Summer Guide ’08 | Quick Fixes Part II: The staff of City Weekly solves the many quandries of summer so you don’t have to 

QUANDARY: The carbonation in beer, soda and other summer drinks is destroying your bones.

THE FIX: Sure, it gets hot in Salt Lake during the summer, but it’s nothing compared to the heat/humidity endured by our Latin American neighbors—which is why they drink horchata, possibly the most satisfying summer drink ever invented. For the uninitiated, horchata is a refreshing, milky rice drink found in most Mexican restaurants such as in a local favorite, the post-party destination of Molca Salsa. Despite the drink’s unusual description, there are few who can finish one without instantly wanting un mas por favor.
Molca Salsa, 2901 E. 3300 South, 487-3850

QUANDARY: You’ve got a full tank of gas, a half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and you need ... a Broadway musical.

THE FIX: Just because many of Salt Lake City’s theaters go dark in the summer doesn’t mean you need to be stuck in your living room listening to the Cats original cast recording. The Utah Shakespearean Festival (Bard.org, 800-PLAYTIX) in Cedar City includes not only vintage Elizabethan genius, but Fiddler on the Roof (June 19–Aug. 30). Or, in nearby Ivins, the Tuacahn Center for the Arts (Tuacahn.org, 800-746-9882) presents Les Miserables (June 10-Oct. 18), The Sound of Music (June 9-Aug. 15), Big River (Aug. 27-Oct. 17), Disney’s High School Musical (July 9-Aug. 2). In Logan, meanwhile, Utah Festival Opera (UFOC.org, 800-262-0074) presents Sondheim’s Into the Woods (July 10–Aug. 8) and Gypsy (July 29 & Aug. 6), as well as 1776 (July 12–Aug. 9). Closer to home, Hale Centre Theatre (HaleCentreTheatre.org, 984-9000) serves up Big: The Musical (July 29–Sept. 20). At, at the Capitol Theatre: the 2006 Tony Award-winning The Drowsy Chaperone (June 25-29) (BroadwayAcrossAmerica.com, 323-6800).

QUANDARY: A lovely green lawn seems like an appealing idea; smothering it with chemical pesticides and weed-killers, not so much.

THE FIX: Utah lags behind the go-green curve in many ways, but there are still options for getting eco-friendly help with your landscaping. BioGreen Utah provides consultation and products based on proper environmentally safe soil management, with no animal waste or petroleum ingredients. The birds, your kids and future generations will thank you.
BioGreen Utah, 979-7195, BioGreen.com

QUANDARY: You love classical music, but you prefer to enjoy it while soaking wet.

THE FIX: Bill Dvorak Expeditions’ Classical Music White Water Rafting Tour isn’t just eight days of exploration and adventure on the Green River in late July. It’s also a chance to experience musicians from the Santa Fe Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic and other celebrated orchestras as they explore the unique acoustics of the natural world. Add gourmet food and improvised classical jab sessions, and you’ve got a fascinating—if pricey, at more than $2,000 per person—combination of outdoor grit and refined sophistication.
800-824-3795, DvorakExpeditions.com

QUANDARY: Your ski muscles might atrophy during the three months of the year when we don’t have snow.

THE FIX: Summer doesn’t mean you have to have your poles surgically removed from your grip. Get off the waxed sticks and get onto wheels. Rollerskis can keep you in that crucial cross-country shape while cruising around town and providing an innovative way to reduce your gasoline bill. Wild Rose Mountain Sports sells V2’s line of smooth-riding road skis and Park City’s Torbjorn Sport an hook you up with PRO-SKI products.
Wild Rose Mountain Sports, 702 Third Ave., 533-8671, WildRoseSports.com; Torbjorn Sport, Park City, 435-645-8181, TorbjornSport.com.

QUANDARY: What to whistle on a glorious summer’s day.

