Where Can I Buy An Abelskivver Pan?

Right here at this family owned specialty shop on H25.

The thing they are most proud of in this store is "Mother's trivet collection."

Now if I just knew someone who could make me some abelskivvers!

Pupusa World

Bright, colorful and kitschy.


And right here in Ogden.

You've no doubt seen the place on your way to Macey's grocery store. It looks like a dumpy little tacqueria, barely bigger than the taco stands downtown, and I must have driven by it more times than I can count before I read the sign calling it a pupuseria. I LOVE PUPUSAS! How come I didn't know we could get them in Utah? Probably because I didn't read the sign until a couple of years ago.

Here's the real story, though:

Not a quesadilla, at all. Not even a Gordito, as much as it might resemble one. Made with masa flour and something like farmer's cheese, these gems are mucho-muy delicioso. Emphasis on mucho-muy delicioso. (Hey, if Latin restaurants can be kitschy, I can coin corny adjectives with their lingua.) Hot and greasy, too. Of course, that's coming from someone who revels in the ambrosial flavor of grease sandwiches.

Only a couple of bucks, too.

The fillings are not just cheese. We have two choices here in Ogden:

1. Cicharones or bacon-like fried pork bits, very salty and surprisingly tender,

and as with everything I tout, there is a little surprise thrown in...

2. Loroco. See the green bits in the picture above? Not onions or peppers, but chopped vine flower buds.

Woa, huh?

These are my favorites for a couple of reasons:

I like the way the sound rolls off your tongue:

Con loroco.

Con chicharones is pretty fun to say, too, but it just doesn't sound as lilty and lyrical.

And although I like salty and intense, the pupusas con chicharone at El Nueva Almanecer are just a tad too that.

Not to worry, though, because they come served with a fresh cabbage slaw that refreshes almost as much as the horchata or the piña, or in my case, the Diet Coke.

And the third of my couple of reasons for prefering the flower-filled pupusa is because it's a flower filling. Because that's just cool.

Just A Little Cruise Through The Clouds

Hop a freight, grab a star, swim or fly to get to this restaurant!

Or, there are other modes:






Not all as classy as this, I'm sure.

And if parking is tight, there's always that sweet spot by the back door!

Once, a little family climbed down out of a plane, the little kids still in their jammies, and they filed into the restaurant for breakfast.

However it is you get to the Auger Inn at Ogden Hinckley Airport,


it will not disappoint.


Nothing especially unusual about the fare, except it that tastes so dad-gum good, you can't get it out of your head for more than 30 years. My sister used to waitress here in the 70s and we went back the other day hoping that the hamburgers were as good as memory promised. You know, sometimes Memory lies and you have to watch out and her sister, Hope, can mess with your head, too, but this time they were right on.

How could that be, though? Most restaurant burgers look good, right? Even as good as this one looked. I wondered what specifically made my hamburger taste so good, but I didn't want to stop eating it long enough to ask my sister what she thought makes these things taste so good. I even had to comment on the crispy, sweet onions that seemed bigger than the beef patty without overpowering it.

Well, I don't know. It's a puzzle but somehow this food tastes like the past. Oh wait. I know what it is. NO KETCHUP. Who puts ketchup on their hamburgers, anyway?! (I think that was one of the biggest culture shocks my family went through when we moved into this state many long years ago. Forget about religious differences, these people couldn't keep from messing up a perfectly good hunk of meat by putting ketchup on it! I had a friend in high school who would take the Heinz jug out of her mother's refrigerator and haul it with us when we went to Hardee's for lunch. She didn't like their ketchup and ask for her burger plain so she could "fix" it when she got it.)

However, I must say, I had to try Auger Inn's ketchup on those fries, just for authenticity's sake, don't you know. Not bad, and I'm not a fan of ketchup--oh, you knew that did you? It was in a Chef Dave's from Texas bottle and the label was washed out and worn down, some. You can do what you will with that information.

And as we are at the fries, now, yeah, yum. Hot and crunchy on the outside, hotter and soft on the inside.




I asked owner Paul Cromwell, "Remember when Robert Redford came through here?"

He laughed and said he remembered it well. SLC was fogged in and Redford had to hole up in Ogden for a while. He asked Paul if he could hide out in his kitchen, because the runway out back was littered with all these commercial and news planes.

"That was a big mistake. All my girls just went crazy in that kitchen!"




My sister was one of his "girls." He changed her name. "That table's waiting for service over there, Suzy."

"My name's not Suzy."

"It is now."

Suzy

(Well, this was maybe a couple of years before Suzy worked with Paul.)

The restrooms haven't changed that much, either.

A Farr Better Beacon in the Cold Cold Night

Well. What do you think? Think it bears repeating?

OK, how's this?

And this?

Right. You get the picture.

But do you get the aroma?

They should call it Vanilla Waffle Warm. It has steamy little tendril-like fingers that waft up to your nose and pull you through the door.

Oh. Mmmmm...

I counted, oh I don't know--a gazillion deep? There are little heads in that crowd that you can't even see when you're in the store. And this was on a cold Utah winter's eve.

They're waiting for cherry chocolate chip, or moose tracks (with miniature peanut butter cups,) or some outlandishly chunky strawberry ice cream--if they can make up their minds, that is.

But what am I telling you for? If you live anywhere in the vicinity, you already know about Farr's--it's about like 80 years old or something.

You can buy allkynna sherbet, ice cream that looks like playdough, old fashioned Iron Port or retro Root Beer, creamy scoops dotted with little surprises and real teddy bears, too.

This place is mere steps from my front door, but that's all right because they have the best "no sugar added" vanilla ice cream and they pack it tough down into the little pint carton that I schlep home with, vowing to make it last longer than five minutes.

And I do. Because you know--a vow is a vow, after all.

This Is A Fine Town

I read it with my own eyes:

"Ogden has become Utah's little sweetheart.

I have a lot to say about Ogden, myself, but I know it's pretty much been said by bigger and better sayers: National Geographic, The Salt Lake Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times. They have all written about "...the adrenalized adult's version of Disneyland," in some form or another. So good for Ogden.

I like it for some other reasons, too, not the least of which is this Star Noodle dragon, a photographer's dream of a sign. As with a lot of people, Ogden and I go way back. I wasn't born in Ogden and I'm not a native Utahn. Got dragged here with my family when I was a kid, but not even to Ogden. Syracuse, actually. Onion fields, flooded ditches and Stimson's market were our playgrounds, then, until we grew up a little and found ways to get into town on our own.

Got our vinyls at Woolworth's, hot dogs at ZCMI snack bar, ham salad sandwiches at Kiesels on the corner and suede moccasins at Cross Western Wear. We tried on clothing at Auerbach's, but didn't buy much there. A little too rich for our blood at that time. We were lucky to find peasant blouses to fit our budget in the Bon's basement.

We still have the Egyptian, but we went to more movies down the street where we watched "The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "Camelot" and (still a favorite of mine) "To Sir With Love" at the Orpheum.


Then I grew up, moved away, came back, moved away, came back, moved away-away, came back...well, who's counting? I'm here now. I've been through some growing pains with Ogden and have developed a nearly sentimental loyalty to the place.









I'm developing this grab bag blog just to chronicle snap shots (literal and literary) of places and things, people and surprises about living in this cradle of the Wasatch. For fun. Because I want to.