coons on the wall

so, there's yet another little burger joint on center street in provo. this one is called stumpy burger. i guess these folks hail from missouri (southerwestern) and they are raccoon themed. like, coons everywhere. there's even a real dead coon on the wall. the staff all have a coon tail on the back of their aprons. pretty funny. me and dave went the other day and tried it out. pretty damn tasty. they have fresh strawberry pie, though they had run out by the time we got there. so, logically, we went back the next day. this time with charley, and we hapened to show up at the same time as dj kidd widd and katie G. we all basically got the same thing (quarter lb chbrgr), except dave, who got the fish sliders. the only two people who would regularly buy fish sandwiches are dave and jesse rex. i don't get it. anyway, everyone agreed stumpys was a pretty damn good little spot. they got these huge fresh cut fries that have the best potato flavor i've had in a while. i dig stumpys and give it four thumbs up.
also get their strawberry pie.

demae-space

i went today. i don't usually go there or any sushi place really, i usually like to go to osaka if i'm downtown to get sushi, but jared and jesse were already there so i walked over. i wasn't too hungry, so i got some philly rolls and some crispy rolls. i digg the crispy rolls the most. FRIED SUSHI. duh, its a no brainer. i may hafta go back for some more of those.

DON'T COOK CABBAGE OR IT'LL MAKE THE HOUSE STANK

or so says king louie.
i'm gonna do it soon.
also, me and nooly are trying to cook at home more. last week i made some turnip greens and white northern beans and cornbread. super delicious. i'm gonna keep making more stuff like this. only problem is i gotta find a good source for greens. i found some canned stuff that wasn't too bad, but i'd rather have fresh ones. also, i gotta find a good source for ham hocks.
come on out to joey's soul food kitchen.

fancy pants pizza

my and yet another new food buddy cari went up to slut lake the other day because we had the day off. she wanted to take me to this pizzeria called settebelo. i'm usually against fancy pants pizzeria places because i'm a giant fan of joe schmoe pizzerias and snotty people in nice clothes eating pizza is kind of a joke to me. however. this was really good pizza and i can completely appreciate the high end gourmand stuff. i got a pizza with prosciutto and kalmata olives and basil and a crushed tomato sauce. it didn't seem like the sauce was seasoned with anything more than a bit of salt, which may have come from the prosciutto, and the saltiness was balanced very well by the tang of the olives and the sweetness of the basil. they had a pretty tasty crust too. they use a wood fired oven there that i can also appreciate. surprisingly it wasn't too expensive, i was expecting to pay more than i did, but for what we ate it was more than reasonable. service was fine, nothing to complain or rave about. all the dudes working the oven seemed to be italians, which is a plus. i think its always a good idea to have the folks cooking be from the place where the food comes from, i.e., mexicans cooking indian food is always a bad idea. after we ate we had a bit of time to kill so we headed over to randys records for a sec, i met cari because she buys records too, so we spent about 45 mins in randys (and about 60 bux) and headed back to the brovo. was a pretty good outing.

sonic

the other night after dave's hippie show at the girl house, he and me and juliette went to sonic to grab some foodz. i ain't been to sonic in a while but we were all stoked on it so we rolled up to that sonic and got some eats. me and dave got the chicken toaster thing and juliette got some breakfast whatnots with no meat. dave decided to get an order of the cheese bites. and i decidded to partake of a few of them. goodness gracious. those little fried cheesy bits of heaven were delicious. i could eat probably a gallon and a half of those. without any kind of dipping sauce. they were that good. it isn't often a fast food joint can make a lil treat like that that tastes so good. i'm gonna go again soon and get some of my own.

why i sometimes like downtown provo a lot.

so last sunday i woke up around 11:00 or so and wanted to get out of the house. i couldn't decide if i wanted to eat, but i was getting stir crazy and needed to get out. i also wanted a little bit of a wake up. so i took a shower and wandered over to juice and java. on the way i saw big dane outside ABG's opening shop so i walked over to say hi, we chatted for a bit, dane's always good for a chat, and since i knew i wouldn't be at juice and java too long i offered to grab him a cup of coffee. when i got to juice and java there was a small group of folks outside and no one inside. i felt like reading and it was kinda breezy so i stayed inside. got me a lil cup and sat down to read an old slug mag. not my fav mag. they try to hard to be tough. after i finished off my cup, i grabbed anotherone for dane and walked back over to ABG's and dane was still hanging out in the shade. he thanked me for the coffee and we chatted a bit more. i decided i was hungry so i walked down to el salvadoran, which is always open sundays (i got my fingers crossed that pete will come through and start opening on sundays), to grab my usual 2 loroco pupusas and chicken tamale. when i walked in the door there were 2 customers. most of the crew were on break, but when i walked in, i got some big smiles, and a "hey amigo!". i had to chuckle. i don't know if they really were excited to see me or just bored with a slow day and excited to see anyone. either way, i got my food in record time and chatted withthe big guy who works there. the food was good as always and in the course of my meal a few more folks walked in and got about the same reception, but they weren't white folks. they were regular salvadorans. here's my point. that little diner is such a great model for how a marginal group can exist in a very entitlement oriented place like provo. i hesitate calling it a hub for salvadorans, but it does serve as a place for salvadorans to exist as salvadorans, on their terms, without any sort of pressure from outsiders to "be" salvadoran. since i'm always there, usually by myself, the staff recognize me and i get the kinds of hellos not usually reserved for white people. don't think i haven't noticed how they treat larger groups of white kids. and don't think i haven't noticed how larger groups of white kids treat them. the thing going on at the salvadoran is indicitave of the successes and the failures of downtown provo. when i can go in and (on a very tiny level) be seen by the staff as something other than a paying customer it opens an entirely new level for the possiblity of erasing some kind of boundary. those boundaries are the failures of downtown provo. and they are everywhere. simply taking interest in buying food isn't enough. the successes that happen downtown usually aren't based in economics, they are a result of people finding ways to disrupt and re-orient the things that are ideologically given. when i'm in the salvadoran on a sunday, i'm usually the only white guy, i'm the outsider, i'm marginal in that space. but not for long. people recognize people. when people recognize you they talk to you. when people talk, boundaries are blurred. when boundaries blur the world gets a tiny bit better for somebody. this may be getting more touchy feely for me, but i really love alot of the people i run into downtown. victor from rice king, usually has a wave and a hi, pete will usually stop and chat about business or the weather or whatever, dane will always stop and chat. there needs to be more of this thing going on. it bugs me how much of a huge disparity the city has created by trying to bring in big corporations downtown. those people don't communicate with the "locals". downtown doesn't need that. put that stuff somewhere else. it kills what little vibe downtown has. and you can put your money on provo choosing a big corporation over the little shops and diners that make provo charming. i'd bet my free speech provo would rather tear down all those buldings and put in a slew of chain resturants and shops. fuck that. its soulless. but its nearly inevitable with the way things have been going lately. and if/when it does happen, it will be the biggest failure of all. if anyone from provo city sees this, take note: someone is paying attention.