(A paranormal romance novel is, apparently, any romance novel that uses elements of fantasy or scifi. Someone at the conference said any novel with aliens falls into the scifi genre, but I just read a book titled Heart Mate that takes place on an Earthlike planet where magical ability determines status, and it certainly read like a romance novel.)

I haven’t yet accepted that classification of my novel; if I never can, I’ll do what’s necessary to shift the novel over to the science fiction side. Right now, the genre of the thing doesn’t matter to me: I really want to finish a draft because I spent so long plotting the damn thing.

It’s my second appearance at this conference, the Colorado Gold Conference put on by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. This time, I didn’t pitch my novel because I’ve written only 50 pages of it, but the first time I did, and the ebook publisher told me that earlier novel fit into the paranormal category. I don’t know what’s going on here: I got my master’s degree in English/creative writing at a school that focused on experimental writing, and apparently I’ve progressed to paranormal.

Somebody tell me what that means.

I attended four great talks at this conference, by Robin D. Owens, Connie Willis, Carol Berg, and Jaxine Daniels. But much as I love listening to learn (and Connie Willis’s knowledge of books and movies was breathtaking), such things don’t count as true adventure for this woman. No, it’s the social activities that challenge me.

So I’d like to thank Sex Scenes at Starbucks for taking good care of me at the dinners and parties. (I may skip the Saturday night dinner next time, but that’s not her fault; the program is loooooong.) She always has the time and energy to meet new people at the conference and show old friends around. At the hospitality suite Saturday night, we met another woman from Kansas City who traveled 600 miles because she heard RMFW’s conference was that good.

If you write genre fiction, check it out next year. It’s always in September.

Not strangers at one of my parties (I meet them, and then they are friends), but specifically, strangers who arrive at my door to fix things.

In this case, I was anticipating embarrassment weeks in advance, because I wanted the electrician to investigate the mysterious, intermittent noise in my master bathroom (not a noise I’m making, thank you very much). It’s rhythmic, like a drip, but when I stand in the shower, I can clearly hear it coming from the fan over my head. And I never hear it when the shower is on.

I told this to the receptionist at WireNut, and she noted it. But she also talks in the reassuring voice one uses for children. I’m pretty sure she was talking that way before I mentioned the noise and the tiny entrance to my attic…

When E stepped into my house, he put hairnets on his shoes and I led him to the bathroom, where I explained that the switch was going out and that I would like him to investigate this noise. With a straight face, he said he would listen for it and that he would check out the attic. And then he gave me an estimate of $168.

The noise chose to be silent while E was here. Nevertheless, he climbed up through the closet into the attic (What is this, Narnia?) and looked at the fan from the top and discovered all the things amiss in the attic. He even had me climb up there and see how the duct from the shower had been taped to a hole in one of the main vents leading to the roof.

Great. Something else to fix. At first he said I should call a tinner, a word I didn’t know. But later he mentioned HVAC.

E went through WireNut’s standard spiel, called a “25-Point Electrical Safety/Energy Inspection.” He informed me that aluminum wiring was used in the 1970s because copper was needed for the Vietnam War and that the main problem with aluminum is its tendency to expand and contract, which loosens the connections. That was interesting.

I also learned I could replace the entire electrical panel because it’s maxed out ($2,000) and that the EMF levels in our house were 1,200 and should be 200.

I thought of asking whether reducing the radon levels wasn’t enough. By the time he was done, I was bored. Todd and I want to sell our house. We don’t want to put any more money into it than the inspector requires.

And then E made a fatal mistake: he began musing about his wife, who in discussing the renovation of their home asked him to remove a bearing wall. I was already feeling self-conscious about the noise in the bathroom that no one else hears. I didn’t need to be reminded how sexist fix-it guys can be.

His aside came between his presentation of all the things that were wrong with my house and my writing of the check. He had just explained why he’d changed the estimate to $217 (because he made the estimate before he took the cover off the switch and saw that the entire unit needed to be replaced). I asked, “Was this a binding estimate?” (The website implies that estimates are final.)

I still can’t believe I pushed that question out of my mouth. Todd, who was sitting downstairs at his work computer, was also impressed.

I remember my tone as polite, but maybe it was mean. Maybe it was the tone that inspired a former roommate to tell me I went for the jugular.

