Ted’s Hot Dogs – Tempe, Arizona

Reading Becky Mercuri’s magnificent Great American Hot Dog Book had the same effect on me that Fifty Shades of Grey had on soccer moms throughout the country.   How can someone so food obsessed not delight in such beautiful prose as “Western New York is definitely hot dog country and the preferred method of cooking is charcoal grilled.”  Charcoal grilled!  There goes another foodgasm.  New Mexicans don’t have to travel all the way to Buffalo, New York to experience these magnificent charcoal grilled libido activators.  We only have to go to Tempe, Arizona to sate our hunger…or lust, in some cases. Ted’s Hot Dogs was a precursor to the modern food truck.  In 1927, Theodore “Ted” Spiro Liaros began operating a horse-drawn cart in a park on Buffalo’s west side in close proximity to a large construction site.  Originally known as “Ted’s Red Hots,” Ted’s is still going strong nearly a century after launching.  It’s a beloved Buffalo area institution with eight locations in Western New York and one outlier in Tempe.  The secrets to Ted’s success is strict adherence to the methods and traditions that have won over generations of hot dog lovers. One tradition not likely to ever…

Guido’s Chicago Meat & Deli – Scottsdale, Arizona

For years now, my Kim and I have largely eschewed American television, especially its sophomoric, lowbrow and “meant for voyeurs” reality shows.  We’ve been increasingly gravitating to an almost exclusive viewership of British television which we’ve found to be meant for grown-ups rather than children.  British television programs offer a sophistication direly absent in American programming.  British programs tend to be more substantive, refined and of much higher quality than their American counterparts.  That assessment applies to mysteries, comedies, dramas and even commercials. The final nail in the coffin for American television were two absolutely unwatchable reality shows:  The Kardashians and Jersey Shore.  Both showcase obnoxious, self-aggrandizing and vacuous characters with no redeeming characteristics.  The Jersey Show, for example, made celebrities of four loud, foul-mouthed, hypersexual Italian Americans who self-style as “guidos” and “guidettes.”  Never mind that “guido” (slang for a working-class urban Italian-American) is widely perceived by Italian-Americans as a pejorative word, like “spic” or “wop.” It’s a very unflattering stereotype. Lest you think we lowered ourselves to watch such detritus, we caught a promotion for the series which bragged about gathering the “hottest, tannest, craziest guidos” and assembling them at a beach resort where all would be laid…

JOE’S PASTA HOUSE – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Once a year, despite my protestations and whining, I agree to take my Kim to the Olive Garden. It’s a deal we have, albeit one that makes me feel like Faust in the Christopher Marlowe play. Faust, for the non-English majors among you, was a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. In my case, the deal is a visit to Olive Garden once a year in exchange for all the strange and exotic restaurants I want to visit the rest of the year. I sure got the rotten end of that deal. On a list of things I’d rather do, my annual visit to the Olive Garden for a meal of cheese glop or tomato torture ranks somewhere below visiting a proctologist or watching The View. Kim likes the salad and bread sticks and I suspect derives a bit of sadistic satisfaction in hearing me mutter polysyllabic epithets about the “Evil Garden’s” food. The cultural anthropologist in me finds it both amusing and tragic that teeming masses congregate for pathetic pasta, mediocre marinara and boring bread sticks. It makes me long for a visit to Joe’s Pasta house in Rio…