Build it in the Sandstone Desert and They Will Come

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So, you’re headed north on Highway 89 from Zion National Park or Kanab in southern Utah. You look at the map and wonder why anyone would bother making a long, looping detour east on Highway 12. Trust me, just do it. For the journey and for the food. Oh, my yes, the food, produced with the passion you need to make a go of it in this harsh, lightly-populated environment.

First the journey. It’s easy enough to be lured a little ways east to Bryce Canyon National Park, justly famous for its intricately eroded rock spires, which can be explored via short trails into the canyon. But persevere beyond Escalante and suddenly you’re on one of the truly great drives in America. The road twists and dips through spectacular sandstone valleys and then climbs to panoramic viewpoints, culminating in the Hogsback, a ribbon of asphalt that drops off precipitously on both sides.

Just beyond is Boulder, home to less than 200 souls… and one of the finest eateries you’ll find in the middle of desert nowhere, let alone a big city. Indeed, the wonderfully named *Hell’s Backbone Grill is a destination restaurant, with its own cookbook to boot. Dinner reservations are recommended, but it’s quieter at breakfast and lunch, when I arrive.

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Hell’s Backbone Grill

Hell’s Backbone is the culinary inspiration of co-owners and chefs Jen Castle and Blake Spalding and features a menu devoted to local, organic ingredients. “Everything in the kitchen is done with love. There are all these nice little touches,” says my waiter, Breck, as he carries past a bowl of soup topped with a foamy heart. I savour a succulent piece of Spicy Cowgirl Meatloaf, with backbone sauce, organic greens and a biscuit. Breakfast choices (ranging from $8 to $12) are refreshingly different, including blue corn pancakes and poached eggs on brown rice with sautéed greens.

Hell's Backbone co-owner Jen Castle

Hell’s Backbone co-owner Jen Castle

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Breck with my meatloaf lunch

Hell’s Backbone Grill
20 Highway 12, Boulder
Daily 7:30 am-2:30 pm breakfast and lunch and 5 pm-9 pm for dinner from mid-March to end of November

Continuing north of Boulder, Highway 12 is merely superb, ascending to more than 9,200 feet, with views east to the Henry Mountains. At Torrey, it’s again highly worth your while to go right on Highway 24; think of it not as a one-hour detour but a side trip into heaven. The road winds tightly alongside the Fremont River, with red rock walls towering above, as it passes through Capitol Reef National Park. The canyon suddenly gives way to a more lunar landscape just before reaching tiny Caineville, where you’ll find Mesa Farm Market.

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Mesa Farm Market in speck on the desert landscape Caineville, Utah

When he first saw the place for sale nearly 20 years ago, Randy Ramsley figured nothing would grow in this austere place, but a local couple with a sizeable garden convinced him otherwise. Soon, he was growing lettuce for customers’ salads and baking round loaves of chewy white and whole-wheat/rye breads in an outdoor, wood-fired brick oven. More recently, he’s added a herd of goats and is producing excellent cheeses like creme fraiche and feta. I buy enough bread and cheese to make a fine picnic supper, chased by an Evolution Amber ale, while watching the setting sun turn a wall of sandstone orange.

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Meagan with goat cheese and fresh bread from Mesa Farm Market

Mesa Farm Market
Marker 102 (gotta love that), Highway 24, Caineville
Daily 7 am-7 pm from late March to late October

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Early greens at Mesa Farm Market

Note: There is no entrance fee required for passing through Capitol Reef National Park if you stay on Highway 24. There’s a nice park campground ($10 per vehicle) just off the highway or free camping, on the north side of the road, at mile marker 73, just west of the park boundary.

Thoughts From a Long Road Trip

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Getting high in the U.S. southwest

Why do many restaurants with upwards of 100 seats often have only two, single-occupant bathrooms, one for men and one for women (and sometimes just one single-sex toilet? Especially places that serve coffee or beer.

Have you ever seen a brewery or winery that wasn’t award winning?