In any case, he caved almost instantly. I didn’t expect that.

The switch works now. I might even call WireNut again, because dealing with E was better than dealing with Jared, the last electrician I let in my house (in 2002). I think he worked for Candlelight Electric, which was recommended by Tom Martino.

I wish I could find an electrician I like as much as Brothers Plumbing. Their employees are always nice.

Luckily, there is a shop in Denver called Sanctuary, on Platte Street near 16th Street. It’s next door to Salvagetti Bike Workshop and half a block down Platte from Colt and Gray.

Sanctuary is the jumping-off point for Wade Richards’s interior design business. One thing he likes to do is to take old furniture and make it lovely and new again. When I visited Sanctuary last Sunday, I saw, kittycorner to the greeting cards, half a wall of fabric swatches and a table holding design books.

I couldn’t help but notice this chair, reupholstered with Argentinian cowhides that have been stenciled to look like wild animal skins. It sits in front of a display of framed sayings and another of barware. To the right, on the shelves on the wall, you’ll find some R&Y Augousti accessories and a small card that reads: “It is a privilege for us to carry this unique French line of handmade accessories.”

Everything about the store, including the clerk, was gracious like that.

(Though I’m not sure I approve entirely of R&Y Augousti, since they use materials like python and stingray skin and exotic shells. I would need to learn more about where they get their materials. Also, their website requested my address before it would allow me to look at their collections. I guess the website wasn’t kidding when it called the husband-and-wife team “self-confessed control freaks.”)

Sanctuary also carries Zents body care products, made in Denver of natural ingredients and, apparently, beloved of celebrities.

It was the little touches that I liked most about Sanctuary: the frogs everywhere, black glass skull candleholders by Two’s Company, these candelabra, wire bowls, fair trade scarves in bright patterns, Vita Moda Italian purses, and Table Topics games, which pose questions to start conversations to relieve that awkward silence at your very first dinner party. And this piggy bank.

My favorite item was the book 365 Ways to Save the Earth by Philippe Bourseiller, an outsize coffee table book with stunning photographs. At $30, it’s cheaper than most of the items at the store, but if you check the website, you’ll notice tabs for “under $30” and “under $70.”

Sanctuary reminded me of Bouquets on 15th Street in LoDo, but I think I am more likely to buy something at Sanctuary. Not because one store is better than the other; it’s just a matter of personal taste.

My Favorite Feature: Precious

As a general rule, I see documentaries at the SDFF because I figure they’re less likely to show in theaters. And although I did see several this year, I started with Precious, which is making quite the stir in the film world. As refreshing as it is to watch a film about an obese black teenage girl (not what filmmakers think most 18-year-old boys want to see), what made the film for me was the confession by the mother at the end. It was awful and heartbreaking and completely understandable and disgusting, all at once. It took the film to an entirely new level.

Shorts from Colorado

Next was Winners and Losers, a collection of Colorado shorts. My favorite was The Unrecoverable Loss of Eugene, a hilarious take on Victorian and modern sexual mores. Perhaps my husband will have more to say in the comments (hint, hint).

Second Feature: Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench

Go see Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench to watch the female lead break into song and the male lead play his trumpet. Go for the experimental take on musicals and story. Don’t spend so much time trying to follow the love story, as I did; just enjoy the music-fest.

My Favorite Documentary: Still Bill

Still Bill won the People’s Choice Documentary Feature award for its warm portrayal of Bill Withers’s decision to step away from fame. It opens with “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone” and closes with “Grandma’s Hands.” It has good cinematography, good music, and good stories. If you can’t see it in the theater, try Netflix or Video Station in Boulder.

At this point I began to notice how many of the movies I chose had to do with music.

Third Feature: Crossing

Crossing had nothing to do with music. Written by two Texans who also starred as Manuel (the lead) and Diego (his camera-toting friend), it follows a Mexican ne’er-do-well who learns his father will be executed in Texas and runs north because he refuses to let his father leave him again. His pregnant wife protests, but he goes anyway, into his own personal comedy of errors.

Second Documentary: Turtle: The Incredible Journey

According to Britta Erickson, festival director, Turtle is another March of the Penguins. I disagree. The overwrought script read by Miranda Richardson got on my nerves. I did like the use of “she”; it’s nice that not all moviemakers feel adventures belong solely to male creatures. And there were beautiful images, especially the opening shot of the hatchling leaving its egg.