THE FIX: Utah Opera Presents Highlights of Gilbert & Sullivan, featuring music from HMS Pinafore, The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Gondoliers at the Deer Valley Music Festival on August 8. Go to the final dress rehearsal the day before for free. It’s a performance that’s likely to sow terminal whistling addictions into your brain.
Utah Opera Presents Highlights of Gilbert & Sullivan, Aug. 8, DeerValleyMusicFestival.com

QUANDARY: Knocking over your wine bottle at picnics.

THE FIX: Instead of sobering up, buy Steady Sticks. For the sloppy drinker accustomed to cursing as his beer soaks into the ground, Steady Sticks, steel spirals that can be pushed into the ground, offer the perfect bottle cradle. You can rest your wine glass or bottle—or your beer can—in one of these babies and know your precious booze will be safe to the last drop.
Spoons n’ Spice, multiple locations, 1-888-558-2436, SpoonsNSpice.com

QUANDARY: You want to conquer the heights, but not the mountain.

THE FIX: Angels Landing Trail. This hike requires a head for heights with its 1,488 foot climb to some of the most breathtaking views in southern Utah. Near the top, the path becomes so narrow, it’s tempting to hug the mountainside. Reach the top and you can almost touch the birds of prey hoping to snack upon you as they spiral overhead. Pack a lunch and take a well-deserved rest before heading back down.
Zion National Park, near Springdale

QUANDARY: You’re an American, dammit, but right-wing nutjobs have hijacked the flag, wrapped it around Sean Hannity and made is so you can’t enjoy the Fourth of July anymore.

THE FIX: Screw ‘em. Don’t let anyone tell you how to be a patriot. Thomas Jefferson wouldn’t have. Throw yourself an old fashioned July 4 party celebrating the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Alternatively, drive to Evanston, buy some illegal fireworks that shoot like rockets out of a tube and point the business end at the fence of your neighbor with the Bush-Cheney bumper sticker. It’s your choice. God bless America.

QUANDARY: It’s hot. You want a gelato but live in Utah, not Italy.

THE FIX: Utah, the land of ice cream lovers, is fast becoming the land of gelato, as well. Owners of Bella Dolci in West Jordan and Citta Gelateria in Sandy trekked to Italy to learn how to make the creamy stuff, which for some reason quenches the summer sweet tooth in a way good ‘ol American ice cream can’t. In Sugar House, Dolcetti Gelato serves up an array of flavors of gelato, including a delicious pistachio, and also makes sorbetto in flavors like pear and kiwi.
Bella Dolci, 6973 S. 4800 West, West Jordan, 696-0009; Citta Gelateria, 2101 E. 9400 South, Sandy, 790-4135; Dolcetti Gelato, 1751 S. 1100 East, 485-3254.

n QUANDARY: You’re too poor to go on an exotic vacation. n THE FIX: Some imported greenery from Cactus & Tropicals. If you don’t have the cash to visit a faraway rain forest this summer, you can at least scrape together enough coin to make your patio, porch, or front room do its best Amazon impression. Cactus & Tropicals stocks vegetation from the around the globe so—with the help of a few lush plants—you can transform your desert outpost into a flowering emerald oasis. Cactus & Tropicals, 2735 S. 2000 East, 485-2542, CactusAndTropicals.comn

QUANDARY: Health officials warn the summer sun is heating car exhaust causing Utah’s valleys to fill with deadly ozone.

THE FIX: Head to the mountains. Nothing beats the heat or clears up a pollution cough like a summertime ride on Snowbird’s tram. Or stop for lunch at the Silver Fork Lodge in Big Cottonwood Canyon. For an emergency quick breath of fresh air there are breezy patios at several restaurants up Emigration Canyon where a short drive can mean a precipitous drop in deadly car exhaust and temperatures. Who knows, this August, you might still find some skiing.

QUANDARY: You are seriously beginning to question if you dare eat a peach.

THE FIX: Peach Days at Brigham City. Your colon can handle one day’s worth of summer’s purest nectars. Get out of the city, gorge on peaches and soak in Mother Nature. Celebrated in September, the weekend after Labor Day, Peach Days is one of the oldest harvest festivals in Utah, complete with the crowning of a Miss Brigham City Peach Queen.
Brigham City Peach Days, Brigham City Area Chamber of Commerce, 435-723-3931, Sept. 4-6

QUANDARY: You love beer but hate shopping.

