Chihuly, Luminaria at Desert Botanical Gardens

Happy New Year!
I will spend some time looking back on the Christmas 2008 since I was too busy to write.
We started out the Christmas Holidays by going to the Luminaria and Chihuly exhibit at the Desert Botanical Gardens on December 20. Mom, Jules and I went with my friend Elisa (we were roommates in collage, can you believe it!) and her husband Bill. All the paths of the desert gardens are lined with luminaries (brown paper bag with sand and a candle in it). The glass exhibits are by the world renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly. We had seen a Chihuly exhibit in Atlanta, but this has many more glass sculptures and most of them rest amongst cactus which they look similar to. They are magical and look like Dr. Suess or other worldly cactus creations


Strolling through the magical setting really put us in a Christmas spirit.

It is so magical that we will go back to see Chihuly during the day and night again. The exhibit will be there till the end of May although I can't believe that there is another garden anywhere that they seem to fit so perfectly into the setting. It looks like a cactus flower or fireworks. Elisa took these pictures and sent them to me. We really didn't want to leave but our stomachs forced us. We ended the evening at eating Mexican food at Manuel's. We even shared desert. The Sopapillas were good (puffed, fried pastries with powered sugar and honey). They reminded me of Grandma V (our Yugoslavian neighbor when I was growing up.) We would always visit when she was baking because we knew that at the end of the day we would get a treat. We would help kneed the dough. We had to wait while the bread rose. We would come back later, or stay around and visit till she started baking. I can smell the aroma of the bread baking now in my mind. It's funny how smell is like that. Your mind doesn't forget the best smells and brings back whole memories. She would always fry the leftover scrapes of raised bread dough and give them to us dipped in powered sugar. They were really a treat. She didn't have a name for this delicious treat that I remember, but it was the same as Mexican Sopapillas. I would bet that many cultures who bake bread have this desert!