Third Documentary: Two Spirits

Like Turtle, this movie showed at the King Center across the parking lot from the Tivoli, where Starz’s main theaters are located. I used my membership privileges to get to the front of the huge line, though I’m not sure it really made a difference; I think all the seats there are pretty good. A documentary about the murder of Navajo teenager Fred Martinez, Two Spirits explores the traditional Navajo concept of gender (there are 4) and notes that it was common for Navajos to celebrate the lives of gay and lesbian children because they were thought to embody both genders and thus to represent the balance of life.

At the panel afterward, an activist from New York who came to Cortez, Colorado, to investigate the murder said this kind of hate crime happens every week. You can find more information at the Fred Martinez Project or the Two Spirit Society of Denver (a performance by several members is pictured here).

Fourth Documentary: The Duke of the Bachata

Made by local filmmaker Adam Taub (La Quinceañera), The Duke is about a Dominican musical genre dismissed as vulgar by the musical elite of that country. I wish I could say more about it, but it was my third film of the day, and I couldn’t stay awake. It was preceded by an amusing short, The Eighth Samurai, which Todd thought was a dead-on parody of Kurosawa.

Yet ANOTHER Documentary Seen After the SDFF: The Yes Men Fix the World

If you’re a liberal, and the idea of playing a prank on a multinational corporation makes you drool, go see this movie. Very amusing. I couldn’t believe that these guys kept getting away with their media stunts.

It stocks some cheeses, though not the kind of selection you’ll find at Marczyk’s (or even Whole Foods) and is beginning to sell more meat.

Vitamin Cottage began in Golden in 1955 as a door-to-door natural supplements business founded by Margaret and Philip Isely. It is still family-run and has stores in Texas, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado.

Lately it’s been trying to rebrand itself as Vitamin Cottage Natural Foods Markets or Natural Foods at Vitamin Cottage or some such name. The point is that these days it sells more food than supplements. Whatever. If you must have Annie’s or Seventh Generation products, go there.

The sign reads: “All donations go to the care and feeding of this statue.”

I wonder what that silver paint does to your face?

Here he’s performing a medley of “Bille Jean” and, I believe, “New Year’s Day.” My husband was impressed by the segues.

Same song, different band member.

I think I’ve snuck in a picture of every member of the band now.

I believe that in Colorado, 1 percent of our food is produced locally, but I couldn’t find a source. If anyone can find a source, I would appreciate it.

There is a Transition Colorado group that has about 1,000 members, 130 of whom live in the Denver area. When I was at the Local Flavor Fest last Saturday, I met up with my friend Dana, who is very involved in Transition Denver. She told me about Denver Urban Homesteading Local Market and Reskilling Center down on Santa Fe. According to Dana, it’s one of only a few such organizations in the United States. I went to their website and read this: “Click to help decriminalize Denver’s chickens.” That made me laugh.

To some people, this movement may seem a bit apocalyptic. Peak oil! What if the food distribution network breaks down and we can’t get our peaches in the winter?!!

But Transition Colorado appeals to me because of its focus on encouraging local farmers, especially urban farmers, and local businesses. I believe that Americans do need to reestablish food distribution networks at the local level to supplement the national distribution network on which we now rely.

Whether peak oil will happen in the way some people predict, only time will tell. In the meantime, I’ll let someone else raise the chickens and keep planting my little garden and going to the farmer’s market.

Dana said that Will Allen, of Milwaukee Growing Power (the only land within Milwaukee city limits zoned as farmland), will speak in Denver in November. I definitely want to go see him.

***

There’s a fine arts festival in Golden this weekend.

On the 7 from the Merchandise Mart to downtown Denver, we traveled from suburbia-cum-industrial-areas through what I think was northern Curtis Park, with its stately old houses a little run down, to Uptown and ultimately to Colfax. The bus driver detoured around fenced-off Civic Center Park, where Cinco de Mayo took place, and offered to let me off in the middle of Lincoln Avenue, but when I peeked out, a large truck was charging down that lane. I decided I could wait.

