Iowa and Arizona

Ok well it has been quite some time since my last post. I said that I would keep this thing going so now I am trying to get back on track. I have been traveling a bit but have not hit any really new places. There are a couple though that I want to mention. The first one is a restaurant called Timmerman's outside of Dubuque, Iowa. I was recently there for work and a friend of mine took us there for dinner. It was a throw back to the 70's steakhouse, not sure how many of you remember them but just go along with me on that one. The view from the dining room is great as the restaurant sits on a hill overlooking the river. It was good food and the company that I was with made it even better. We had fun, even though our driver decided to leave us sitting outside as a joke. So since we had time we took a couple of photos and waited for them to come back for us and laughed all the way home.

My next trip found me in Missouri, I know, more exciting by the minute. Anyway we were doing a new bid proposal for a school and working out of a campus kitchen about 1 1/2 hours from the site. The menus were fairly simple and easy to prepare. We just had to make sure that the plates looked great and were fresh and flavorful. No problem. The catch was that we did not have any kitchen space at the site. So we rented a Uhaul and made sure that the menu items would be safe to serve at room temp. We did a Japanese style bento box the first day because the group had already had lunch. This was just a creative way to serve a snack in very tight corners with almost no time for service. It worked out great. The temp outside was cold so that aided in refrigeration. The staff swept in, set the boxes down with a glass of water and a place mat and then left the room. The boxes looked pretty cool. The following day we had a little more time to set up but the same tight room. I was the lucky one that stayed in the room and had a little speaking/demo time. For this we served a Fresh Tomato & Onion Salad topped with Grilled Flank Steak. Again, simple and easy to drop and serve but still offering a fresh and colorful, healthy lunch option. The truck was fun and working in the limited prep area that we had made it more fun and exciting. We had a great time doing it and also got some pretty impressed reviews.

Finally my last stop in this three week trek found me in Arizona. Always a great place to head when it is February in Chicago. There are two spots that I want to mention from this last trip. One is a restaurant called Digestiv, I really like this place. Local foods, nice presentations, great wines by the glass(although they were changing out the wine list so it took a while to get what we wanted) and a whole list of after dinner drinks organized by the countries that they are from. Pretty cool stuff and worth a visit if you are ever in Scottsdale. My other favorite stop in Scottsdale is Grimaldi's Pizza, coal oven, new York style super thin pizza. I go here almost every time I am in Arizona. Great pizza and another spot that has nice wines by the glass. If you are in the area be sure to stop on by.

Ok that wraps it up for now but I will be back a little more often with fun times and great pictures.

Ciao