PeteCarpenter.com

1/31/2006

• just got back from our annual trip to the desert to visit the saxe’s. otherwise known as the pizza pilgrimage. this makes 4 years in a row, and it’s just a weekend of pure gluttony mixed in with some long, kneee-pounding, angry-guarddog chasing runs.
• sometimes, when you need to kill an hour on a sunday morning, nothing’s better than a visit to four peaks for an oatmeal stout. it’s like breakfast in a glass.
• the weekend, as always, started with a visit to pane bianco. i can’t really say much more than i’ve already said about this place. completely perfect sandwiches. i could eat these every day of my life and never tire of them.
• los dos molinos, some of the best mexican/new mexican food i’ve had. fiery is the word of the day here. everything is hot, but not oeverpoweringly so. just really flavorful and spicy. their pitchers of tasty margaritas help cool things down as well. my green chili and chicken enchilada and red chili tamale were fantastic, but susanne’s adovada ribs took the cake. it was a big meat weekend for us, and for me, this was a hilight. oh, and i learned that i apparently look like eric bana.
• matt’s big breakfast is a new addition to out phoenix itinerary. diner classics in a tiny, light-filled space downtown next to the farmer’s market, they do things right here. skipping the breakfast food and heading right to lunch (an hour-long wait pushed our “breakfast” to 12:00), a top-notch BLT and cobb salad did the trick.
• the hilight of every trip is the visit to pizzeria bianco. despite showing up at 6:30, a two and a half hour wait awaited us at bar bianco. a couple of bottles of prosecco and beers later, it was time for pizza, and as the legend goes, it was the best pizza in the world. hands down. just like last year, 4 different pizzas were sampled, with a new winner this year. the Margherita (Tomato Sauce, Fresh Mozzarella, Basil), Wiseguy (Wood Roasted Onion, House Smoked Mozzarella, Fennel Sausage), and Rosa (Red Onion, Parmigiano Reggiano, Rosemary, AZ Pistachios) were as great as i remember, but the Sonny Boy (Tomato Sauce, Fresh Mozzarella, Salami, Gaeta Olives) was the big winner. What i sort of forgot from my last visit was how light and airy and chewy the crust is, which is just unlike any pizza i’ve ever had. and i can’t forget to mention one of our apps, the matt-dubbed “salt on a stick” spiedini of fontina wrapped in proscuitto, served warm. i’m pretty sure if we lived in phoenix, we would have to go there every, and i mean, every week. it’s just too good not to.
• as if we hadn’t already eaten enough meat, sunday was “all-meat sunday”. it started off with in-n-out, and ended with a big fat rosemary, lemon, garlic, and olive marinated grilled leg of lamb. let’s ust say that we’ll be eating a lot of vegetarian and seafood this week to recover. oh, and something i didn’t notice on last year’s trip to in-n-out: there are bible citations written on the bottom of wrappers and cups. sort of freaky. here’s the explanation.
• there will be yet another new addition to the carpenter family this summer. this makes three new ones on the way. and no, this one is not ours either.
• i bet macie misses us already.
• i got a webcam last week. no, there will not be any nude videos of me online now.
• sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs, the first of a stack of chuck klosterman books that i’m working through. if you dig pop culture references, hilarious writing, and the work of bill simmons, you’ll love chuck. and he’s writing a super bowl blog over on espn page 2 this week.

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