Devour the Desert
A Palm Springs Food & Culture Journal
Local Questions, Vol. 13 | Field Notes From Palm Springs: The Little Mysteries We All Wonder About
After a couple of days in Palm Springs, you stop asking tourist questions.
You already know where to find a good margarita.
You've figured out the pool.
You've accepted that the mountains somehow look both impossibly close and impossibly far away.
Instead, your curiosity starts drifting toward the little mysteries.
Why am I suddenly Redfinning real estate ads with my morning latte?
Why are the roofs so low?
Why are all the front doors orange or pink?
Why does the airport feel like the place your vacation actually begins?
And why is the brunch waitress delivering my hash browns decked out in stilettos and a purple feather boa?
The desert, as it turns out, rewards people who notice things.
The Local Culture | Joseph Barbera Found a Home in Palm Springs. His Cartoons Still Feel at Home Here.
There are people who come to Palm Springs to escape their work.
And then there was Joseph Barbera.
Barbera was one-half of the team behind Hanna-Barbera, an animation studio whose work is embedded in American pop culture, whether or not we recognize the name.
Tom and Jerry. Yogi Bear. Huckleberry Hound. The Flintstones. The Jetsons. Scooby-Doo. The Smurfs.
It is a rather impressive list for two men who began by making cartoons about a cat trying to kill a mouse.
The Local Questions, Vol. 11 | Field Notes From Palm Springs: The Desert Is Not Impressed
Welcome to another edition of Field Notes From Palm Springs, brought to you by Artisan Food Tours.
This is the place where we ask the weird, wacky and wonderful questions that come to mind once your eyes have glazed over from the sun, your water bottle has been empty for the last forty-five minutes, and everything in sight is beginning to shimmy like a 60s go-go dancer.
Let’s tackle a few seemingly random questions… and then go find a happy hour where the lights are low and the AC is high.
The Local Flavors |Palm Springs Tiki, Part Two: The Man Who Invented Donn Beach aka “Don The Beachcomber”
Donn Beach liked to tell a good story.
This was fortunate, because he had a lot of them.
One of his favorites concerned a choice his father supposedly offered him: money for college, or money to travel around the world. Donn chose the world, naturally, and embarked on what became an unusually long trip. He wandered through the Caribbean and elsewhere, picking up stories, recipes, bits of folklore and, apparently, whatever else he thought might come in handy later.
It is a wonderful story.
It is also a Donn Beach story, which means we should probably enjoy it without insisting too strongly on the paperwork. The problem with Donn's biography is that Donn himself was one of its principal authors.
The Local Questions, Vol. 10 | Field Notes from Palm Springs: The Best Date Shake in the Coachella Valley
Welcome to Field Notes. This is where we ask the questions, from the ridiculous to the sublime.
Today's question is near and dear to the hearts of many Coachella Valley residents:
Where can I get the best date shake?
The question is easy. The answer is a little trickier.
Date shakes are like barbecue, pizza and politics at Thanksgiving. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone is convinced theirs is correct.
The Local Questions, Vol. 9 | Field Notes From Palm Springs: Guest Complaints
Welcome to our occasional Guest Complaints issue.
We love our guests.
Really.
But after enough time in Palm Springs, you begin to notice that visitors have questions.
Some are philosophical.
Some are practical.
And some are essentially formal complaints filed against the desert.
Why are the stop lights so long?
Does everything here want to prick me, bite me, or kill me?
Fair questions.
We will address them in the order received.
The Local Questions, Vol. 7 | Field Notes from Palm Springs: Just How Much Trouble Can a Celebrity Get Into Here?
What is the most outrageous thing a celebrity ever did in this desert sandbox we call Palm Springs?
This is not an easy question.
There is Olympic-level competition for this particular gold medal.
We can start with Harpo Marx.
The Local Architecture | The Secret Language of Mid-Century Modern Palm Springs
Palm Springs has many languages.
There is the language of cocktails, spoken fluently from shaded patios at golden hour. There is the language of swimming pools, where a perfectly placed chaise lounge says more than most conversations. There is the language of food, which happens to be our favorite dialect.
But perhaps the city's most distinctive language is one that never utters a word at all.
It is the secret language of Mid-Century Modern architecture.
The Local Questions,Vol.4 | Field Notes from Palm Springs
Every Place Has Its Frequently Asked Questions
In New York, it's, "How do people afford to live here?"
In Seattle, it's, "Does it ever stop raining?"
In Palm Springs, the questions get... weirder.
Why is a giant roadrunner strutting through a parking lot like he owns the place? Do I need to worry about stepping on a rattlesnake? Is everybody really retired or just driving a golf cart? And why do the mountains look different every time you glance up?
The Local Questions Vol. 3 | Field Notes from Palm Springs
After enough tours, you realize Palm Springs visitors don't just ask where to eat.
They ask the questions that seem simple—right up until you try answering them.
So what's up with all the orange?
Why are there hummingbirds everywhere?
Should I be worried about the tram?
Every place develops its own frequently asked questions. These happen to be ours.
The Local Questions, Vol. 2 | Field Notes From Palm Springs
The Longer You Stay in Palm Springs, The Stranger Your Questions Become
At first it's practical.
Where should we eat? Why is every third house somehow more beautiful than the last? Is everyone really this relaxed?
Then, somewhere around your second single-origin nitro cold brew and fourth glimpse of a hummingbird, your mind begins to wander.
Which is how you end up asking the kind of questions that only make sense in the desert.