Homeless, Headless & Hot

We went on a trip to Salt Lack City this morning. We like to venture south to the city once in a while to roll around in civilization like a dog rolls through dog shit. We are still not accustomed to the lack of shopping and whatnot in the Northern Utah area so it is a fabulous treat for us to go discover some new things.

We had a mission today, like we do much of the time that we head this direction. I found a recipe in Food and Wine Magazine that required Lamb Sausage. You wouldn't think it would be that difficult to find. First I tried Snider's Family Meats in Ogden. No dice. But I did pick up a nice mexican pork sausage that I 'm eager to try with some eggs.

I had hoped to find Lamb sausage at Tony Caputo's Market and Deli in Downtown SLC. I'm sorry to say that they did not have it. But we did find a wonderfully stocked specialty food market. I was amazed at the selection of great food products. From locally made pasta, white truffle oil, large selection of olive oil to the most amazing cheese and artisan meat counter I have ever seen! The folks working behind the counter are friendly, informative and so helpful. We sampled and purchased the following:

Fresh Pecorino Toscano Cheese a table cheese from Tuscany
La Peral Cheese a light blue cheese from Northern Spain
Sopresata Italian Salami infused with garlic and spices
Felino Italian Salami a traditional salami from Parma

They also have a deli with some great looking sandwiches. AND the biggest selection of international chocolates in Utah. We wanted to buy some but there was a group of ladies hogging the only employee working the chocolate case. Next time....

In the park right across the street, the weekly Farmer's Market was going on. It is huge!! It takes up most of the entire park and there must have been 500 people there. We decided to walk through one little section on our way to our vehicle and there was so much to see. And amazingly, we found a booth selling Lamb products and I got their last package of Linguisa Lamb Sausage!! I almost kissed the guy!

Since we didn't have to continue our search for the much coveted Lamb....we decided to walk a couple of blocks down to our favorite mall. The Gateway Mall! We love this mall because it has the best stores (Banana Republic, Gymboree, The Apple Store, Starbucks & Sur La Table) and it has GREAT restaurants.

We don't know our way around SLC. We have been to a couple places downtown (okay THREE places) but we don't know the lay of the land. We ended up walking past the rescue mission. Two blocks of people sitting or sleeping on the sideway in the 90 degree heat. There was a woman with a little baby and a family with two small kids. I didn't see any food or sippy cups. I felt so horrible walking past in my pretty outfit with my expensive camera and my new iPhone in my diaper bag. It was heartbreaking. I guess if anything it made me completely aware of how incredibly lucky I am.

We tried to do some shopping at Baby Gap but the headless child-sized mannequins where scaring the heck out of Mallory. How am I going to turn her into my little shopping buddy if she can't handle a couple decapitated models! We ended up at The Apple store where there were about 15 people standing in line in the blazing heat waiting for iPhones. Alex and Mallory had a ball at the kids table.




We were famished and in need of relief from the heat, so we went to our favorite restaurant, Thaifoon. We tried some new dishes this time. I highly recommend the Siamese Spring Rolls. They are fabulous little handfuls of crabmeat & pork with fresh chopped cilantro, mint and sweet chili sauce on the side. I could eat these as a meal! By the way...I think you are supposed to take a piece of lettuce and put the roll inside like a lettuce roll up.



For our main dishes, I had the Mango Chicken...it was nice and spicy with a little sweetness from the mango. Calvin had the Evil Jungle Princess Beef. The name made me laugh and the dish made me cry! It was so great....it is a red curry based dish with Filet Mignon, vegetables and peanuts. It also features coconut milk, which I love and plenty of fresh basil. The kids shared a chicken finger bento box. I snuck a couple bites and it was really tasty.




Just outside of Thaifoon is the dancing waters of the Olympic Snowflake Fountain. There were a ton of kids having a great time in the sun and of course Alex wanted to go check it out. I kept reminding him that he doesn't like water that shoots out of the ground but he wouldn't listen to me. He immediately began to cry after the water shot him in the face.

On the way home, I mentioned to Calvin that it is so upsetting to me that Ogden can't have a cool store like Tony's. They just can't support such a place because all people eat around here is burgers, pizza and giant buffet food. He agreed that there aren't any food snobs in Ogden and he told me that I am pretentious because I like to cook with pearl couscous and lamb sausage. Pretentious? Me? As If!

The drive home was also illuminating for another reason. I discovered the reason why my husband comes home so.....happy. Here are two billboards that he passes every day on his way home from a hard day at work as an engineer.