Editor's note: Hunting & Gathering is part of an ongoing series by part-time local, regular contributor and foodie extraordinaire, Lisa Barlow. For all you foodies out there, look for more recipes and insights from the likes of Jeff Badger of Siam in the coming weeks. Sometimes...
Every time I go to Mexico City, it seems that a fun new restaurant has opened in my favorite neighborhood, Colonia Roma. This time, acting on a hot tip, I showed up at Maximo Bistrot a few minutes before opening time at 1pm. “Espera” the...
Après is to skiers what tailgating is to football fans. It’s not optional, but an essential part of the day and there is a certain etiquette and culture that goes with it. The Euros are the obvious professionals of the art of the après ski. In...
These days in Telluride, it’s very out to bring a bottle of wine to a dinner party. If you want to crush it, and I mean crush it, bring a growler of Telluride Brewing Beer instead. When I sat down and had a pint with Tommy...
Trying a new restaurant can be as intimidating as trying a new pair of skis: you hope for greatness, yet you fear disappointment. But make no more excuses—head straight on over to Telluride’s latest restaurant, Flavor, and sink into the good stuff. Flavor lives up...
Tired of same old turkey on your holiday table? How does a whole roasted leg of lamb with risotto sound as an alternative? The holiday menu prepared by Peter Cumplido, Executive Chef, Hotel Madeline, Mountain Village, also includes a baby spinach salad with cranberry vinaigrette,...
In the summer of 2009, Chef Bud Thomas and his wife Jenna came to Telluride’s Wilkinson Public Library to teach children how to make peanut butter and jelly crepes. “Knowing how much our daughter Hazel loves cooking, we were thrilled to offer this instructional opportunity to...
Let's start with Jeff Osaka. The understated elegance and warmth of this chef/owner pervade "Twelve," our "local." When Telluride Inside… and Out heads to our Denver home, one of our first stops is always "Twelve," a favorite restaurant thats feels like our dining room – only with much better food and service.
Located at 2233 Larimer Street, Twelve is a 34-seat restaurant with a 10-seat massive oak bar bar in a neighborhood Denverites call Curtis Park, just blocks away from Coors Field and the heart of the uber hip LoDo district. But rather than an aggressively downtown demeanor, Twelve feels as comfortable as an old pair of slippers: the warm tones of the room, the laid back furnishing, the soft, very flattering lighting are conducive to leisurely dining, lingering conversations and the long glance looks of a romantic evening. The overall effect is warmly contemporary without a sense of trying too hard. Nothing about Twelve screams "Look at me": not the decor, not the patrons, not the farm-to-table menu. At Twelve, artistry and good taste replace the razzle dazzle of virtuosic flourishes, especially when it comes to the food.
Eating in Portland, Oregon can make even minor league foodies panicky. There is so much good food in that city and only so much time. If you took all of New York, simmered off the grade B Thai restaurants and bagel shops, and condensed it into a square footage the size of Brooklyn, you might come close to approaching the density of yummy spots in Portland. Good food, good coffee, and good beer are everywhere.
Here’s the problem. I’m sure you can relate. I still want to fit into my ski pants this winter. So I somehow have to counterbalance calories in with calories out. Great trails for biking and running climb out of the city in every direction, but getting to those can take some time. Especially when you’ve got young kids in tow. So my visits to Portland are always fun but never relaxed. I eat, I run, I catch up with old friends, I sometimes play with my kids, and I sometimes sleep. Then I do the same thing all over again the next day.
Here’s the other problem. I lived in Portland for a few years about a decade ago. So I have my old favorite food spots that I want to visit. But those are “so yesterday” according to our Portland friends. They insist on also dragging us to better places. By the time we return the next year and mention those same places, our friends have already found newer, better spots than the ones they took us to last year. And so on. The city’s like a forest after it rains-- new restaurants are mushrooming up all the time.
by Lisa Barlow
With the luster of Chez Panisse still casting its warm glow, San Franscisco has been a culinary beacon for the farm-to-table movement ever since Alice Waters opened the doors to her iconic restaurant exactly 40 years ago.
There is seriously delicious food to be eaten in this city. Much of it is influenced by Waters’ early recognition that good meals can only come from good ingredients. It is now more common to see the provenance of the string beans on your plate than it is to know the name of the chef cooking your food. But there is also another ingredient in ample supply here that is paramount to a good meal: technique.
