'Standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona'

America's Southwest revisited, 2004

Fellow Foodies and Travellers,

Sabrina and I hope you enjoy this second instalment of ‘revisited’.

Every so often we’re mining our memories of a beloved travel destination for additional material and there’s nothing we love more than a road trip in America’s Southwest.

Marco & Sabrina

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Apart from the park and statue commemorating Jackson Browne’s iconic 1971 lyric (and later Eagles recording classic), the town of Winslow Arizona appears to have been frozen in the late 1950s and not in a good way. This was the era when the twin reasons for Winslow’s very existence as a vital transport hub and tourist gateway to the American West were fatally undermined.

1957 in particular, was a momentous year in the history of transportation in America and it dealt two hammer blows to Winslow’s importance. President Eisenhower signed the Interstate Highways Act which signalled the beginning of the end for Route 66, which runs through the town and by that very same year, the passenger jet had crippled the Santa Fe Railroad’s high speed train service from Los Angeles to Chicago to such an extent that the legendary La Posada Hotel, built right next to Winslow Railway station, where a who’s who of Hollywood royalty used to overnight en route, was permanently shuttered.

The building’s architect Mary Colter, who also built Hearst Castle on California’s central coast, considered La Posada, not William Randolph Hearst’s Hearst Castle to be her masterpiece, as in this case she was able to fully realize every single aspect of its design, right down to the fixtures and furnishings, rather than suffer from Hearst’s megalomaniacal interference and his insistence on her accommodating the ragbag of priceless and mismatched architectural salvage he’d collected on his European Grand Tours.

Today La Posada is open once again and in one of the bravest restoration projects you’ll find anywhere, the hotel is attempting single-handedly to re-establish Winslow as a Northern Arizona hub for upscale tourism and fine dining. Kept awake by the almost constant rumble and screech of freight trains throughout the night in the ‘Frank Sinatra Suite’ (the rooms are named after notable former guests), I’ve had more than enough time to consider the magnificent foolhardiness of this enterprise and to hope against hope that Amtrak will soon increase the frequency of its passenger trains on this route from just one a day, to deliver more guest traffic.

No state in the union has such an outsize share of America’s scenic wonders as Arizona. We’ve visited many of them and I’m sad to say found that all too often they come served with a dose of melancholy dilapidation and neglect or ugly modern development. Just an hour or so west of Winslow, south of Route 66’s nemesis the I-40 and the tacky sprawl of Flagstaff, there is red rock country of sublime beauty.

Whether you feel the energy of Sedona’s vortices or not, once you’ve watched a full moon appear over Cathedral Rock, taken in a sunset from the top of Airport Mesa or hiked through the pristine nature of Boynton Canyon, you won’t want to leave. Yet depressingly close to these epic sights are strip mall after strip mall of kitschy new age retail and chintzy, over-priced B&Bs. The price for escaping this man-made ugliness and tat which we paid, is to stay at Enchantment Resort, and it is a heavy one!

Arizona calls itself ‘The Grand Canyon State’, but we much prefer Utah’s far more remote northern slice. Even Monument Valley, so magnificent from a distance, pales at close quarters with its hard sell tours and tawdry concession stands, especially when compared to Southeastern Utah’s little known vermilion coloured facsimile, the Valley of the Gods. Close to the wondrously named town of Medicine Hat, the valley is accessed by a 17-mile dirt road with nary a park ranger, turnstile nor any kind of retail in sight. If only all Arizona’s natural wonders were still like this or the state’s stunning Canyon de Chelly. Much photographed by Ansel Adams and for good reason, this National Monument is no theme park but a living, working Native American community which is sensitively run by the Navajo tribe, who still grow crops and tend their livestock in the old way in the Canyon.

The foolhardy devil inside of me loves the fact that you are allowed to drive your own vehicle into the canyon, notwithstanding the danger of quicksand and sinkholes (fussy Health & Safety Laws have no jurisdiction here!) After a brief and rather heated discussion with Sabrina about my preference for this option, I was persuaded against my better judgment to opt for the guided tour, but what a tour it was, as we bumped along in a Korean War vintage ex-US Army General Motors 6-wheel drive truck with our deadpan Navajo guide, George.

Dirty, hot, exhausted but enthralled, we saw Anasazi cliff dwellings, wind sculpted hoodoos and ancient petroglyphs at close quarters as George wove sad stories of the disappearance of the Anasazi and the genocides that his own people had suffered in that very place, from the early days of Conquistadors to Kit Carson and the US Cavalry’s bloody siege at Fortress Rock.

While your surroundings may not always be this authentic when exploring America’s glorious Southwest, its cuisine while nothing fancy, still hews to the traditional. Native American options are widely available and you can enjoy genuine Fry bread, or Navajo Tacos all over Arizona and New Mexico. The ones we had this evening in the cafeteria of our Navajo run hotel inside the Canyon de Chelly National Monument, were especially good.

Navajo Tacos: Serves Four to Six

Fry bread:

3 cups AP flour, plus a little extra in reserve

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1¼ cups warm water

Mix the dry ingredients together, then make a well in the center and pour in the water. Mix into a smooth dough. If it is sticky, add a little more flour until you have a smooth, soft consistency. Cover with a dishcloth for 10 minutes to let rest.

Roll into a log and cut into up to 10 pieces (6 to 8 if you want them larger). Roll the pieces into balls and then into flat discs. Heat a cast iron or other heavy pan with about 1” of oil. When the oil is hot drop the dough discs in, cooking one at a time until both sides golden (about 2-3 minutes per side). Drain on kitchen paper.

The toppings:

Grated cheese

Shredded lettuce

Diced tomatoes

Diced onions

Sour cream

Black sliced olives

1lb ground turkey

taco seasoning

1 can pinto beans (drained)

Heat a fry pan with 1 tablespoon of olive oil; add the turkey, breaking up any large chunks. Add in the taco seasoning and toss to combine; cook until the turkey is done. Add the pinto beans and toss again to just warm them through.

To serve, add the toppings to each fry bread piece, individually.

After dinner I walked out to watch the local rodeo stars rope steers in the dusty twilight, with nary a rhinestone cowboy nor TV camera in sight. Ahead of us tomorrow lies five hundred miles of remote, ramrod straight desert blacktop back home to LA, on the I-40.

Not quite the ‘dark desert highway’ of that other Eagles song classic ‘Hotel California’, but close enough.