The first thing I noticed about Cinco de Mayo was how packed it was within that encircling fence. The second thing I noticed was the large number of families. At times, the crowd came to a complete stop, strollers paused, and there seemed to be nowhere to go but straight up. Then the dam burst and we all pushed on through.

My first order of business was trying to get a crowd shot to add to one of my Squidoo lenses that details Denver’s ethnic demographics. Have you ever tried to get a crowd shot that includes 7 white people, 2–3 Latinos, and 1 African American? Without posing people, that is? In any case, I noticed that the crowd at Cinco de Mayo was much more diverse than the typical crowd on the 16th Street Mall.

Then it was time for some food that didn’t involve sweets. I thought Taqueria Jalisco looked promising and stepped up to order two tacos for $3, which is pretty cheap for festival food. I got to use some of my limited Spanish while asking for 1 barbacoa and 1 adobaba. The green chile and pico de gallo weren’t as hot as I’d feared—in fact, a great deal less—and the tacos lasted me until dinner time.

Vendor booths circled the park, so I started at Colfax and Broadway and ended up back there more than an hour later, having passed belt buckles and several hundred knock-off Coach bags and a girl playing tennis in between booths and mobiles and Mexican flags and more food booths and an entire section of nonprofits until I found this woman with the sombrero traipsing along in front of the Capitol. It was quite a feat to keep up with her; she navigated the crowd as if she were water and it was a streambed.

In the center of the park, festival sponsors had set up house, beyond the garden beds waiting for flowers and in between the cover band Wide Open and the large band in the Greek amphitheater, which I’m going to guess was Los Profetas del Norte or Los Nietos. While watching the latter at a safe distance (for my ears, that is), I saw a trio of boys all dressed up in Mexican cowboy boots and matching belts and cowboy hats. I have to say, Cinco de Mayo gets people into their best shoes.

In fact, more people dress up for Cinco de Mayo than just about any street festival I’ve ever seen. And then there was this woman, the dance instructor, who has a lot more guts than I do in the wardrobe department.

The only thing I regret is that I missed the Mariachi Mass on Mother’s Day. Now that might get me back to church again.

There was this guy at the entrance to the Convention Center—is he a giant blue stalker?

Once in the Exhibit Hall, I looked to my left and saw the booth for Sustainable Industries magazine, and I thought, That sounds like something I should read for Restoration Nation.

Restoration Nation is an idea I’ve been dreaming about for several years: How do we change the current “free market” economy to “an economy that restores”? Not that I believe the two are mutually exclusive, but the focus of the first is consumption, and the focus of the second would be restoration of lands.

I signed up to get the magazine, just to see if it would give me any ideas. And I went to see local author David Wann (Affluenza, Superbia!), whose talk, “Culture Shift: Creating a Restoration Economy,” sounded promising.

Wann gave his audience a lot of information, much of which I had heard before. Although he liked the name Restoration Nation, he didn’t answer the question two paragraphs up.

But the next two talks I wanted to see were canceled. I began to feel that someone was hexing my Green Festival. I wasn’t enjoying it as much as I’d expected. All the information and products presented at the festival seemed like a bunch of loose threads, and what I really wanted was to gather them together somehow into Restoration Nation.

But maybe that desire to corral all the disparate threads of what we call the “Green Economy” or the New Economy is misguided. Maybe a change in our idea of what the market should do (which is what Restoration Nation requires) need not come from one direction. Maybe Restoration Nation already exists. After all, isn’t this the kind of thing I’m looking for?

Only I want an entire economy of it. Maybe the website I want to set up should just ask questions, since that’s all I seem to do.

There was a lot of stuff at the Green Festival exhibit hall. I couldn’t keep track of the sustainably made purses and hemp clothing lines (though I intend to check out Vital Hemptations) and books and even these to-go containers (the button says “Reduce Your Forkprint”:

I found it fascinating and, ultimately, exhausting. And about that time I remembered one of David Wann’s lines: “Green overconsumption is still overconsumption.”

But I bought the 83% organic lotion from Boulder anyway.

Polish Heroes: Those Who Rescued Jews
The first floor of the Capitol housed a photographic exhibit about the Righteous Among the Nations from Poland, those Polish citizens who rescued Jews during World War II. More Poles are numbered among the Righteous than citizens of any other country, but then, Poland had more Jews than any other country in Europe.

