April 2007 Archives

The Watercourse is perhaps Denver's most famous all-vegetarian restaurant. They used to be located in this hippie-tastic tiny little space that seemed appropriate for atmosphere, but left you always waiting twenty minutes for a seat. They recently moved into a much bigger space with lofty ceilings and giant paintings on the wall. A lot of people complained that the soul of the place was gone, but those people were hippies. Sure, you can be nostalgic for a favorite restaurant's place of origin, but only a crazy person would prefer the tiny dark hole to the expansive, light-filled, comfortable new place with outdoor seating.

They serve their fair share of super healthy things, but they also go out of their way to provide an ex-meat eater like myself an array of childhood favorites, veg style. I've been really digging on their French dip, which pretty much looks exactly like a regular French dip. An insider source tells me it's made much the same way, except with a giant hunk of seitan instead of beef. I usually order it with a Jamaican Ginger Ale, which the waiter always warns me is actually an ale. Don't I know it! Anyway: delicious. When J and I went last week, I wasn't quite hungry enough for a big sandwich, so settled on a giant Greek wrap instead. It was called a "Jimmy Wrap" for some reason and was chock full of green and kalamata olive goodness.

J has yet to be persuaded to eat much else besides their Buffalo Tofu sandwich, which he says is pretty much exactly like a Buffalo Chicken one. It's very spicy!

In New York, we'd go to a veg Diner, Curly's Lunch almost entirely for their vegan Oreo cake. It was possibly the best thing ever and we have yet to figure out how it can taste so incredible and yet contain no butter or eggs. I have a sneaking suspicion it has something to do with Crisco, but shhhhhh let's not talk about that. Watercourse has a vegan HoHo that has almost identical flavors, piled together differently.

Pure decadence, I'm telling you.

So I know my pilates teacher can be a bit of a dingbat, but to her credit, she always works us the fuck out. I never leave there without sore abs to go along with the random story about her republican boyfriend. I have learned to love my crazy pilates teacher because today we had a substitute and I was reminded that it could be worse: the teacher could just suck. At first, I saw it was someone new and thought, oh hey we'll mix it up a little today. But no, there was no mixing. There was no anything, really. (I should have known nothing good could come of a class that starts with the instructor announcing she's also trained in "laughter yoga.")
There was the ten minutes we spent on some easy stretching, the five minute cool down from the stretching, the abs exercises that involved laying on your back and tightening your stomach muscles, the cool down from that, ten push-ups, a cool down, more abs involving laying on your back and slightly lifting your legs five times, aaaaand another cool down and some more stretching. I swear to god I would have thought I was in a geriatric sit and be fit class, except those people actually move their limbs occasionally.

I kept darting my eyes around the room trying to get someone to commiserate with me. I just needed one good eye roll or skeptical glance from someone to let me know that somebody else recognized that we would have gotten a better workout by walking a few blocks to Jamba Juice for lunch. But I couldn't get one squinty eye from anyone. Maybe the people in my class are robots. They were also unconcerned when, due to a fire alarm earlier in the building, little strobe lights were flashing everywhere last Wednesday. I was practically having a seizure on the floor and everyone else was like, "Lights? I guess there ARE some flashy lights, huh!" Robots.

I finally made it to the candy factory. I just don't know what happened to April, but the month is done OVER already. Mike challenged me to explore some Colorado local foods for this month's challenge, and it appears I've been practically sleeping through this thing. But I want you to know J and I woke up early on Saturday morning and drove to a factory to help round out this challenge, so I did expend some energy. And who doesn't love candy first thing on a Saturday morning?

My mom kept saying that Hammond's is pretty famous for their ribbon candy, but I wasn't paying attention because who eats ribbon candy? Seriously. I'm not even sure HOW you would eat ribbon candy. Do you break it up? Suck on it like a misshapen lollipop while drooling all over yourself? Plus, I love sugar, but I can only get so excited over hardtack candy. Everyone knows chocolate is where it's at. And if you look at their website, there is evidence of chocolatey goodness, even if the focus is on suckers and stupid ribbon candy. So I shouldn't have been too surprised when I saw we were going to witness them make candy canes and candy coal (some black hard candy that resembles coal and turns mouths blue).

