Making scents of it all...

"The thing is... is that's what it smells like all the time. You can't smell it until there is moisture to carry the scent into your nose."

These are the thing my mom and I speak of when we start drinking tequila.

btw for all you Tucsonans out there, Blanco has Happy Hour from 4-6pm, and this is now on my list of positives for living in Burbank. Otherwise I would never make it home without having a blood orange margarita.

There is a smell that is somewhere between spraying water on dirt with a little bit of fresh cut grass thrown in here and there when it begins to rain in Tucson that is essentially akin to the Sonoran Desert making an "ahhh" sound after drinking a really nice beer after a really long day at work. Way different than Geoffrey Holder and a can o' 7-Up, but you're on the right track. The Sonoran Desert never seemed to have that deep of a voice, or laugh for that matter. Sigh yes, but laugh? No.

Then again, maybe 109 degrees in the shade is it's laughter?

Ha.

Ain't nothing funny about driving around the mall for an hour just so you can park in the shade of a mesquite tree which provides about as much shade as a sundial, yet somehow manages to move faster than one.

Smells transport us. Bean curd and diesel fumes scream Bangkok to me, roofing tar makes me think of my Tata, and just before the rain hits in Tucson--that smell takes me home.

Speaking of transporting smells, I wandered into the Spice Station this past weekend and fell in love. I happened across a new chile pepper while grabbing some Indian spices for a work project, and I paired it with Durango Hickory Smoked Salt, Olive Oil, Fresh Garlic, and Rosemary to make a wet rub for some bone-in rib eyes to throw on the grill for Father's Day.

Urfa Biber, I love you, you raisiny, tiny kick o'heat, sweet thang you! I'm not gonna lie to you. I even put a little bit of bacon drippings into this rub. It was an amazing way to add flavor and fat to an already flavorful and well marbled cut of beef.

Extreme behavior?

I remember a time when I was eating a bunch of Tangelos and drinking whiskey, and I just kept missing my Grandpa so much... and then it finally dawned on me that I was missing him so much because I smelled like him. Sometimes I'll scratch a Minneola Tangelo at the grocery store just to say hi.

I put it right back on the pile when I am done. Maybe it's kinda like setting a place for Elijah, or is it just a cup?

Happy Father's Day Grandpa.