What I remember most about the exhibit was the statement that after the war, some Poles became angry when their neighbors revealed they had harbored Jews. Even though the danger had passed and there was no longer [an unknown] death threat hanging over their heads, they were still upset with their neighbors for risking the lives of people in the neighborhood.

A Diverse Legislature?
Colorado is the only state that has two black men in charge of the state Senate and House. Peter C. Groff is president of the Senate, and Terrance D. Carroll is speaker of the House. Neither one was raised in Colorado. Before Groff was the president of the Senate, that chamber was led by a woman, Joan Fitz-Gerald, who lost the Democratic primary to Jared Polis in the race for the Boulder House seat.

The tour guide told me Monday that either Groff or Carroll has taken a post in Washington and will be leaving soon. She didn’t say which one.

A Division of Labor
There are people who work at the Capitol polishing brass. That’s all they do. They start at the bottom, work their way up to the top, and then begin over again.

The floor is made of marble quarried in Marble, Colorado, near Aspen. The stone on the pillars is rose onyx from Beulah, Colorado, whose coloration has not been found anywhere else in the world.

***
I’ll be returning to Capitol Hill for updates, as well as to the other neighborhoods I’ve already visited. But in May I’m heading into downtown Denver, the part called “upper downtown.”

There are too many tall buildings in the way now, she added. I agreed with her. I said that I wished buildings would shrink again. And then she wondered why anyone would want to work way up in a tall glass tower anyway. She didn’t mention September 11, and I have no idea what the Belgian woman on the tour thought. But I got the point.

At the beginning of the tour, I told her I had lived in Colorado almost 22 years before touring the Capitol. I’ve been there a couple of times for Pro-Choice Lobby Day, to lobby my Catholic state senator, a father of seven, about making Catholic hospitals inform rape victims about emergency contraception (not prescribe it to them, just tell them it’s available). I was unable to convince him that a Catholic hospital should put public health above religious tenets.

He’s done some good things as a legislator. He helped pass a law forbidding Colorado police from immediately confiscating property that may have been used in a crime; they have to wait until the suspect is convicted. (There was a movement this year to overturn the law. I’m not sure if it passed.) But his social views drive me up a wall, so when I think of him, I tell myself, He’s term-limited.

I didn’t run into my senator on this tour, but I did walk past my representative. I’ve talked to her once or twice, most recently at a meeting about Colorado’s economic situation. She cut her eye at me as if to say, “I know you from somewhere.”

The tour guide informed us that last year, a man was shot in the Capitol. He showed up at the governor’s office claiming to be the emperor of Colorado and then pulled out a gun. The police shot him. Now the public cannot go in and out the main doors of the Capitol building. The three of us stood behind glass and gazed at the park created to honor Colorado’s war dead and Civic Center Park and and the City and County Building, where the mayor’s office is located (in that order).

Then she took us into the chambers themselves, where nothing much was going on. The House has electronic voting; the Senate is too prim for that. Only legislators are allowed to walk down this aisle in the House chamber. The public has to go around.

I thought about how interested I was in politics in my teens and twenties. I was in the political science club in high school. I wrote to my senator about becoming a page. I studied government in college.

I still care: I meet up with my reps from time to time; I send emails and the occasional letter on paper. But I hate going door to door, so I don’t want to canvass in person. When I was a girl I wanted to be president, but now I don’t wish to run for office.

Although the work of legislators affects every aspect of our lives, much of the time, their efforts seem not to touch us. It’s as if we’re looking at each other through glass.

Bones is, at heart, an economical restaurant. It doesn’t waste much time on signage, for instance. I was walking down Grant thinking it was on 8th and had to call the people I was meeting to get new directions. When I did get to the intersection at 7th, nothing presented itself except Luca d’Italia, Mizuna, and the Lancer Lounge. I asked the guy with the spotted dachshund if he knew where Bones was, and he said he’d never heard of it. Presumably a man walking a dog comes from the neighborhood, so that boded badly.

Finally, with trepidation, I approached this door. You can’t tell from the picture, but “Bones” is painted above the door in tiny type, and in larger type to the left of the door. It’s a small place, about the size of D Bar Desserts. At 5:30, it was full.

Turned out that I was supposed to have been there at 5, which I would have known if I didn’t go on email strike on the weekends.

