This just arrived in my inbox:
My name is Stacie Simonpietri and I am a production researcher with the Travel Channel program, Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. After such an enjoyable experience filming our “Arizona” episode in 2009, we are looking into producing another episode entitled, “Arizona Desert.” It would be in and around the Tucson area and its environs to the south, focusing on the Sonoran desert, Chihuahuan desert, Superstition mountains, and Gila mountains. I’m interested in hearing your thoughts about the local foodways and culinary scene—anything our host could not miss if we came to the Tucson area.
Got any suggestions? Mine include cholla buds, saguaro fruit, rattlesnake and Jan Brewer, although that last one’s a bit on the leathery (and crazy) side.
This article appears in Oct 18-24, 2012.
Let’s see if Andrew Zimmern can swallow the idea of a 3.9 mile multi-million dollar streetcar that supposed to create a financial boom downtown by having its riders drive to downtown, pay to park, and pay to ride the streetcar past all the shops they didn’t want to visit in the first place. Oh, and lets not forget the college students who would rather pay to ride a streetcar to school instead of walk the two blocks for free. That is indeed bizarre.
There’s a whole industry around the Jojoba, that should be easy. And mesquite flour is pretty local, but didn’t he already do that one? Go up into the mountains for wild berries but everybody has those.
Stacie should have left the Politics out of it, she lost me there. Bizarre Foods a stupid show, you might as well watch The View, if wanting to make yourself Gag.
Fat, white, bald guy visits Tucson…yawn.
I’ve had some tasty javelina jerky.
Viva Burrito. He might actually puke on camera.
Tripas de leche (sorry if I misspelled it), prickly pear fruit and how about drinking the liquid inside a barrel cactus? Oh also eating the nutty tasting seeds inside the pod of the barrel cactus flower?
I spoke with Stacie and then sent her a long list of people and places. Of course I included prickly pear but I suggested she check out the mead made by a local guy.