Fair Will Feature Indian Foods and Tribal Lore

Sampling Indian foods is just one of the pleasures of visiting this city.

A good time to do so is during the Guild Indian Fair, a tribal gathering and craft show organized by the Heard Museum of Anthropology and Primitive Art. This year’s fair is planned for Saturday and next Sunday.

Among the Indian foods to be sampled is fry bread, which is dough fried in oil until it emerges hot and puffy, to be dusted with powdered sugar or drizzled with honey.

Subtle differences do exist between Zuni, Hopi, Navajo and Apache versions, although we can’t say whether the differences are tribal or just the style of the cook.

At the Wigwam Resort’s Arizona Kitchen, chef Michael Garbin goes beyond fry bread to include pikki on his menu.

Pikki is a very thin bread baked with either yellow or blue cornmeal. It has great cultural significance to the Indians, and Garbin treats it respectfully, filling pouches made from the bread with chicken and then covering the rather dry bread with a vanilla mole sauce ($5.50).

The Arizona Kitchen menu combines Indian ingredients and foods with other Southwestern foods and seasonings. After the pikki we went on to a grilled vegetable salad of baby corn, eggplant, chayote (a kind of mild squash), jicama (a crunchy, rather sweet root vegetable) and zucchini, served with a warm dressing of fresh sage and oil ($4.25).

Afterward we were served a loin of lamb with an aromatic sauce of intensely flavorful tomatoes and aromatic fresh rosemary ($18.50), and grilled chicken with a fresh salsa made from pineapple and avocado ($17).

For dessert we tried a persimmon sopaipilla . Sopaipillas are made from dough that is deep-fried and served hot with vanilla ice cream and an ice cream made from the brilliant red, tart-sweet fruits of the prickly pear cactus ($3.25).

The Arizona Kitchen is open to the public as well as guests of the resort, but reservations are required.

Everyone we talked to in Phoenix recommended RoxSand. It’s a comfortable restaurant on the second floor of a shopping mall near the Arizona Biltmore.

Although it is trendy, service is pleasant and efficient. RoxSand Scocos, with her husband, Spyro, is chef and owner of the restaurant, and the food is eclectic.

“I take food from different cultures and experiment with them,” said RoxSand, who studied at La Varenne in France but is mostly self-taught. “I put different tastes together, but I don’t break the rules just for the sake of breaking them.”

She began her career in Arizona as pastry chef at The Boulders, a resort in nearby Carefree. Fittingly, at the entrance to RoxSand there is a staggering display of cakes and pastries.

“Sometimes we have 20 different cakes and pastries each day,” RoxSand said. “We don’t have a pastry cart or menu; we encourage guests to take a stroll to the pastry case and make a selection.”

Instead, we chose the lunch menu.

The daily soup selection was a thick lamb and barley mixture that had chunks of lamb and lots of flavor. We followed the soup with an appetizer of fried ravioli stuffed with ham, cheese and fresh basil, which we split. The crisp squares came with a thick, fresh tomato sauce. Appetizers cost about $6 to $8.

For main courses we chose Sichuan noodles with grilled vegetables. The soft-fried noodles contrasted nicely with the smoky richness of the grilled vegetables.

Mongolian beef had spent time in a heavy marinade that accented the meat and provided just the right flavors to compliment the corn tortillas, roasted red peppers and creme fraiche that were served along with the meat.

For lunch, entrees were $8 to $9, with dinner prices about twice that. Don’t forget the stroll to the dessert case. We tried a banana-bread pudding and a very rich chocolate cake. For those who just can’t decide, dessert samplers are available.

The desserts in The Boulders’ two dining rooms were equally impressive. We ended one dinner in the Palo Verde dining room with a rice pudding tart topped with an apricot caramel sauce ($4.50), and a banana pecan cake ($5).

Breakfast selections in the Latilla dining room included cinnamon raisin-walnut French toast ($5.75), which should not be missed. Chef Chuck Wiley, who came to The Boulders from Deer Valley, Utah, specializes in American contemporary cooking.

“It’s trendy to try to pigeonhole cooking into regional styles, but good cooking isn’t limited to one region or country,” Wiley said.

“I try to combine some Southwestern flavors, but I don’t think I’m doing Southwestern cuisine. I am cooking American and the flavors are from all over. We use corn and chili peppers, but also maple syrup, pecans and seafood from everywhere.”

At dinner that evening we began with a warm sourdough bread and cornbread with green chilies. A herb-crusted pheasant ($24) came with mashed potatoes mixed with bits of fresh apple.

We also chose a steak ($24) with blue corn polenta. It arrived crusted nicely from the grill, and the polenta was moist and full of flavor. The public is welcome, but reservations for the dining rooms at The Boulders are necessary as they are small and cater mainly to hotel guests.

Just a short walk from the resort in the El Pedregal shopping complex we visited the bakery where the resort’s baking is done.

Open to the public for breakfast, lunch and early dinners, The Bakery is a real find. It’s very casual, with a counter for ordering food to take out or to eat at tables in view of the large vertical grill.

We couldn’t resist a spit-roasted chicken and an order of fresh cornbread. At $6.25 it was a bargain. We also had an onion soup made with five kinds of onions and served with grated Asiago cheese in a circular sourdough roll. There is a large selection of desserts and very good coffee.

Wiley recommended that we try Kous Kooz before we left Phoenix, and after some difficulty we found the restaurant. It is hidden away in a pleasant courtyard with fountains and a reflecting pool in the middle of an office complex. Calling for directions is not a bad idea.

Its decor is contemporary, with neon sculptures on the walls. Comfortable tables with lots of space between them and a friendly staff make dining there very pleasant. We are not sure how to characterize the food, but chef Eddie Motney describes it as Ameriterranean .

You’ll find an excellent sesame-coated seared ahi tuna ($8.95) along with pizzas (about $7) and Eddie’s Stew, a flavorful combination of lamb shanks, beef and pork in a tomato stock served with oven-roasted potatoes ($8.95 for a small portion, $15.95 for a large). The marriage of Middle Eastern touches and Southwestern flavors works very well.

Recommended: Heard Museum, Guild Indian Fair, 22 E. Monte Vista Road, (602) 252-8848. Arizona Kitchen, the Wigwam Resort, Litchfield Park, (602) 935-3611. The Boulders, Carefree, (602) 488-9009. The Bakery, El Pedregal Marketplace at The Boulders, (602) 488-4100. RoxSand, 2594 E. Camelback Road, (602) 381-0444. Kous Kooz, 4747 N. 7th St., (602) 241-1188.