Turned out that the same man, Frank Bonanno, owns Bones, Mizuna, Luca d’Italia (all on the corner of 7th and Grant in Capitol Hill), and Osteria Marco in Larimer Square (Luca and Marco being the names of his sons). He’d probably buy the Lancer Lounge if he could and turn that into yet another restaurant. Or expand one of the others, since Bones and Mizuna are both small.

To me, running so many places implies an economy of effort. A person that busy has to know exactly what to do and when to do it, or the restaurants all come crashing down.

Yet he still found time to come by our table twice in the three hours we were there, and even signed my grease-stained one-page menu. If he devotes the same level of care to his staff as he does to his customers, his restaurants must be great places to work.

Our waitress took good care of us too.

And the food, Beth?

Oh, yeah. Since I arrived half an hour late, Denveater and our other dining companion had already started, but they were kind enough to leave me a steamed bun with suckling pig (shaped like a taco rather than a traditional pork bun), a beef eggroll, and some bone marrow, which was a treat for me. My first thought was to compare it to pâté, but its texture was less firm than most pâté, more like silky blobs of cooked fat, and its flavor was more meaty. I can see why Denveater loves it so much.

Also, there’s something about sticking a knife into the bone and prying out your food.

My favorite, though, was the black cod tempura. The batter was more delicate than your typical tempura from a Japanese restaurant, and on the first bite, my mouth filled with a light fish flavor. The jalapeño added the right amount of heat.

Almost everything I ate at Bones, with the exception of the eggroll and the steamed bun, was wet and soft and fatty. I did wish the escargot potstickers had been crispier on the outside (and I also wish I had focused a little more carefully).

But then, wet is appropriate for food at a noodle bar. My egg noodles with duck leg confit (meat cooked in its own fat) and oyster broth were delicious, but I had to take a break for a while because I was so full. The duck was lovely, but the oyster broth didn’t really register with me.

In case you can’t tell, I’m in over my head here. It’s been so long since I’ve had either escargot or oysters that they taste new.

If I stick around Denveater long enough, I’m sure I’ll get used to them, since she loves oysters. She was entertaining us at Bones with stories of how she got from “I don’t care if it’s good. I just want to eat” to the food writer extraordinaire she is today. Be sure to check out her (future) blog post on Bones, especially her take on all the namazake (unpasteurized sake) that we drank.

Did I say, at the beginning, that Bones was economical? Well, we got the bill. Considering all we ate and drank, it was a fair price. But if you go there, don’t let the low prices fool you. They add up pretty quickly.

This isn’t your grandma’s roller derby.  Unlike the fake, sensationalistic game you may remember, roller derby is a sport to be reckoned with.  The hard hits and fast skating are as real as the hard concrete Coliseum floor, torn knee ligaments, concussions, whiplash, shoulder injuries, and bruises abound.

I went roller skating in junior high school—that and the McDonald’s were the cool hangouts in my south Kansas City neighborhood—but I never even learned to skate backward. Roller derby would definitely be a sport for me to watch, not play.

With names like “Bad Apples” and “Green Barrettes,” how could they go wrong?

Like the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which I first saw last spring on a tour of the Alamo Placito neighborhood with Phil Goodstein (whose tours I recommend). We were there on Sunday, and all these black women were coming out of church in blindingly white dresses. It was stunning.

(I tried to peek into the church today, but all three doors were locked. The mailman caught me coming out the gate but said nothing about it.)

I met up with myself in memory than once today. At Pablo’s on 6th, I ran into Steve Katz, one of my teachers from graduate school at CU, and he graciously sat down and talked to me. He told me that he had almost left Denver when he retired from the University of Colorado, but he decided to stay because it’s a culturally vital city. He thinks most areas of New York City, where he grew up, are declining more than they are revitalizing, but Denver is on its way up. There is a lot to do here, and you don’t have to plan months and months ahead to get tickets to the ballet or plays.

The trouble with meeting your grad school teachers is that they inevitably ask, “Are you still writing?” And I honestly answered “Yes,” telling him about the novel I began last year and then laid aside and then took up again when I got the oh-so-original idea of doing the synopsis before writing it (which is a first for me). But the truth is, I had a long period after the turn of the millennium when I wanted to stop. Or maybe I just wanted to rest and spend my time catching up on reading. I think now I should have done just that, instead of rewriting and submitting my collection of stories until I got burned out in 2005.

