#158 - by the time i get to arizona (pt 1).

i'm the oldest of four children & while i'm obviously the funny one, my sister (who's two years younger than me) has solidly cemented herself as the one most qualified to perform surgery & distribute meds. for the last three years, she's been working at a hospital out in phoenix & as of this past weekend, she's officially a doctor. her convocation ceremony was on saturday & i'd yet to visit her, so a week ago this thursday, i hopped on a jumbo jet & paid a visit to her & the state known for passionate anti-immigration, slacking on MLK day & sprawl as far as the eye can see...that and spring training baseball & old people. word is they're also known for a big hole in the ground.

since my life pretty much revolves around food, going into the trip, my sis & i had decided that other than sleep & the convocation (which actually ended up being a hour-and-a-half ceremony sandwiched between a cocktail hour & a dinner), the singular purpose of our four days together was to eat as much tasty, mostly-arizonacentric food as possible.

when i first arrived, i'd just endured eleven hours of travel, so on the way back from the airport, we stopped off at ticoz resto-bar, a...um..."resto-bar" in uptown phoenix. we sat out on the patio & had some lobster queso, a bacon salad (her) & two tiny "ticoz chicos burgers" (with guacummus & queso fresco), waffle fries & passion fruit slaw (me). i ate a burger & half of the fries & slaw and brought the rest home to be cooked on another eve in my sis' nuwave oven. listen...i'm not usually one for things that use the suffix "nu," but after tasting my burger & fries reheated in the oven, i can say that that oven rules. f microwaves. nuwaves are the future. i'm telling you, the nuwave folks should totally get the rights to some ditty by human league or soft cell & promote the hell out of their wondrous kitchen appliance...before it's too late.

the next morn, we got up & eventually headed out to matt's big breakfast, a joint that (as evidenced by a stencil on the wall) was recently paid a visit by the food network's guy fieri. i don't give a rat's ass about him, but a co-worker had recommended it, so we decided to have our first breakfast of the trip there. after a short wait, we got seats at the counter & ordered up some grub. sis had some pork & egg-based dish called the "hog & chick," but i'm not a big breakfast guy & it was around noon, so i opted for a simple lunch of BLT & iced tea. the bacon was thick & awesome. one of the waitresses was short & cute & had what i think was a tattoo of a bird on her wrist. the soundtrack was vampire weekend. totally hip & definitely worth checking out.

i'm in love with good beer, so in the evening, we headed to tempe for "dinner" & beers at four peaks brewery, a restaurant & brewery housed in a converted creamery & warehouse. sis had some mac & cheese and i had a big ass plate of questionable, all-over-the-place, five-layer nachos accompanied by two beers--the raj i.p.a & the borboun stout, a beer which was aged in an oak barrel and as cold & dark as my heart. the i.p.a. was average, but the stout was strong & flavorful & um, strong. sis actually got the arizona peach, which, since she's a girly, non-beer drinker, made me quite proud, even if she did only finish half of it. in the end, it's probably for the best that she didn't drink too much. after all, i needed a chauffeur.

snack: ass kickin' chipotle popcorn
drink: four peaks kiltlifter

post-dinner, we returned to my sis' apartment & after a while, we decided to pop up a bag of ass kickin' chipotle popcorn that we'd grabbed at AJ's fine foods (a AZ-based whole foods type market) earlier in the day. the ass kickin' brand is a product of the AZ-based, much lamer-named "southwest specialty foods" & i have a bit of history with them. this past xmas, the sis sent me a box of snacks & such that included a can of ass kickin' peanuts & a set of ass kickin' hot sauces. they both kicked ass & i'm nothing if not a slave to brands, so we ended up choosing their chipotle popcorn over a few other tasty-sounding gourmet brands, including ones from original juans' (who i sampled early last year).

there were no directions for cooking the popcorn in the nuwave oven, so we had to rely on the friggin microwave. that's so twentieth century. boy. unfortunately for my sis, the popcorn is flavored with sucralose & she's apparently allergic to that, so after tasting a couple kernels & checking out the ingredients, she realized she shouldn't be eating it, leaving me with a ton of ass kickin' popcorn. i felt bad for her, because as a popcorn, it really does kick ass. it's slightly sweet with a slightly-spicy kick & an overall clean, ungreasy taste. i polished off about half the bag, but i'd filled up on nachos & beer earlier in the eve, so i ended up storing the rest in some sort of super-advanced tupperware my sis had, allowing me to snack on fresh-tasting, ass kickin' popcorn all weekend long.

since i hadn't got a chance to try it at the brewery earlier in the evening, i opened a bottle of four peaks kiltlifter (also purchased at AJ's) to have with the popcorn. the kiltlifter is four peaks' signature beer, a scottish-style ale that won a couple of medals back in the clinton & early bush years. i'm not sure what the big connection between phoenix & scottish people is, but in trying to figure it out, i did come across the website of the phoenix pipe band. their website's also from the clinton & early bush years and according to it, they play "the traditional pipe music of scotland and ireland" & they're "arizona's longest running pipe band" (since 1958). that's pretty cool, but if any of the members of the phoenix pipe band tried to give me the ol' kiltlifter, i'd probably end up blowing chunks, which would be unfortunate, because if i blow chunks, garth over there is definitely gonna hurl.

the kiltlifter didn't exactly make me feel like a saucy mel gibson just prior to heading into battle, but it's a pretty good beer. it's copper/amber in color & has a nice scent. it's relatively smooth & tastewise has a malty, somewhat smoky flavor with hints of caramel. bonus! it kicked ass at complementing the sweetness & spiciness of the popcorn. tasty. in fact, i enjoyed it so much that when i paid a second visit to sprouts later in my trip, i got another bottle of it & along with a few select others, successfully (BAM!) stowed it in my luggage, ensuring that there will be some kilt lifting in brooklyn very soon.

part two coming soon! check back! AND! check out food photos from AZ at the eat!drink!snack! flickr page!