But I was a little disappointed. After a cursory stroll through the welcoming area, it became clear that Hammond's is the candy company that makes all your grandma's candy. There were ginger drops and peanuty chicken bones and freakin' HOREHOUND candy and something called iced tea slippers (what?). No one knows what those things are. Okay, I did know what chicken bones are, although I've never heard them called "chicken bones." They're like Chick-O-Sticks. What, you don't know what Chick-O-Sticks are? Because you're not 85? Fine. They're like Butterfingers without the chocolate. I actually kind of love them.

Anyway, after the video on the history of the company, our guide got us all excited about the "factory tour," telling us we could take as many pictures as we wanted. Go nuts, she told us. I prepped my camera. Only to be led into a smallish area that revealed the entire factory at once, on one floor, behind plexiglass. This was to be our "tour." Okay, it was pretty fun watching the dudes pull candy and wrap giant boulders of sugar that would eventually become candy canes.

What, you can't really see it because it's so blurry? That's because we were behind PLEXIGLASS. Now that I think about it, I guess we were behind a bunch of plexiglass when we toured the Jelly Belly factory, but at least that one you got to wander through many different rooms and see many different things. On this tour, we pretty much saw that guy.

Sorta lame tour aside, we were left to go crazy in the candy store. The best part of factory tours is inevitably the discount bin, and here Hammond's did not disappoint. Not the least of which because their discount tables were under a giant sign reading, "Oop's!" as in "Oops, we stuck an apostrophe in there for no reason!" They had bags of messed up Mitchell Sweets, which are supposed to look like this:

But which ended up looking like this:

Awesome. We did not get the bag of goo, but did depart with some small treats, not all of which we were certain were actually made at this factory. We also tried the horehound drops, which tasted like dirt. Sweetened dirt. All in all, the factory and the candy was a lot of fun for the eyes if not necessarily for the tongue. I guess we'll have to hit the Coors factory next to really get a handle on these Colorado manufacturers. I'm guessing the samples might taste better.

Also, in the Colorado food department, I did grab some locally grown tomatoes to contribute to some amazing pressed sandwiches I made a few weeks ago. I didn't notice a taste difference between these tomatoes and any other vine-ripened variety, but they tasted delicious, and were red and juicy all the way through.

That's goat cheese on the bottom. I added some chopped kalamata olives, a handful of fresh baby arugula and popped these babies on the sandwich press. Delicious.

We also experimented a little with some Denver tofu, which I didn't know existed. I mentioned it to our friends who basically rolled their eyes up in their heads and dropped to the floor in orgasmic exultation at the mention of Denver tofu. We had high expectations.

Again, I'm not sure it was that different from the standard tofu we get, but the firm texture was really nice and it tasted fresh. After sampling it, I cubed it to add to a veggie ramen dish, which was yummy.

My standard week is broken down into small, predictable events that once completed allow me to get excited about the next one. It basically goes like this:

Monday: FourFour ANTM recap, pub quiz night, Heroes
Tuesday: yoga night
Wednesday: bagel day, pilates class with crazy instructor, ANTM, Lost, occasional Cooking Club
Thursday: more awesome television, almost the weekend
Friday: cappuccino day, office full of donuts and candy
Saturday and Sunday: general weekend happiness, occasional parties, LUPEC meetings

I can't decide how I feel about this. Part of me is like: whatever makes you happy, man. If it's reality television, delicious food, clubs and yuppie exercise, then go for it. The other part of me is all: really? That's all it takes? You're able to be happy on Tuesday knowing you can eat a sesame bagel from Einstein's on Wednesday? I mean, I'm not totally insane here; I can miss all of these things in lieu of other things, but if nothing else is going on in the week, these things are generally enough to make me feel pretty okay about life. So here's my question: am I the lamest person ever to exist? It doesn't even matter if you say "yes," because I just ate 10 different kinds of pie and watched Brit cry about staples in her head affecting her ability to read cue cards and I probably won't care.

This is all juxtaposed against trying not to cry every time the news profiles another Virginia Tech victim. I also got reality show sucker-punched when I thought I was catching few minutes of a funny episode of Run's House (all the 9-month pregnant lady wants is to go to Hooters for wings!) and instead ended up in tears watching the saddest episode ever.