I told him I was tired of copyediting, and he said it must be tedious. It wasn’t when I started, of course, just as he liked teaching when he started in the 1960s.

But he said he’d never gotten tired of writing. That was good to hear.

Here’s her email:

It has been a busy few weeks at the Urban Pantry.  Lots of cookies have been baked and eaten, decisions debated and decisions made.  I have decided after much thought and spreadsheets to close the retail side of Urban Pantry. I have enjoyed meeting and getting to know all of you over the past year.  And I hope that you have enjoyed the store.

The good news for you is that EVERYTHING in the store is 25% off.  Come in and buy!!!!

But, Alex, what will become of you?  Don’t fear,  I have a plan… Urban Pantry wholesale cookies launched about a month ago.  I will still be in the same space just doing something different.  I will also start offering cooking classes and the retail space will be available for private events or possibly a new retailer…

Remember HIGH quality items + REDUCED prices = fast sales

Hope to see you very soon!

Alex

Everybody wants cookies, right? They taste good, and they don’t break the bank. I wish her luck with her new venture.
I hope I don’t have to write many more of these “Good-bye” posts, that’s for sure.

I was late for my haircut in the shinier part of Uptown. I didn’t linger on Capitol Hill, did not approach him, but I remembered that on

This same corner, a year ago a stranger asked me to have a beer.

Gallery 1261

Gallery 1261 was packed. Located on an unprepossessing street in the Golden Triangle neighborhood of Denver, it didn’t seem like the kind of place that would draw such a crowd. But they were there not just for Golden Triangle Museum District‘s first Friday art walk, not just for the luscious raspberry cake from Gateaux—

“It’s all frosting!” Todd said. I think he was complaining.
Why, yes, it is, I thought. And that is good.

—but for an opening reception for Beyond the Object Project.

That name gets me every time because I remember the night Todd and I went to hear Project Object perform in Five Points years ago. Instead of a gallery dedicated to commemorating Frank Zappa’s music, though, I found a gallery “dedicated to presenting excellent work that reflects the artists’ most creative side, done without the constraints of marketability in mind.”

That must be why Will Wilson’s stunning portrait of a black man with short dreadlocks pulled back from his face was going for $32,000.

Without the constraints of marketability is what I dealt with when I worked for Fiction Collective 2, some 16 years ago when it still had an office in Boulder. Without the constraints of marketability means no money or Get those grant applications out!

I wonder what would happen to me if I could afford that painting. Would I suddenly stop resenting the price? Would I stop wondering how long it really could have taken Mr. Wilson to paint that portrait? Would I stop wondering why on earth anything besides a car or a boat or a house should cost that much? Or would I buy expensive things and bring them into my house and still resent them?

How stupid to be a Venusian with an ascetic side. Or, more accurately, how jealous of me. What’s the point of trying to make money if you can’t ever enjoy it?

Luckily, the art itself was mostly intriguing. Skip the pompous description on the website and look at the works by the featured artists. My favorite piece was this sculpture by Philip Maior, which truly embodies my feelings about the nastier aspects of Christianity.

And here is Todd, still holding his cake plate and taking in a painting by Scott Fraser.

We circled the gallery a few times, and then I led him to the Native American Trading Company, where I introduced him to Robin and Jack and lingered over the Mesa Verde pot they keep in the back room. Robin said that Gallery 1261 does good business, and she is the expert on the Golden Triangle.

Then it was off to Cuba Cuba for a late dinner. See you there in the next post!

From the self-portrait there, I would say Vance Kirkland fancied himself quite the man about town, though I suspect there are art references in this painting I don’t get. (If anyone wants to clue me in, please do so in the comments.) He was founding director of the art school at the University of Denver and now has an eponymous museum in the Golden Triangle Museum District/Capitol Hill. The museum included his studio, Denver’s oldest commercial art building; the rest was added on. However, from the way paintings and furniture and design objects are crammed into every nook and corner, I’d say the collection needs about 3 more museums the same size.

I went to the Kirkland Museum to attend an ekphrastic poetry reading. Each of the poets in the group Poets Beyond Reason (PBR) had visited the museum, selected three works of art, and written poems about them. Wednesday night, they stood by the works that inspired them and read the poems, over and over, for new groups of people. Every half hour, they moved to the next work of art, and repeated the process.