THE FIX: You can roll into Smith’s drunk (already mandatory for Avenues residents)—or go the extra mile to the Happiest Place on 300 West—no, not the strip joint, but The Beer Store inside the Squatters/Wasatch co-op. No supermarket zombies or convenience-store riffraff to deal with, just beer, beer and more beer being sold by beer people (as in, they actually know their product). With several rotating Squatters and Wasatch brews—and even a root beer—on tap for takeout and enough related T-shirts and gear to clothe yourself every day of the summer (go ahead, try it), you’ll learn to laugh at corporate lime-suds like the rest of us.
Utah Brewers Co-op, Wasatch & Squatters beers, 1763 S. 300 West, 466-8855

n QUANDARY: To fly in the face of what’s cool, you gave yourself a perm. Only you now look like a fuzzy poodle in need of a groomer. As you face getting your head shorn, you crave the nearly naked female form and touch. n THE FIX: Bikini Cuts. First, its stylists have scissors, and they know how to use them. Secondly, getting a buzz cut by bikini-clad women in a salon that’s decked out like Hawaii will set all your frazzled ends at ease. Bikini Cuts, 60 West 400 South, Salt Lake City, 533-2887; 1709 West 7800 South Jordan, 562-2887, BikiniCuts.comn

QUANDARY: You keep getting kicked out of bars because, lacking imagination, you ask bartenders to “surprise” you with a drink.

THE FIX: Order a gimlet. Forget fruity tropical drinks with umbrellas. The sugar will leave you more thirsty than when you began. And drinking beer in the summer just makes you sleepy. (Remember that headache after the last daylong outdoor concert?) It’s time to bring back the gimlet—that’s gin and Rose’s lime juice to those of you born after 1940. Shaken or on the rocks, the gimlet is the drink of summer. You won’t regret it.

QUANDARY: Yeah, yeah, you know sunscreen will help you avoid skin cancer and premature wrinkles. But your skin is more sensitive than a magnolia blossom. And when you sweat, sunscreen stings your eyes.

THE FIX: According to Dr. Leslie Baumann, a University of Miami dermatologist who writes skin-care tips for Yahoo.com, people with sensitive skin should apply “physical” sunscreens that remain on the skin’s surface and depend on ingredients zinc oxide and titanium dioxide to reflect light. These screens work differently than “chemical” creams that protect skin by absorbing radiation and then dissipating it safely, Baumann says. Physical sunscreens are recommended for people with sensitive skin and even better, they do not sting your eyes when you’re working out. Try Blue Lizard Australian Suncream (SPF30) but don’t freak out when it goes on white. The stuff soaks in and disappears in a minute.
Drugstore.com/products

n QUANDARY: You would rather amputate your feet than wear yet another pair of flip-flops. n the Fix: Get your gladiator on. Every fashion Website is trumpeting the return of the gladiator sandal this summer. Styles range from cute flats in leather and jellies-like rubber to dressier high-heeled platforms. Go spendy for BCBG, Calvin Klein, Michael Kors and Marc Jacobs (upwards of $80 a pair), available at major department stores Nordstrom, Macy’s and Dillard’s. Or find impressive knock-offs at Target stores. Also, DSW stores in Midvale, South Jordan and Layton (dsw.com) stock designer glads at lower prices. All hail Caesar …n

QUANDARY: It’s 103 degrees outside. What’s a girl to wear?

THE FIX: Ever seen those little one-piece T-shirts that babies wear, better known as “onesies?” They make them for women. Big-girl onesies come in an assortment of fabrics—soft cotton, linen and other loose weaves. Soft and billowy, they combine the best features of a skirt and shorts, and are pretty adorable. (A minor inconvenience: you have to unbutton the whole thing to go to the bathroom.)
Urban Outfitters, The Gateway, 12 S. 400 West, 456-2455, UrbanOutfitters.com

QUANDARY: You need a new swimsuit, but don’t fancy spending $100-plus for another skimpy, slutty-looking bikini.

