Restaurants in Phoenix come and go. Many hope to gain loyal customers, but few catch on quite like Beaver Choice.

Concho; Roosevelt Lake; Flagstaff 

My approach to food is pretty simple. I firmly believe that if you can eat it, you can grill it.

NEW YORK — Oh the pull of that elusive reservation at the hot new restaurant. And double-oh the sweet and fatty decadence of a well-made dessert. Combine the two foodie emotions and you've got the Cronut.

The Gilbert Farmers Market, held every Saturday just west of the Water Tower, features chemical-free, organic produce, eggs, meat, cheese, bread, sweets, sauces and seasonings.

My family has been weaning itself from red meat for years. We still love it, but the portions and frequency are less than they used to be. Still, when I started planning a Father's Day menu for my husband and my dad, I thought it might be nice to bow to tradition by turning to the Batman and Robin of manly fare — steak and potatoes.

Caribbean flavors jazz up this simple supper salad. We glaze the shrimp with a zesty rum-spiked marmalade, then toss them on a hot grill with tomatoes and corn before combining everything with a few more veggies. We serve the whole thing with grilled bread seasoned with garlic and orange for a bit of crunch and to aid in scooping up all the delicious bits.

Summertime is burger time. And it's so easy to throw a few beef patties on the grill. Not much is required in the way of embellishment, yet they have a big happiness return.

Casseroles have never really had much of a place in my culinary repertoire. It's a time thing mostly. I'd rather sear something off in a few minutes than stand around while it slowly bakes.

As part of the brash rash of wire-brush scouring on the Teflon coating that routinely seals the Obama presidency, a large heavy-duty cast-iron deal has been made of the IRS conducting audits on Tea Party-affiliated organizations. But scratch the surface and it makes a sort of perverse sense.

Is any ingredient more hardworking, yet humble, than the onion?

When salsa overtook ketchup as America's favorite condiment in the 1990s you had to know that "taco night" wasn't far behind.

Love it or hate it, everyone goes grocery shopping. That’s why Emily Stamey, the new curator at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, felt that grocery shopping had all the ingredients of an interesting exhibit — one that offered a lighthearted look at an everyday task while also providing touch points for deeper social and economic issues.

Burgers and potato salad are traditional fare at Memorial Day picnics, but it's also fun to shake things up every now and again with an unexpected new flavor. And if the recipe for said dish is as easy as it is lip-smacking? So much the better for the cook, who would much rather be relaxing in the sunshine with guests than fretting over complicated details.

This weekend, Chandler husband-and-wife team Chad and Erin Romanoff celebrate the one-year anniversary of their vintage silver food truck — The Uprooted Kitchen. Appearing weekly at Gilbert Farmers Market and Food Truck Friday in Phoenix, the Romanoff’s “restaurant on wheels” is a true gem found right in our own backyard.

Pasta carbonara — richly cheesy, creamy and studded with crisped pancetta — is easily one of the most comforting of pasta dishes. The only trouble is, with the onset of warmer weather we tend to crave salads more than steaming bowls of pasta. So for this recipe, we decided to have it both ways.

Tombstone; Clarkdale; Taylor