I was paging through the January 1st print edition of the Phoenix Business Journal and ran across another short capsule breathlessly titled “Arizona Not Yet Up To Snuff For National Foodie Culture“, written by Steven Totten.

…and who’s actually surprised by this supposedly startling revelation?

I’m guessing Mr. Totten wasn’t too keen on what the folks at Thrillist had to say about Phoenix in their recently released rankings of so-called “foodie” cities.  They looked at a massaged list of the forty largest cities in this grand ‘ole nation of ours and ranked them based on – yup, you guessed it – food & drink. Apparently the entire state lands in 34th place, with Phoenix/Scottsdale taking the 29th spot and Tucson the 37th spot on the list of the top 40 cities.

Basically we’re cellar-dwellers when it comes to what’s on the plate or in the glass…

OK, time to start sobbing into our prickly pear-infused martinis.  Why?  Because with a combined population topping 4 million, Phoenix/Scottsdale was more than double the size of every – yes every – other city below it on this list, and it wasn’t until you got up toward the 25th position, (24. Minneapolis, to be precise), where you found a city that was even close in terms of population. Sure, 27. Baltimore and 28. St. Louis were closing in on 3 million, but JFC, you’d think we’d be capable of edging out the likes of 23. Kansas City, 17. Denver or 13. Nashville wouldn’t you? …and yes, all of these places have smaller populations, thereby adding insult to injury.

Sure, I’ll admit I currently live in the Sonoran desert, but I didn’t think it was an effin’ culinary desert too!