We're on the brink of summer here, and I think all I can hope for is to unplug from the television for awhile when the warm weather hits. The days will be long, the nights will be lovely, the shows will be repeats.

Hmm, my post about pizza doesn't seem to sum up the past couple of weeks very well. Maybe if you would just go ahead and give me some sort of Terrible Blogger award now I could become unparalyzed an unbusy already and get to posting about exciting things. Like free drinks for me!

There's a bar like this in New York called No Idea that sets up a calendar with names on it and then gives away free drinks all day to the lucky nameholders. The bar in New York is kinda a dive, but it was close to my first job, had cheap beer, and had room for a lot of people, so we used to go there for happy hours and goodbye parties and such. Actually, as I'm writing this, I'm thinking that bar closed down. Am I right? Anyway, I don't think my name ever came up, or if it did I was too much in Brooklyn to care about trekking over to a weird area to drink a free beer or watery well-drink, or perhaps I didn't know, because who keeps up on these things?

But when J noticed that my name appeared on a drink calendar for a bar in Denver, I knew I would have to cash in. In fact, not just my first, but BOTH of my names were up for free drinks. I saw that as a sign. But then I tired myself out that afternoon making a million tiny marble magnets for an upcoming fundraiser and then there was some more of that awesome Denver springtime snow, and all the ladies I had enticed with the going out and the free drinks were also too tired and too cold to care. So I gave up.

I picked J up from work and he said we could still go if I wanted even though going to a bar alone with him is like going to a chocolate festival with a diabetic. This was very nice of J because he was also tired and cold and probably wanted to do nothing less than go to a bar downtown where we would have to find and pay for parking. So we gave up on the idea. Which made me feel bad. So then I said, "Fuck it, I want some free drink!" and J said, "Okay," and we found some downtown parking and fought our way through a freezing wind tunnel and made our way to the bar. (For the record, I also go to Home Depot and model train stores with him, so I think we're supporting each other equally.)

And let me tell you: this is no dive bar. This is a swanky, leather couch, candlelit, giant art on the walls, full on loungy bar. And we were the only ones in there. But I did not care, and the "free drink" was actually a free whatever I wanted, no holds barred, so I sipped down two (strong) Gray Goose and sodas with lots of lime and felt pretty good about the evening.

And I am learning that there are apparently lots of bars here that have whole happy hours where the drinks aren't so much discounted as completely free. Denver, are you trying to hit on me? If you keep buying me drinks all night, I'm going to get giddy and want to climb up to one of those hidden rooftop parks and lie in the grass for awhile, so be prepared. I mean, if it ever stops snowing and all. Otherwise, let's go get some more of that pizza.

I love Mike's challenge to cover some of Colorado's local foods this month because I am actively using it as an excuse to buy delicious things I might otherwise budget against. Like Friday night, for instance, I was craving pizza like you wouldn't believe. The whole week had been jammed packed with cooking clubs and birthday party gatherings and Passover dinners, and I just needed some pizza on the couch already. Normally, this would mean a call into one of the many pizza places in our neighborhood for an average pie. However, with the challenge securely in place, I thought it was my duty to go out of my way a little for the best Colorado-style pizza there is: Beau Jo's. It's traditionally made with a very thick outer crust, like so:

The company has been around for about 30 years and specializes in these "mountain pies." There are a few locations around Colorado, but only a couple of them offer The Challenge: a 12-14 pound pie, filled with heaps of veggies and meat. If two people can eat the whole thing in one hour, they win $100 and a couple of shirts. Skinnyboy and a friend couldn't tackle it, but they gave it a valiant effort about a year ago.

The crust is huge because it serves a double purpose: pizza holder and dessert. At the restaurants, bottles of Colorado honey line all the tables and you're supposed to pour a puddle onto your plate for dipping.

