roasted coffee, a slice of coffee cake or a sandwich. You can also drive down historic Main Street to *Buena Vista Roastery (409 East Main Street, daily 7 am-6 pm). There, you can pick up a pound of Kenyan to go or sit in a comfortable cafe and enjoy a pour-over coffee along with a house-baked bagel or cheesy hot pocket. Not content with running a vibrant business, co-owner Joel Benson is also the town’s mayor.

Buena Vista Roastery is a great place for a java and a snack

Buena Vista Roastery is a great place for a java and a snack

Heading north of Buena Vista on Highway 24, you can continue to the historic mining town of Leadville. Or you can hang a left on the twisting Highway 82 that climbs all the way to Independence Pass, at a lofty 12,100 feet, before plunging down to Aspen.

Wonder why it's called Aspen.

Wonder why it’s called Aspen.

Aspen is one of those aspirational places that perfectly fits the line “the billionaires are pushing out the millionaires.” It’s a beautiful but highfalutin, spotless resort town, where the coiffed regulars wear down sweaters and are pulled down sidewalks by well-bred dogs. (One waitress who also looks after a number of properties for seasonal residents tells me she has to run out and FedEx a forgotten sweater to an absentee owner.) Still, amongst the high-end galleries and clothing stores are a surprising number of excellent, affordable eateries. After all, the help have to eat somewhere.

I make a beeline to Poppycock’s Café for just one reason. “Would you like to see a menu?” the waitress asks. “No thanks. Just an order of oatmeal buttermilk pancakes, please.” Apparently, I’m not alone. The signature oatcakes are so popular, they ship some 50 two-pound packages of the mix every week, more around Christmas. I can see why. Unlike normal hotcakes, these are moist and dense, like hot oatmeal. The corn griddle cakes also sell like, pardon me, hotcakes; you can buy that mix, too. In house, the latter come with Poppycock’s pistachio sausage patties.

The oatmeal buttermilk pancakes are a hot seller at Poppycock's Cafe

The oatmeal buttermilk pancakes are a hot seller at Poppycock’s Cafe

Poppycock’s Cafe
665 East Cooper Avenue, Aspen
Monday to Saturday 7 am-2:30 pm, Sunday 7 am-2 pm
Poppycock's on Urbanspoon

Make sure you get a counter seat when you eat at *Johnny McGuire’s Deli. At lunch, most people are standing, waiting for their food to take out or to eat at a sunny, outdoor table. But what you want is a front-row seat to watch short-order cooking at its finest. The Spanish-speaking cooks I observe are a blur of coordinated action. As one guy flips grilled steak slices and onion onto half a toasted sub, the other is simultaneously putting greens and sauce on the other side and then quickly cutting the sandwich with a big knife. Despite what looks like a time-consuming line, half a dozen sandwiches are ready in a couple of well-orchestrated minutes. Soon, I’m biting into a Marley, a hot, juicy combination of grilled steak, onions, barbecue sauce, cheddar and veggies that dribbles down my chin. The cold subs—such as one loaded with turkey, ham and bacon—are equally good. Johnny McGuire’s makes things easy by charging the same price for all the subs, the cost varying only by size; the $7.50 eight-incher is plenty for most appetites, especially if accompanied by some hand-cut fries.

Short-order cooking at its finest at Johnny McGuire's Deli

Short-order cooking at its finest at Johnny McGuire’s Deli

Johnny McGuire’s Deli
730 East Cooper Avenue, Aspen
Daily 9 am-9 pm
Johnny McGuires Deli on Urbanspoon

Big, delicious wraps come out of this tiny Aspen place.

Big, delicious wraps come out of this tiny Aspen place.

It’s called *The Big Wrap, but it could well be the definition of hole in the wall. Walk by too quickly, and you might miss its location, down a few stairs from street level and not much wider than the front door. Walk a few steps inside and you’ve reached the back counter. Needless to say, there’s no bathroom and only a handful of stools. Given what Aspen’s sky-high rents must be, I’m sure this tradeoff in size allows Big Wraps to deliver just that: hefty, delicious wraps that are a steal at under $7, especially in a resort town. The creative concoctions include my choice of a To Thai For—grilled chicken or tofu, peanut sauce, jasmine rice, black beans and crunchy confetti slaw stuffed into a chili tortilla. It’s a two-napkin explosion of flavour. Other inventive combinations are mashed potato and grilled steak or grilled chicken and couscous; they’re what co-owner Babs calls her science experiments.

Here, for instance, is my To Thai For

Here, for instance, is my To Thai For

The Big Wrap
#101, 520 East Durant Avenue, Aspen
Monday to Saturday 10 am-6 pm. Cash only
Big Wrap on Urbanspoon

Another lower-level eatery, 520 Grill also offers some good, affordable lunch and dinner fare. Try the seared ahi tuna or grilled Portobello mushroom sandwiches or the kale and quinoa salad (520 East Cooper Avenue. Monday to Friday 11 am-9 pm, weekends 11 am-5 pm). If you need a beverage to go with all this eating, Victoria’s Espresso and Wine Bar has some potent French Press coffee in their pump pot and offers a range of breakfast baked goods, salads and curries. 510 East Durant Avenue. Daily 7 am-9 pm, except 10 pm Friday and Saturday.