Scottsdale Western Week is underway, and a unique Indigenous culinary experience kicked off this year’s festivities to honor the city’s roots in the heart of Old Town over the weekend.
From hand-tossing to frying round balls of dough, several dozen people practiced making frybread in an outdoor cooking class on Saturday. The Frybread Lounge hosted the event at a venue overlooking the Arizona Canal in downtown Scottsdale.
Celeste Deschene is Diné and with the first Native-owned restaurant in Old Town Scottsdale. She taught the sold-out, hour-long course and shared her favorite part is educating the public about their food customs.
“Having people embrace another culture and really take it in and see what it’s like to make something that’s, you know, straight from scratch,” she added. “Frybread’s always good any time of the day, but you really should have it in moderation.”
-
This time around, the festival is tied to funding from a Smithsonian initiative where each state is responsible for hosting a single folklife event this year, in honor of the country’s 250th anniversary. -
The Bureau of Land Management oversees more than 12 million acres within Arizona alone. And much like the rest of the West, it’s filled with public lands making up federally protected national monuments that hold unique value for tribes. -
It’s known by the name Velvet-Wood, and the project’s Canadian owner got the go-ahead back in May as the first to undergo an “accelerated,” two-week environmental review, during which tribes had only seven days to reply. -
The BIA, which is responsible for overseeing trust responsibilities with 575 federally recognized tribes, focused on reducing its own workforce through mass layoffs and hiring freezes within the Interior Department – much like agencies elsewhere. -
Established in 1924 by President Calvin Coolidge, Chiricahua National Monument is known by many as the “Wonderland of Rocks” — home to its iconic rhyolite pinnacles, which are made from volcanic ash and lava eroding over time.
