Lessons in Columbian Street Food

Columbian street food in Sedona, Arizona? I’ll push through an aura-readers’ off-roading jeep tour for that.

Thanksgiving weekend was a blast. The day after making (and eating) untraditional Cornish hens, Brussels sprouts, German potato salad, and mom’s famous cheesecake, I went on a seven-mile hike in Sedona, Arizona, as penance for the weekend’s diet sins. “Of course there’s a flute player on the rocks.” He was perched on top of one of the red rock spires, probably for maximum volume projection. The rest of the time I could hear him, I spent making fun of Sedona in my mind. As a tour helicopter flew over, someone joked that it was probably a part-time resident on a Starbucks run. At the end of Boynton Canyon trail, the graffiti defacing the rocks was of a sun with a yin-yang symbol inside. It would be unwise to publish the rest of the stereotype-rich cracks at this point. I finished growing up around here, so I give myself a local's license.

In search of post-hike beer and food, we stumbled upon the antidote to the elite resorts, rock climbing flute soloists and crystal shops that make up a significant part of the cultural landscape of Sedona. At the Oak Creek Brewery, the bartender gave me a menu for the hot dog window I ignored in order to get inside the brewpub.

Lesson #1: Never, ever ignore a person who seems happy to be stuffed into in a hole-in-the-wall food establishment with an order window. He knows something you do not.

Simon, of Simon’s Gourmet Hot Dogs opened this closet-sized hot dog business a year and a half ago, and the fingerprints of his Columbian heritage are all over the comfort food on the menu. While looking at the menu, aloud, I reasoned that “I can get a chili dog anywhere, so I’ll have the maicitos instead.”

“You can’t get my chili dog anywhere.”

Lesson #2: Know better than to say “I can get that anywhere” to the person making, serving, cashiering and bussing your food, especially when the menu says “chili dog” followed by “family recipe”.

“I'll get both.” My loving compadre ordered the Loka brat, a brown mustard, mayonnaise, sauerkraut, and jalepeno-covered bratwurst. I ordered the chili dog and the maicitos, a corn, bacon and cream baked stew with white cheese and crushed potato chips on top.

The dogs came dressed in a soft, tangy roll. The beef chili was savory but had a sweetness of a clove or cinnamon-type spice. In a word, I suppose, it was balanced. And delicious.

Maicitos

The maicitos came with tortilla chips on the side, probably to prevent people from grabbing the entire bowl and drinking it, and contained the power to break whole sentences into shards, in public.

“Corn delicious sweet.”

“Bacony crack.”

“Love potato chips...”

“Cheese melty”

“Try… make this someday.”

Simon seemed as though he has seen this reaction before. He gave us a card, thanked us for ordering food, and beamed a soul-lifting smile.

If you are within 50 miles of Sedona, please make a special stop to go find Simon. For $20, you’ll receive two full bellies of killer Columbian-infused street food, no attitude, a great story, and a brilliant twist on the classic beer-and-brats combination. Over our country’s most hallowed food holiday, it was one of the best meals of the weekend.

Simon’s Gourmet Hot Dogs

2050 Yavapai Drive, Sedona, AZ, inside the Oak Creek Brewery

928-496-0266
Plug the address into your gps; the brewery is located on a small street off highway 89A and is easy to miss.

The Turquoise Room.

Last week, I wrapped a project in Denver, packed up and drove to Los Angeles over a weekend, and started running on another project here on Monday. I bitched about making yet another move with a car load of crap for weeks before I actually had to do it. Just when I was at the end of my moving-around-the-globe-for-projects rope, this most recent route took me through northern Arizona, an area I grew up hiking, biking and running as a kid. While I can't say driving 1,500 miles in two days was a blissful experience, one of the stops I made along the way reminded me why I ultimately love my nomadic lifestyle.

On a recommendation from a colleague, I stopped for breakfast along I-40 at the Turquoise Room inside the historic La Posada hotel in Winslow, Arizona.  I ordered the second best bread pudding I have ever eaten. (The best was an Italian friend's grandmother's recipe in Portland, Oregon, that my friend topped with dark chocolate and served warm.) This one was a pumpkin spice bread, soaked in cream and topped with prickly pear cactus syrup, pine nuts, dried cherries, and candied quince from the hotel's backyard garden. The rest of the menu was filled with elk sausage, duck leg, and other local ingredients and the coffee was roasted nearby in Flagstaff.

Tanque Verde Swap Meet.

This past weekend, I set my sights on how much food was sold in between the booths of pirated dvds and used electronics at The Tanque Verde Swap Meet in Tucson, Arizona. This trip came a day before I read an intriguing Op-Ed in Sunday's Washington Post that tracked a trend towards opting out of the gourmet-ification of natural food and eating just as well, for less money.   I never thought it would become a political statement to buy an apple out of a guy's truck, but here we are, trying to squeeze between Cargill, Monsanto and undervalued, over-produced organic crops to get to our food.

How To Eat A Sonoran Hot Dog.

A Sonoran Hot Dog is an American southwestern regional hot mess of a deep-fried bacon-wrapped hot dog topped with so many other things that you forget there is a deep-fried bacon-wrapped hot dog in the bun. So, of course, when in Tucson, Arizona, we had no choice but to do as Tucsonans do and go find one. One particular purveyor of this wonder of street food, Mr. Antojo's, is a food cart parked six days a week on the corner of Pantano and 22nd.  Don't bother calling to find it.  Just cruise that intersection any day but Sunday.  (I did find an interesting tidbit on his rolls while trying to find out the cart's location and schedule here.)

Here's how a Sonoran Hot Dog happens.