I love this part, but some people find it a little weird. Though honestly: what's weird about delicious hot bread in honey? Since I took the pie to go on Friday, I asked them for some honey so I could give the local stuff a taste test. I didn't realize until we got home that they just loaded up a paper bag with little containers of Kraft honey. Lame! But then, upon further investigation, we realized our little honey bear in the cabinet was a Colorado local, Rice's Lucky Clover Honey, bottled right here in Greeley. ( Some internet research is showing they used to produce their own honey up until 1980, but then started focusing on refining and packaging it. Some of the honey still comes from Colorado, but also Montana and South Dakota. But whatever, I'm calling it Colorado.)

A side-by-side comparison gave the Colorado honey a huge advantage. The flavor was more intense, but more mellow and even, while the Kraft honey had a strong bite that was distinctly unpleasant after tasting the local stuff. We win!

Coming up: Denver tofu, local tomatoes, and--yes--a trip to the candy factory.

A couple months ago, J and I stumbled into this newish Italian restaurant for dinner. They had a ton of amazing sounding appetizers, but we were particularly intrigued by the description of their fries: shoestring style, served with a horseradish cream sauce for dipping. They came in a tall, propped up paper cone and totally lived up to our expectations. The horseradish sauce was so good, we ended up dipping our pizza in it as well. So, when Westword gave Via the 2007 award for best fries, I wasn't surprised. I was surprised, however, to discover the readers' choice for best fries:

McDonald's. As in MCDONALD'S. Then I learned that readers have voted McDonald's the best fries 24 YEARS IN A ROW. Really, Denver? I mean, really?

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I can't decide if Ben and Jerry's pint lock is a good idea, a funny idea, or an idea for sad, neurotic people with terrible, thieving roommates.

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Last year, there was some hilarity when Ahe and I discovered that a guy we went to school with wandered far from civilization to lock his feet in chains and draw them. It was news because he proceeded to lose the key and had to hop, feet bound, for 12 hours to a local sheriff's office, where they were able to free with some bolt cutters. I commented in that post that I wished I could go back in time to reveal bits of his future to him.

Ahe wrote me again recently to tell me that he had died in November, in Paris, near train tracks. It's a mysterious death. I've felt upset about this for days, but in the hollow way you feel upset about the death of someone you didn't know well, but knew a little bit a long time ago. We kissed once, he dated this girl for a long time, he locked his feet together in the Mojave desert, he was killed in France. That's now my whole story for him.

In my ongoing quest to consume as many American Idol-related frozen treats as my dignity will allow, I recently tried out the Hollywood Cheesecake flavor. You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered there was no graham cracker swirl in the ice cream, as promised by the packaging copy and photo. Knowing that nothing produces a coupon for free product faster than a note of dissatisfaction, I sent them a brief email letting them know I was having trouble enjoying both Sanjaya's hair and my bowl of reality television ice cream, when there were no graham cracker swirls to be had. I got this response back, along with a promise for ice cream coupons.

In our manufacturing process, added ingredients are mixed into the product using a special feeder. Unfortunately, we are occasionally the victims of human or mechanical error. In this case, it appears that the graham cracker swirl feeder was not operating properly; therefore, there was no graham cracker swirl mixed into the product.

I think the whole thing was worth it, if just to bring the words "graham cracker swirl feeder" into my life.

It is April, and time for a new blog challenge. This month's is brought to me by Mike and involves testing and talking about locally produced foods. All I have to say is that there's a candy factory that might be toured. And maybe a beer one, too. Who's driving! Let's go!

Awhile ago, we were visiting my friend Aubrey's stall in an antique mall, and we came across an old Dremel sander still in its original packaging:

Good for sanding wood! And also good for massaging! Who WOULDN'T think to put a sander on their aching neck? J and I got a good laugh out of this. And then his back went out. And, coincidently, he bought a sander around the same time. He is now a full-on convert and swears to the healing power of the electric sander on one's aching back. I tentatively let him try it on my back last night and I jumped about 8 feet in the air. People: this sander felt like a sander. Not a nice vibrating massage chair, but a sander. There wasn't any actual sandpaper involved, of course, but it wasn't what I'd call a pleasant or relaxing sensation.

In other news, I've cemented my New York plans for the summer, so if you live there and you miss me, let's hang out around the 4th! Also, can I stay with you, because it turns out I don't have an apartment there anymore.