At a Phoenix-area motel, a customer asks where the ice machine is. “It takes a quarter,” the desk clerk says, explaining that otherwise guys would fill up coolers. “It takes a quarter.” Better, don’t you think, than “it costs a quarter.” For some reason, this reminds me of a friend who said of his apparel, “I take a medium, but a large fits me better.”

I’ve noticed that a lot of towns and small cities on this trip have entrance signs that give a) their elevation and b) their founding year. What’s interesting is how high some of these towns are, starting at 4,000 feet and going way up from there. This low end is higher than just about any place in Canada.

Driving south of Tucson, I’m surprised to see some freeway distance signs listed in kilometres, not miles. Maybe they’re getting people ready for Mexico.

A coffee roaster neatly sums up my new and improved strategy for testing as many road food places as possible in a minimum amount of time: Eating a little a lot. Eating less means ordering two a la carte tacos, so I can easily chow down on a Sonoran hot dog an hour later. That means staying away from the Mexican “plates” and their carbo- and calorie-heavy rice and refried beans. Don’t think I’ve had Mexican rice yet on this trip. Can’t say I miss it. There should be a prize for any chef who comes up with an interesting take on this bland, tired grain.

I’m typing away on my iPad in a coffee shop while drinking a big pot of French press coffee. “You’re wired,” a woman says. Yes and yes.

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Scene from a road road trip where you bite off more than you can chew. A guy wanders up to me at a Phoenix gas station, asking for a buck. “No, but I’ve got half an excellent pizza you can have,” I say, reaching for the takeout box. He skedaddles.

In Prescott, Arizona, three young guys with packs, long dreadlocked hair and a dog (with its chin on the ground) are holding up a cardboard sign: Traveling, Broke and Ugly. Worth a couple of bucks.

Traffic circles, or roundabouts, can be a very efficient method of keeping traffic moving. But the long string of them in and around Sedona, AZ seems fairly new, judging by the vehicles stopping in the middle when they have the right of way. The design here could also use some improvement. The islands are too big and the corners too tight, witness the black rubber smeared all over the curbs.

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Other than a couple of Americanos at Tucson roasters Cafe Aqui and EXO, the best mugs of coffee I’ve had on this three-week road trip have been those I’ve made myself, from EXO beans. Can’t beat the 1/3 cup of grounds I use for one drip cup.

D’Lishest Breakfast… in Scottsdale, Arizona

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Lively, friendly crew at D'Lish in Scottsdale, Arizona

Lively, friendly crew at D’Lish in Scottsdale, Arizona

I’m just getting out of my car at *D’Lish (“Healthy on the go”), when a cook, Tommy, sees me looking at the drive-through menu, and asks, “You ever eaten here before? It’s great, healthy food, a lot of it organic and local.” He says it can get crazy busy at lunch, especially on weekends, when the cars often wrap around the building and spill onto the street. Of course, I go inside, where there’s half a dozen tables and I can watch the friendliest, liveliest crew of guys in action.

While I’m eating an excellent breakfast AZ Burro—featuring smoked turkey, avocado, egg whites and a hash patty—Josh comes over with a complementary cup of Breakfast Buzz: an invigorating, delicious iced mix of protein powder, espresso, peanut butter, banana and chocolate. Why don’t more cafes concoct creative drinks like this?

AZ Burro with egg whites and smoked turkey

AZ Burro with egg whites and smoked turkey

Another innovative breakfast is an organic quinoa oatmeal with vanilla macaroon granola, fruit and steamed milk. Apparently, it’s popular with Arizona Cardinal football players, who double up with a burro or maybe a California Club on toasted artisan bread. It’s also a hit with a couple who own Liberty Market in Gilbert. “We’re pretty picky about where we eat when we have to pay.”

Quinoa oatmeal with fruit

Quinoa oatmeal with fruit

It’s without a doubt the best breakfast experience I’ve had on this road trip. In fact, I hardly need any caffeine to get jumpstarted here—just plug into the energy pulsating through the place.

dlishdrivethru.com
2613 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale (also a Tempe location)
Weekdays 6 am-4 pm, weekends 7 am-4 pm

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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