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Foodies

[click "Play", Nancy Landau talks about Friends of the Library and Funday Sunday]

 

12-12 Dinner Why does Telluride's Wilkinson Public Library need Friends?

The Wilkinson is a five-star book mecca in part because it attracts a steady stream of traffic. Locals and guests love the place and use it as a regular hang-out, a kind of safe haven. The kids' section is always alive with activity. And Scott Doser's programs attract regular weekly crowds.

December 12 is Funday Sunday at Telluride's five-star Wilkinson Public Library. The all-day event begins with a brief annual meeting of the Friends of the Library, 1 p.m., to explain the role of the Friends.

The meeting is followed by a High Def/Blu-Ray screening of "The Wizard of Oz." (The High Definition Blu-Ray format projector was gifted to the Library by the Friends.)

10 December, 2010 /

 Telluride Inside.... and Out was on our way home from a booksigning at the Wilkinson Public Library, Bob Rubadeau's latest novel, ("Gatsby's Last Resort," a murder mystery set in Telluride), when we remembered that Jeff Badger, owner of Siam, had let slip that the "soft" opening of his new bar on Pacific Street was Tuesday night. It was Tuesday night. Why not check out the scene just down the road a piece?

This is not, I promise you, the grapefruit martini speaking. Which followed the glass of a crisp sauvignon blanc. Just before the shitaki sticky buns. The shrimp lettuce wraps. And the asparagus hand wraps. Nope, none of the lubricants or the taste treats or the good vibrations from the crowd had any influence whatsoever on what I am about to uncork. I mean, reveal.

Gertrude Stein eat dirt. There is a "There" there. And "There" is here in Telluride.

09 December, 2010 /

 by Lisa Barlow

Lemon squares best The Meyer lemons sitting on my kitchen table are like a bowl of sunshine. Rounder and deeper in color than regular lemons, they are also harder to come by, unless you live in Southern California and are blessed with a prolific tree in your back yard.  From November through January, when the lemons migrate to fruit aisles in specialty markets outside of California, you want to grab them. Don’t look at the price tag, just inhale their sweet scent and be grateful for a lucky score.

As a native New Yorker, the unique pleasures of the Meyer lemon are not imprinted on me. But for many a transplanted West Coaster, they serve as powerful triggers for sense memories, able to transport one back to childhood or into an old love affair.

05 December, 2010 /

by Lisa Barlow

(NOTE: Hanukkah starts on the Hebrew calendar date of 25 Kislev, and lasts for eight days. THIS YEAR THROUGH 12/1 – 12/9)

Latkes What does a nice shiksa girl like me know about latkes? Bupkis! But that doesn’t stop me from gobbling them down whenever they’re on the menu. In New York you can find great latkes year round in delis and Eastern European eateries. During Hanukkah, you can find them in many upscale restaurants where they are gussied up with crème fraiche and caviar, quails' eggs or truffles. You can even find traif versions that feature bacon.

Latkes are served on Hanukkah in celebration of the liberation of Jerusalem in 168 BC, after the Maccabees drove out the Syrian-Greek invaders. When the main temple was recaptured, only enough oil remained to keep the holy lamp burning for one day. Yet it burned for eight days, long enough for the city dwellers to manufacture more oil. Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, has become the eight-day holiday that pays homage to the miracle of the oil. Not only is one candle of a menorah lit each day for eight days, but tradition holds that foods fried in oil, most usually olive oil, be served.

03 December, 2010 /

by Tracy Shaffer

ChoLon-Map In my fifteen years in Denver, I have never known a restaurant to create the kind of noise that the new ChoLon Asian Bistro has. Open only a month, I have heard friends from every hive buzzing "You have to try ChoLon" and ”Oh my god, I have a new favorite restaurant!". One fine Indian Summer day, I threw out my own "We have to try ChoLon" when I got a call from Tellurider, Jennie Franks, asking where to meet for lunch. Located in the Sugar Cube Building at 15th and Blake, you step from the bustle of LoDo into the hip serenity of the new Saigon: stately and relaxed, peaceful in its minimalist design, and alive with conversation and energy unique to Denver eateries.

