Lifestyle

Japan Children Air - JDMcDuff - web Talk about living your dream.

Travel to exotic locations, her day job, has fed longtime Telluride local and artist Nancy Craft's passion for color: over the years, Nancy's work for Esprit travel has been all about creating and leading art tours, mostly in Asia. Especially Japan.

For 20 years, Esprit Travel has sent travelers to Japan to explore the country's culture and arts.

"The hallmark of our cultural tours is the introductions we make to Japanese people," explained Nancy. "Our travelers, therefore, have profound, often life- altering experiences with the people of Japan and hold them dear in their hearts. In fact, because our colleague, Steve Beimel, lived in Sendai for many years, we have taken many groups to north eastern Japan, not normally on the tourist path."

ed. note: Our friend, Ben Clark sends along this post and link to Ski the Himalayas video.

Ski the Himalayas is now in it's third season of online "making of" podcast episodes born out of Ski the Himalayas' first two feature length documentary films available this year on Dish Network and Comcast Xfinity VOD and Pay Per View. Look for Ski the Himalayas 2 on Dish and Comcast Xfinity on May 1st. We climbed a peak and survived an avalanche, those were just two instances along the way... 

Trimming through hours of footage captured across three different expeditions after having lived them, the depth of gratitude for the experiences we've had and continue to plan is astounding.  We are thankful and we are moving forward with two more Himalayan expeditions this year.  Two more films and two more seasons of making of episodes.  Who knows how many ski turns and ice tool swings that equates to, we hope it is a lot. This spring we will dispatch from the Ganesh Himal, stay tuned at www.skithehimalayas.com

by Lisa Barlow

Wilted pea shoots and scallops The closest I’ve ever come to living on a farm was the month I spent working as an intern in the kitchen of a New York City restaurant. That’s because the farm came to us. Literally. Not only did the restaurant order fresh produce and humanely raised meat and poultry from local farms, the farmers themselves came to regular 4-course “Meet the Farmer” dinners to talk about the food that was on diners’ plates.  All we were missing was a few acres of dirt.

I know the whole Farm to Table movement is pretty trendy right now. Jaded restaurant reviewers have referred to this kind of cuisine as “haute barnyard” and the chefs who prepare it as “lettuce whisperers”. But it is trendy for a reason. Aside from all the political and ethical arguments for eating sustainably and locally, there is this: the food tastes good! I guess I went to work behind the scenes to find out why.

[click "Play" to hear Kristin's conversation with Susan about Spring]

 

 

Tucker fashion Here's the good news: at the height of Spring Break, Telluride's Two Skirts was slammed. We personally saw customers marching across Main Street with BIg Bags from the store at around 10 p.m. one night. Here's the bad news: everyone was too busy to record Fashion Friday. But we're back and into the first week of Spring, which started this year on March 20.

In Spring, a young girl's fancy turns toward vibrant colors and patterns: the brand, "Tucker" springs to mind.

Since 2005, Tucker by Gaby Basora has developed a reputation for signature prints and vintage-inspired silhouettes inspired by, well, a hodgepodge of inputs. According to the designer, she may be turned on by "Marguerite Duras, a drawing made by her son, the way a tree looks when she bikes by it, the French schoolgirls she saw when she was a little girl visiting Paris in the 1980s.

[click "Play to hear Bill Kurtain's conversation with Susan]

 

Bill Kurtain Winter in Telluride is all about snow sports: alpine and cross-country skiing and snowboarding. Summer in Telluride is all about festivals, hiking, biking, fly-fishing, golf, fun on the water and now –  cue drum roll – tennis. This summer, follow the bouncing ball "uptown" to The Peaks Resort and Spa in Mountain Village, where Telluride's premiere hotel plans to serve up getaway tennis retreats for locals and guests starting in June.

The Peaks is the new home of William Kurtain and his Winning Touch Tennis pro staff, in residence to lead four-day (Wednesday – Sunday) tennis immersions focusing on high-energy, play-based drill patterns and positive reinforcement, his "Progressive Learning Program."

[click "Play" to listen to Erika Gordon's conversation with Susan]

 

Food.inc poster-flyer “Eating can be one dangerous business. Don’t take another bite till you see Robert Kenner’s Food, Inc.,” wrote Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, “If the way to an audience’s heart is through its stomach, ‘Food, Inc.’ is a movie you’re going to love.”

The film being shown this Sunday, March 20, 4 p.m., as part of the Telluride Film Festival's 2011 Sunday at the Palm series received a an average rating 8 on a scale of 10 on Rotten Tomatoes, pure poetry since this movie is all about food, the good, the bad, mostly rotten.

 

[click "Play" to hear Susan's conversation with Tony Forrest]

 

 

Family Nordic Skiing Mountain Village is home base for the Telluride Ski Resort. The Town of Mountain Village maintains miles of Nordic and snowshoe trails and an ice skating rink. (Also a tennis court open year 'round, but that's another story.)

To drive the point about a winter wonderland home, this weekend, Mountain Village hosts a community bash. The event takes place Saturday, March 19, starting at 11 a.m. on the Wilson Loop Trail (at the entrance to town on Adams Ranch Road). What's in store is a variety of relay races, an obstacle course, games and more for the whole family to enjoy FREE. All ages and abilities welcome. Or just come as a spectator. 

  Navajo Camp, hosted regionally for the first time this summer, is the product of a new partnership between the Telluride Institute, Diné College, and the University of Colorado, Boulder. Scheduled for July 9th through July 16th, 2011, Diné College will be bringing around 25 middle...

by Lisa Barlow

Colcannon My grandmother’s Irish heritage showed up in her hilariously salty sense of humor and in her cooking. As prolific as the jokes were, however, she could only cook one thing: a baked potato. But it was irresistibly delicious. Her secret was simple. She just added half a stick of butter to each potato and mashed it in its skin. Next to the overcooked meat patty and the canned wax beans, the potato shone like a pot of gold.

It wasn’t until I went to Ireland that I celebrated my own connection to the country.  As a child growing up in Manhattan, St. Patrick’s Day was a little scary. We lived at the end of the parade route and the trip home from school was an obstacle course of drunken merrymakers, regurgitated green beer and invitations to “Kiss Me, I’m Irish.”

But after my honeymoon at Ashford Castle, where "The Quiet Man" was filmed, I was a committed holiday celebrant. We mark the holiday with pints of Guinness and Colcannon, a delicious mixture of cabbage, leeks and potatoes.

 

[click "Play", John Wontrobski talks with Susan about the event and his background as a chef]

 

Rico Hotel Publication It's tough to connect the dots: a Telluride Deputy Marshal, a nonprofit dedicated to ending interpersonal violence in the greater Telluride community, St. Patrick's Day, and, well, Shepherd's Pie, but here's the story.

On March 17, 5 – 9 p.m., John Wontrobski, Telluride Marshal and board member of the San Miguel Resource Center, is Guest Chef at the Argentine Grille in Rico. The special menu John put together for that night includes Lamb Shepherd's Pie served either with oysters on the half shell –  or a salad and vegetable (greens for St. Patrick's Day) and Irish soda bread (also in honor of the holiday). The entree is priced at $25 and half the proceeds from the meal go to – and here's the punch line – the San Miguel Resource Center.