THE FIX: Search out a vintage one-piece at your favorite thrift store (Deseret Industries, Savers, or assorted vintage shops). Stop at the fabric store on the way home. Buy enough absorbent cotton fabric for a new lining. Cut out the old lining from the crotch. Replace with new fabric. Hip clothing stores are charging upwards of $80 for one of these Betty Grable-era suits, but you can have one for a few bucks and by adding your own ingenuity.

n QUANDARY: Your frozen summer treats are bo-ring. n THE FIX: The “Glacier” from Millie’s Burgers, a brilliant combination of those old standbys flavored slush and soft ice cream—no, we can’t believe we never thought of it, either. Try an orange topped with vanilla for a tasty facsimile of a classic Creamsicle (not the alcoholic drink … but, with a little vodka, who knows?), or go grape and instantly lament all those summers you wasted sucking on lame-ass Slurpees. Millie’s Burgers, 2092 S. 1000 East, 466-6043n

QUANDARY: The thought of cooking in this summer heat is making your head explode.

THE FIX: Trundle on over to Tony Caputo’s Market and Deli at 308 W. 300 South for one of several tasty take-home salads. Highly recommended: the Caprese; $5.25 (traditional blending of mozzarella cheese, fresh tomatoes, sweet basil, extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.) Or, make your own Italian Bread Salad, a Tuscan favorite. You can round up all the ingredients by mid-summer at area farmers markets, and you’ll never have to turn on the oven.

Italian Bread Salad
(From TuscanRecipes.com)
2 large ripe tomatoes, cut into bite-size pieces
1 small cucumber, peeled and diced
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, very finely minced
1 cup fresh basil leaves, torn into small pieces with your hands
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more as needed
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, plus more as needed
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
8 thick slices country style Italian bread, day-old and torn into bite-size pieces

1. In a bowl, combine the tomatoes, cucumber, onion, garlic and basil. Drizzle with the 1/2 cup olive oil and the 3 tbsp vinegar, season with salt and pepper and toss well.

2. Place half of the bread in a wide, shallow bowl.

3. Spoon half of the tomato mixture over the bread. Layer the remaining bread on top and then the remaining tomato mixture. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour or until serving time. Just before serving, toss the salad and adjust the seasonings with salt and pepper. The bread should have absorbed the water from the tomatoes and be all moist. If the bread seems dry, add a little more olive oil and toss well. Serve immediately. Serves 4.

n QUANDARY: You’ve been meaning to get out and enjoy the great outdoors but you’re a lush. n THE FIX: Hit the road for some of Moab’s award-winning wineries. Southern Utah is undoubtedly a natural wonder for its painted canyons, beautiful vistas and spectacular hiking and mountain biking. Its sunny climes also produce some award winning grapes, which locals have used in the creation of two superb wineries. The Spanish Valley Vineyards and Winery, Moab’s only estate winery is located just minutes from downtown Moab and offers free tours of the vineyards as well as a wine sampling room. The Castle Creek Winery, nestled along the banks of the Colorado River, 15 miles outside of town, boasts more than 30 award-winning wines from its own vineyards. It features an impressive array of Pinot Noirs, Cabernet Sauvignons and Merlots and all within the Red Cliffs Lodge, a sophisticated resort that offers biking, rafting and hiking excursions in the surrounding country. Whatever your grape of choice, any wine or winery you visit will have something delicious to pair with the beautiful scenery of the nearby Arches National Park or the stunning Fisher Towers. Of course, drink responsibly, and don’t let friends drink and drive, or for that matter, drink and hike—it’s just not fun. Spanish Valley Vineyards, off Highway 191, 6 miles south of Moab, 4710 S. Zimmerman Lane, 435-259-8134; Castle Creek Winery, Milepost 14 Highway 128 Moab, 435-259-3332, CastleCreekWinery.comn