By the Time We Got to Phoenix
A Gentleman in Moscow, Phoenix Food, Mumford & Sons, UConn Huskies, Self-titled Street
Welcome to my weekly newsletter. This week’s issue includes five of Roger’s friends we met in Phoenix, a book currently featured on a TV series, five fine Phoenix meals, the repeat champs, and an eponymous avenue. I hope you like the picks and pics.
Roger met Barb and me in Phoenix for the Final Four. It was my 20th and the 15th that Roger and I have attended together. My first one was in 1978 with my friend Tom Marcus in St. Louis. The first one for Roger and me was in 1997 in Indy.
We stayed in a very comfortable home in Glendale within walking distance of State Farm Stadium, Taco Boys (pregame meal both days), and In-N-Out (post-game snack both days). In addition to the three men’s games, we enjoyed watching the women’s games on TV, sitting in the sun by our pool, walking, dining, and meeting up with friends.
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Fave Five 80: By the time we got to Phoenix
Rostov’s Russia (A Gentleman in Moscow), Phoenix Food (Hash Kitchen, Taco Boys, Matt’s Big Breakfast, Little Miss BBQ, Genie G’s Family Restaurant), Marcus Mumford’s Music (Mumford & Sons), Storrs Six-timers (UConn Huskies), and a Self-titled Street.
Fave Five Lists: Five Friends in Phoenix
We enjoyed seeing five of Roger’s friends while in Arizona. Matt Watza drove up from Tucson to play golf and eat tacos with Roger. And we continued an annual tradition of spending time with four other friends who rent a house together for each Final Four.
Matt Watza: Roger’s Northville High School classmate and freshman and junior varsity basketball teammate
Matt Osher: Roger’s basketball teammate (Franklin Wolves, Michigan Force, and Spirits of Southeast Michigan) and Mike’s Birmingham Groves basketball teammate
Mike Salciccioli: Roger’s Franklin Wolves basketball teammate, Matt Osher’s Birmingham Groves basketball teammate, and Josh’s University of Michigan rowing teammate
Dave Janisse: Matt Osher’s Michigan State University classmate
Josh Richardson: Mike’s University of Michigan rowing teammate
Book Best Bet
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
I previously featured The Lincoln Highway. This earlier book is now a TV series on Showtime and streaming on Paramount+. I liked the book a lot, and so far, we are enjoying the series.
From Amazon: From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Table for Two, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel.
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.
Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.
Restaurant Recommendations
Phoenix Food
During our stay in Glendale, we had some excellent breakfasts and Mexican food. The highlight was Little Miss BBQ, recommended by John Tanner. We ordered a pound of fatty brisket and a quarter pound of the pork belly burnt ends, a Sunday Special: “Our pork belly is lightly sugar cured and twice smoked with oak and pecan until perfectly tender. it is tossed in a sweet and slightly spicy barbecue sauce.” Wow!
Hash Kitchen 9780 W Northern Ave Suite 1110, Peoria, AZ 85345
Chilaquiles: corn tortilla chips / simmered in green chile and salsa roja / queso fresco / cilantro / crema / fried eggs.
Taco Boys 9055 W Camelback Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85037
Small Quesadilla: Salad Bar + Pastor
Matt’s Big Breakfast 7507 W Rose Garden Lane, Glendale, AZ 85308
Waffle with bacon: Made-from-scratch Belgian-style waffle, sweet cream butter and 100% real Vermont maple syrup (2 oz.) with two slices of thick-cut bacon.
Little Miss BBQ Sunnyslope, 8901 N 7th St, Phoenix, AZ 85020
Sliced Brisket: A bestseller, our signature perfectly smoked brisket from our rancher in Minnesota who is as obsessed about cattle the way we are obsessed with barbecue. We slice the brisket with a mix of fatty and lean. (We asked for fatty.)
Genie G’s Family Restaurant 7349 W Indian School Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85033
Chicken and Waffle
Marvelous Musicians
I was looking forward to seeing them perform a free concert at the Final Four. Roger and I drove to the neighborhood near the venue and walked around prior to the show. But we ended up hanging out with the four friends featured in this week’s list, and we were having such a good time that we skipped the concert. Rog and I did hear the end of “I Will Wait” while walking to our car on the way to dropping him off at the airport, so at least there was that.
I first saw the band perform on Saturday Night Live on September 22, 2012. After hearing "I Will Wait," Mumford & Sons became my favorite band of the 2010s. I saw them at the Capital One Arena in DC on December 14, 2018 in a fantastic show that inspired me to create my Best Banjo Pickers playlist. Although Mumford & Sons is a huge pop success, I think of the band as a folk music group that broke through to a mainstream audience.
From Wikipedia: Mumford & Sons is an English folk rock band formed in London in 2007. The band consists of Marcus Mumford (lead vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums), Ben Lovett (vocals, keyboards, piano), and Ted Dwane (vocals, bass guitar, double bass). Their live performance at the 2011 Grammy ceremony with Bob Dylan and The Avett Brothers led to a surge in popularity for the band in the U.S. The band received eight total Grammy nominations for Babel and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
Marcus Oliver Johnstone Mumford (born January 31, 1987 in Yorba Linda, California) is an American-born British singer, songwriter, musician, record producer and lead singer of the band Mumford & Sons. He also plays a number of instruments with the group, including guitar, drums and mandolin.
Ghosts That We Knew
I Will Wait
Ted Lasso Opening Credits
Sports Stars
Barb and I were hoping to see a close game on Monday between Purdue and Connecticut. That was the case in the first half, but eventually, the Huskies pulled away. They were never seriously threatened in any of their past 12 games in the Big Dance, on their way to two consecutive national championships. Their men’s teams are starting to resemble their women’s teams, who dominated the sport for many years, and the UCLA men’s teams of the 60s and early 70s.
On Saturday, Roger correctly predicted that Coach Danny Hurley would not double-team Purdue’s start center, Zach Edey, but would closely guard the Boilermakers’ three-point shooters. That is exactly what happened, and it worked perfectly. Purdue was limited to just one 3-pointer, and this went down to defeat. UConn had a perfect mix of ball handling, passing, cutting, shooting, dunking, defense, depth, rebounding, and patience. An all-around spectacular display of skill, strategy, and synergy.
My dad was a professor at UConn in the late 40s. He was also a fan of Bobby Hurley, so he would have been pleased to see Bobby’s brother Danny and his Huskies on top of the basketball world.
UConn has won six NCAA men's Division I college basketball championships in the past 25 years:
2024 (defeated Purdue 75-60)
2023 (defeated San Diego State 76-59)
2014 (defeated Kentucky, 60-54)
2011 (defeated Butler, 53-41)
2004 (defeated Georgia Tech, 82-73)
1999 (defeated Duke, 77-74)
Here are the details of their six lopsided wins in the tournament:
Here is their 2023-2024 roster:
Picture Pun
This is our street.
