Road Trip-Pasadena: 2013 Rose Parade float Decorating Day and Zankou Chicken

mmm-yoso!!! is a food blog and sometimes there are stories about how we find places where we eat.  Kirk and ed(from Yuma) are busy finding places today.  Cathy had an adventure this past Saturday and is sharing today.

Good Monday Morning! Saturday was a *very* long day-The Mister and I had signed up to work on the first "Detail Day" of 2013 Tournament of Roses Rose Parade floats and needed to be in Pasadena by 9 a.m.. We left the house at 6:08 a.m., there wasn't any rain (like we had on Friday evening) and we parked on Raymond Street at 8:08 a.m..   

Volunteers were lined up.

Walking into the Phoenix Decorating Company Rose Palace, eleven floats were parked.  Of course, this barn is not heated and we were glad we wore layers.  You'll notice in almost every photo, everyone is wearing jackets, sweaters and sweatshirts.  (There is one photo of a guy in shorts, but he has on a lined jacket).

Here's what the barn looks like from the upstairs passageway.

Since this was the first of the 'dry' decorating days, most of the people were cutting statice flowers, to get enough to colore the various purple, blue and pink areas of the floats.  Every visible part of every float has to be covered in something that is, or was, alive and blue is a rare color seen in nature.

This looks like three colors to you, right? Well, each of those buckets of flowers got to be divided further, so the various shades of 'blues' 'purples', as well as 'pink' colors could be used on specific areas of the floats. This is how the darkest statice colors got divided:

Really. About six people cutting for eight hours resulted in

this much of one color being finished:

Other volunteers were cutting the petals off of straw flowers, saving the centers for another use.

The Lions Club had a good number of volunteers, steadily working on  their detailed float.

Every volunteer worked through the day.

There was plenty of gluing going on also.  

 

Every exposed surface must be covered with something that is, or was, alive...look again- there are two people working in the photo above. 

Soon enough, the PA System announced it was time to clean up and clear out.  Detail/Dry Decoration Day #1 was over.

We headed down Colorado Boulevard and stopped here, Zankou Chicken.  I had seen the sign on almost every trip we had made up here, but it never was open, since we were always so early.

Large inside, nice and clean. A pretty simple menu, easy ordering and fast service.  You can see many chickens on the rotisseries to the top right.  There were also rotisserie spits with shawerma and tarna.  

Of course, we decided to order the name of the restaurant...and chose a whole chicken, which was cut in half for us. It came with 4 fresh pita breads and a 'powerful garlic sauce'- (it's firmly whipped; not saucy) ($9.99). We also ordered a small (8 oz) tabbouleh salad ($3.49) and a side of two fresh falafel ($1.35).  Everything was excellent.  The chicken was moist with crispy skin..and wonderfully complimented by the 'powerful garlic sauce' (that's the signage description; I now refer to it as 'magic garlic').  The falafel were on top of a good amount of fresh tahini sauce and light with a good, thin crisp crust...and seemed to have a familiar spice in them...maybe cinnamon.  These were very good. The tabbouleh was so fresh and flavorful, the parsley, onion, tomato and bulghur topped with lemon juice and olive oil was so refreshing. We finished it all and were ready for our two hour drive home.

A long day, with much accomplished. I hope all of you had a good weekend.

Phoenix Decorating Company Website -if you'd like to sign up as a volunteer, or watch decorating live on the webcams.

Zankou Chicken 1296 E. Colorado Boulevard Pasadena (626) 405-1502 Website 

 

Comments

[Adam]

We refer to the garlic sauce as 'garlic lard' since that's what it resembles most...

[caninecologne]

Seeing all the floats from the high vantage point in the barn was amazing! So cool to see this "preview". that is so much work getting all of the dried flowers prepared. i hope those kids are earning community service hours for their time! :)

[Cathy]

Ha!, you're right, Adam-the consistency and color of the garlic is like lard, but the taste is magic. So glad we stopped at Zankou.
Thanks, cc. During 'Decorating Days' (December 26-30), Phoenix opens that upstairs passageway to the public (for a fee) so they can see the floats from that vantage point. Phoenix also offers a guided tour directly on the floor, so you can see things happening up close. The youngsters we worked with were indeed getting Community Service hours.

[Carol]

Hi Cathy! You and I are both quilters so we know all about tedious work. BUT those flower petals are taking tedious to an extreme! Kudos to the volunteers.

[Cathy]

Dividing up the colors, then squeezing the base and cutting the petals, with not too sharp scissors made it all the more interesting-and painful- the next few days, Carol. I understand the need to stick with the blue color and how difficult it is to find it economically. It's fun to be a part of the Tradition and the first Saturday in December is one of the lowest days for volunteer turnout (Dec 26 is the other low day).