There is no pretense here in ChoLon, only warmth, steaming from the baskets of Soup Dumplings and the heart of its chef, Lon Symensma.  Though he looks like a fresh-faced grad just hatched from cooking school, the award-winning Chef Symensma has more than a decade of global seasoning in his wok. Working in world-class kitchens from New York to Shanghai, with stops in San Sebastian and the South of France, our humble host has a refined palate and created an indelible menu that has embedded itself within my dream center. 

28 November, 2010 /

by Lisa Barlow

Jook1 Naturally I am excited about Thanksgiving dinner, but to be honest, like everyone else in my family, I am more excited about the leftovers. The mad scramble for the turkey carcass begins so early after the big meal that this year we are buying two turkeys and planning ahead.

We all agree there is nothing better the day after Thanksgiving than a fat turkey sandwich with stuffing and cranberry sauce on whole grain bread that’s been slathered with mayonnaise and sprinkled with salt and pepper. I like mine with a beer, preferably in front of the television, where the ensuing tryptophan coma can carry me into a nap.

24 November, 2010 /

(Editor's note: The Telluride region's The New Community Coalition sends this information about the greenhouses that were built by Telluride High School students.) Exciting news from the Telluride High School backyard: The school board gave the nod to students and SWIRL - the Southwest...

21 November, 2010 /

by Lisa Barlow

ShopsinsL93 (2) One of the things I love most about living over the F train in Brooklyn is that I am never hungry for very long. All I have to do is think about lunch and in the space of 15 minutes, I might have traveled from my quiet kitchen to the cacophonous din of the Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side where I will be sitting at the counter at Shopsins eating the best chicken soup of my life.

Kenny Shopsin is legendary in New York. With his big girth and wild look, he is half culinary wizard and half troll under the bridge. For years he bellicosely presided over a storefront on Bedford Street in Greenwich Village that simply said “GROCERY” over the door, but everyone referred to as Kenny’s or Shopsins.

In my twenties, eating lunch at Shopsins became something of a regular occurrence. The restaurant was originally a real grocery store, but it had morphed one day into a grocery store that served food. There were a few tables next to the shelves of canned goods, a window booth, stools along the counter and an upright piano where it wasn’t uncommon to see one of the Shopsins' 5 kids or a customer banging at the keys. Kenny was behind the counter tossing ingredients into pans and onto plates. His wife, Eve, was alternately bussing dishes and hoisting a baby onto her hip as she served a burger. There would also be a fair amount of yelling, which was fine unless it was directed at you. And if there wasn’t yelling, there was bound to be something else to shock.

16 November, 2010 /

by Lisa Barlow

Tomato PIes2 My favorite all time surprise present wasn’t a big fat check or anything shiny under the Christmas tree. It was a pizza…a large clam pizza that had traveled 75 miles in the trunk of a car to reach me, stiff and cold in a grease-stained box. I couldn’t have been more happily startled than if it had been a bouquet of roses or a string of pearls. My dad, the inspired giver, knew exactly how to cheer up a housebound new mother with a colicky infant.
 
Pepe’s Pizza, for those of you who have never been to New Haven, CT, is the Holy Grail of tomato pies. That’s arguable, of course, and I’ve had many a heated discussion while rooting for my team pie. In fact, in the old days when I was a student in New Haven, one of the great distinguishers was “Sally’s or a Pepe’s?” I was a Sally’s girl then, with a favorite booth and a favorite Frank song on the jukebox. Sinatra had his favorite booth there too. Though I never saw him in the restaurant, a laminated photo of Ol’ Blue Eyes was framed above the seat closest to the cash register.

09 November, 2010 /

Deboned birdsBy Lisa Barlow

Why did the turducken cross the road? Probably to outrun its reputation. Just saying “turducken” out loud has me smirking. And recollecting “The Daily Show” a while back when it was suggested that the Kurds, Iraq and Turkey should gather together to form a new nation called Turducken.

Picture the turducken and you imagine a mythical creature that might resemble a cross between the Harry Potter hippogryph and the hapless dodo, a bird that lumbers around not really sure of what it is.

04 November, 2010 /