Reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma fucked me up good. It changed the way I looked at food forever and seriously altered the way I actually ate. Considering that eating is my vocation, this was no small thing. I have never looked at an ear of corn the same way…
International Restaurant Week will be celebrated in my ‘hood starting tomorrow, the party banging up and down the most interesting mainline it contains: Havana Street. This is the week when everyone is encouraged to get out and get weird, to try something they’ve never tried before, to (occasionally) overpay at…
For the past several years, deli-obsessed Canadian journalist David Sax has been penning a blog that’s dedicated to preserving the Jewish deli, a “hallowed temple of salted and cured meats” that, Sax kvetches, is “endangered and in need of our support.” To that end, Sax has now written a book…
Jennifer Jasinski, chef-owner of Rioja, 1431 Larimer Street, is renowned for both her use of local ingredients and seasonal menu changes. And her most recent iteration, a lovely autumn board of fall vegetables, rustic meats, sweetness and spice, earthiness and comfort, is no exception…
James Lee, mixologist at the Bitter Bar at Happy (known as Happy Noodle House until very recently), is heading from Boulder to New York this weekend, for the annual Santé Restaurant Symposium — where he’ll be competing against against five other bartenders in the Iron Bar Chef contest. The competitors…
There are quite a few things that I look forward to once the weekend rolls around, including football, naps, Pin the Tail on the Pig, toilet papering the neighbor’s house and Bloody Mary bars. And there’s no better Bloody Mary spread in town than the one you see in the…
I know from diners; they are my natural habitat. And Colorado has some classics. Johnson’s Corner was one of the first places I visited when I first went west of the Mississippi, and it remains a favorite even post-renovation. My recent meals at Silver Creek Diner got me thinking about…
When I interviewed Frank Bonanno for this week’s Chef and Tell Q & A, we hung out in his kitchen at Luca d’Italia, where he totally seduced me by making housemade burrata, arguably the crack cocaine of cheese. One portion was plenty for two (three if you have a skinny…
Our former Cafe Society intern just decided to chuck college in favor of a real education: as a sous chef. In Under Fire, he chronicles his daily trials and tribulations in the kitchen. Throughout the day, I try to note stuff that might be worth writing about once I get out of the…
A line-up of Colorado wines, as well as snacks, are on the roster from 5 to 7 p.m. today, October 16, at Michelangelo’s Coffee and Wine Bar, 1 South Broadway. Tickets for the wine-tasting, presented by Sutcliffe Vineyards, are $15 at the door…
Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey, which owns the building where the Rackhouse Pub is due to open next week, bottles a unique product. The micro-distilled whiskey is made with locally grown barley and aged in charred white oak barrels. When a batch is ready–once or twice a month–the distillers put out a…
The new Tony’s Market at 950 Broadway may be the only place in town where you can drink a beer or glass of wine while you do your shopping — legally. That’s because the market opened with a liquor license that covers not just the bistro inside the market, but…
For a brief, brief moment, Blazer’s Street Market was my favorite market in Colorado. I mean, it was perfect: beautiful produce, a lot of it local, a lot of it organic, just stacked up in massive piles all over this store at 15550 East Sixth Avenue in Aurora. Everything was…
Last week we asked for your favorite dive (among the nominees: El Chapultepec, Lancer Lounge, Squire, PS Lounge, BarBar, Berkeley, Charlie Brown’s Lion’s Lair). Now it’s time to prove your devotion: Write a love letter/tribute to your favorite dive bar, professing sincere fidelity to its wood paneling and nicotine-stained ceiling…
Last weekend, Elise Wiggins, executive chef at Panzano (909 17th Street), held a cooking class at Bear Mountain Ranch, home on the range to the Black Angus steer that ranch owners Debbie and John Medved are raising for Wiggins, who is using the beef at Panzano. The cooking class, which…
There are lots of reasons we may want to patronize some television restaurants. Maybe drive-in to Arnold’s (Happy Days) for a burger and a shake; have some brunch and a peek at the afterlife at Der Waffle Haus (Dead Like Me); or enjoy a tuna on toast (with a side…
This is part two of Lori Midson’s interview with Frank Bonanno, executive chef-owner of Osteria Marco, Mizuna, Luca d’Italia and Bones. You can read the first part of Midson’s interview with Bonanno here. Culinary inspirations: My mother and my sister. When I was six, seven, maybe eight, my mother and…
“I love the gastropub concept, I love the word ‘gastropub’ and I love Leigh Jones,” declares Brendon Doyle, the former exec chef of Campo de Fiori who’s now in command of the kitchen at Jonesy’s EatBar, the gastropub at 400 East 20th Avenue, as Jason Sheehan reports here. Doyle didn’t…
Our former Cafe Society intern just decided to chuck college in favor of a real education: as a sous chef. In Under Fire, he chronicles his daily trials and tribulations in the kitchen.There are different levels of reality in the kitchen, and I am stuck in several of them. I remember when,…
No matter how much you think you know about beer, it never hurts to learn more. Tonight at 6 p.m., Cook Street School of Fine Cooking, located at 1937 Market Street, will host a Beer Class, where you can learn about the history, regions and production of beer while sampling…
Back in the day — and I’m talking way back in the day — there was only one word to describe a place where a stranger could stop, sit down and, for two bits or so, get something to eat. That word was “restaurant” — based on the word restaurer…
Cowboys are my weakness. I recently went on a six-hour trail ride in southeastern Colorado with some local ranchers. When one of those ranchers spotted a rattlesnake, he jumped off his horse, grabbed his rope, killed the snake with the rope and cut off the rattle – which he then…
