SLC Crunk

Now that I've berated the liquor laws in Utah, let me describe the highly enjoyable imbibing experience we had in Salt Lake City on Sunday.

We started the great schlep down to SLC after lunch, with our sights set on Men's Warehouse so Andy could get measured for a tux for an upcoming wedding.  Unfortunately, Men's Warehouse decided to be closed (as they apparently are every Sunday, contrary to what their website indicated, but hey, we can't all be as perfect as me).  So we cut our losses and continued on to This Is The Place.

For those of you not intimately familiar with Mormon history, "This Is The Place" is, and I'm sort of paraphrasing here, the place where a rickety old wagon rattled over the mountains and encountered a wide desert valley.  That wagon was carrying Brigham Young on his deathbed, and that arid valley is now Salt Lake City.  He saw this scrubby, sulfurous wasteland and thought, "Damn, this place has potential."  Or maybe he thought, "Balls.  I'mma throw up if we have to bounce over one more GD mountain range.  Who cares, we're stopping here."  But really, he probably thought, "Well, this is about the least accessible or desirable place we're going to find anywhere.  We are sure to be left completely unmolested if we hang out in this hellscape."  Whatever, I don't know, I wasn't there so I'm speculating as to his inner monologue.  But history tells us that what he supposedly did say, which is, oddly enough, "This is the place." 

So the aptly named attraction boasts a bunch of elaborate statues, a gift shop, and a reconstructed pioneer town.  I will now shamefully admit that we visited the ol' 'Place a few weeks ago, on a Saturday.  We left without visiting the pioneer town, because it cost $10 a person.  Seriously?  If I wanted to look at old vacant buildings, I could have stayed in New Jersey and spent an afternoon in Camden.  Fortunately, I didn't have to do that, because admission drops to $5 on Sundays!  The reason should be obvious - all good Mormons are churching it up on this day of rest, and nobody is there to dress up in old timey costumes and give tours.  That suited us just fine, so we ponied up the cash and explored what amounted to a sort of creepy Mormon ghost town until the desert sun drove us to the brink of insanity. 

Judging from the position of the sun in the sky, we surmised it to be beer o'clock and ventured into downtown Salt Lake to Trolley Square.  There, we found a shady spot on the deck at the Desert Edge Brewery.  We ordered a round of beers (which were delicious!) and steeled ourselves for the inevitable demand that we order food right away.  It was then that we learned that not all liquor licenses are created equal, and Desert Edge clearly opted for the dungeon-master level of license.  We were free to drink as much beer as our little livers desired, without ever feeling pressured to ingest solids.  A veritable booze-o-rexic oasis in a desert of regulations.  Even so, we did order an early dinner, and my grilled portobello salad was bangin'.

A brew with a view

To put the cherry on top of a great afternoon, we drove around in search of a frozen dairy dessert.  But not just any regular old ice cream would do.  I was bent on experiencing my first fro yo encounter.  I cringe a little as I type that, because it sounds like something a sorority girl would say, obvi.  But I find that calling it 'frozen yogurt' doesn't quite capture the essence of what this is.  Which is magic.  It couldn't even get more magical if a leprechaun hand churned it from unicorn's milk.  It's that special.

The place we found, called Yoway, was this adorable little Korean fro yo shop tucked into a random shopping center.  We entered to the soothing sounds of mellow Asian pop music emanating from hidden speakers.  Bright pastel walls surrounded an open room with space-age, Jetsons-style plastic chairs scattered around little tiny metal tables.  At the back of room was a buffet table of candy and fruit toppings and a cash register.  Down a dimly lit hallway to the right, there awaited a gauntlet of frozen deliciousness.  We picked up our cups and drifted up and down the hall, reading the names of the various wonderful flavors on the frozen yogurt machines built into the wall. 

After much deliberation, I decided to pop my fro yo cherry with a mix of red velvet cake and vanilla flavors.  I emerged from the hallway to the glory of the toppings bar, and carefully curated an exhibition of deliciousness with the fresh berries and crushed peanuts I lovingly sprinkled on my ice cream.  When I was satisfied with my creation, I proceeded to the register, where I paid for my new best friend by the ounce.  How wonderful.  I always feel like a 'regular' or 'small' size is too big but a kid's size is just a tad too small.  But this was my Goldilocks moment.  I was in control and it was just right.  It was so right it was wrong.  I can honestly say it was the best thing ever. 

Until I used the bathroom before leaving.  Then it got just a little bit better.  And then my head exploded.

Well that's a bit harsh...but I guess people who don't wash their hands have a lot more in common with child molesters than we all think.

The gauntlet of fro yo is a prohibitively long and tiring journey for some people.

I realize that this whole self-serve pay by the ounce fro yo phenomenon is not new (isn't that what Pinkberry is?) but it's new to me, and my life is forever changed.  It takes me back to the annual Scholastic Book Fair/Ice Cream Social night in elementary school.  Those were the days.  Eight-year-old me had almost zero awareness of body image and no self-control whatsoever, so this was a free-for-all unadulterated by concerns about my health or my appearance. 

My teeth actually hurt thinking about the mountain of ice cream that I drowned in chocolate syrup, peaked with whipped cream, and peppered with avalanches of Reese's pieces and chocolate jimmies.  (I just can't call them sprinkles, even though I recently learned that in some parts of the country, 'jimmies' carries an offensive racial connotation of which I was never aware  That's unfortunate, so I'm taking it back.  Or just not giving it up, but it is what it is.) 

But the ice cream wasn't the sole attraction.  No, this yearly event combined my two great childhood loves - being a fatty, and being a nerdle.  The only thing that could possibly tear me away from the ice cream bar was the promise of scooping up a haul of the latest and greatest by Ann M. Martin, Francine Pascal, and R. L. Stine.  All of which I would read in an afternoon with about the same greed and gusto with which I devoured the ice cream that preceded their purchase.

Ah, those were the days.  But thanks to fro yo, I can revisit that little piece of my childhood any time.  Unless I don't want to be broke and weigh 500 pounds.  Which I don't.  So really, by 'any time' I actually mean very seldom, but with frequent pining and yearning and salivating in between.

Note to self:  brilliant business idea = bookmobile ice cream truck.  yes.