“TUCKED AWAY ALONG THE EDGE OF A COUNTY FAIR IN INDIO, CALIFORNIA, is a curious building with distinct Middle Eastern flair: white with blue trim, covered in murals, and topped with a bulbous gold Persian dome and pointed arches that court the Southern California breeze. While elsewhere on the grounds neon-lit Ferris wheels spin against the night sky, demolition derbies smash large vehicles and musical acts like Smash Mouth smash eardrums, inside this building are wrinkly and glistening fruit, a virtual embarrassment of chewy caramel riches. Abbadas, Medjoosl, Barhis, Brunettes, you name it. Halawi, Hellali, Honey, sure, those too.
This is the Taj Mahal building, a remnant from when the Riverside County Fair & National Date Festival was a tribute to the Coachella Valley cash crop of dates, and its Middle Eastern origins. Though today the Coachella Valley may be best known for its blowout music festival, in the early 1900s, thanks to some intrepid scientists and the imagination of some truly Disney-level storytellers, it was the destination that dates built…”