Here’s Barbara next to Kirkland’s painting, “Moonlight at Timberline,” reading “One Wing” (I haven’t included the poem because doing so would have published it, according to most literary magazines. Such is the silliness of poetry publishing today.)

See the straps in the picture below? Kirkland liked to work on large canvases laid flat, so his paintings would have neither a bottom nor a top. He hung these straps so he could float above the canvas to paint. That’s one of his “dot” paintings on the table.

Here’s something for you Pop Art lovers, a Campbell’s Soup label signed by Andy Warhol.

I really wanted to sit in this MAgriTTA chair, but it wasn’t allowed. Of course, I was down there by myself…

Church bells rang out across the Golden Triangle last Wednesday as I walked up Bannock toward the Native American Trading Company, and my conversation there did seem like a blessing.

I think Robin Riddel Lima, who has been operating the trading company with her husband Jack since 1983, knows all there is to know about the Golden Triangle. And I also learned quite a bit from Kevin Gramer, director of the Byers-Evans House Museum across the street. Both of them gave generously of their time, even though it was obvious I wasn’t there to buy art, and he needed to talk to Robin about a meeting.

The corner of 13th and Bannock, where the trading company takes up two former houses (we were conversing in what used to be the courtyard between them), is a center of art and history. Camera Obscura Gallery is around the corner, the Byers-Evans House across the street features an exhibit of photographs by the former’s octogenarian owner, and the Denver Art Museum‘s North Building looms castle-like over both.

The Golden Triangle Museum District (GTMD) claims eight museums extending all the way over to Pearl, which most people would consider to be in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Robin said the police station nearby might be turning into a police museum, raising the total to nine. Boundaries for the triangle depend on who you’re talking to—Denver Infill sets its northern boundary at 12th Avenue, the Golden Triangle Association extends it farther north to Colfax (15th Avenue), and the GTMD extends it east to Grant and even to Pearl at its northeastern edge.

Robin and Kevin and I talked for quite a while, about her favorite gallery (Gallery 1261); about First Friday art walks in the Golden Triangle, which have been going on for more than a decade; about how she didn’t think there were any more empty storefronts in GT than in other parts of Denver; about how the last 3 years have been the best in the 20-year history of the Byers-Evans House.

She even knew the name of the mysterious red building with construction fencing all around it: the Evans School, named for the same family that lived in the Byers-Evans House. (When she and her husband opened the Native American Trading Company, two sisters were still living in that house. One of them had helped established the Denver Artists’ Club in the 1890s, which eventually became the Denver Art Museum.)

Finally, I let Robin and Kevin talk to each other, stopping to admire the large, gray-haired storyteller doll displayed near the stair rail that Robin designed. (I was asked not to take pictures of items for sale in the store.) After Kevin left, Robin showed me into the locked section of the store where they keep the most precious items: rugs, photographs by Edward Curtis (two were of Hollywood starlets, the others from his series “The North American Indian”), large pots, a cape (she said it was Apache, I believe), and many other lovely old things.

She told me the Native American Trading Company was the fifth-largest dealer of Edward Curtis photographs in the country and had sold two of his collections.

Friday was serendipitous: the week before Christmas had been cold, snowy; I was stir-crazy. But Friday was warm enough to walk around without a coat in the early afternoon.

I started out at Bixa, a small shop at Colfax and Vine in what used to be the red-light district of Denver. Colfax still has its gritty parts but has cleaned itself up enormously since I moved here in the late 1980s.

The first item that caught my eye in Bixa was a clock made from recycled computer parts, and I asked Charles, who owns the store with his partner Darrel, “Did Carol Baum make that clock?”

I met Carol when we were planning Artful ReCreations for Eco-Cycle; she was one of the featured artists. So I felt right at home in Bixa, with its rugs braided from grocery store bags and its colorful purses fashioned from candy wrappers into all shapes and sizes. Charles said the staff generally don’t recognize the candy wrappers the purses are made from; he thinks they come from other countries.

Bixa is Artful ReCreations 24/7 and then some.

My favorite items in the stores were those made by a Denver artist using acupuncture needles: necklaces, earrings, little storage boxes. I almost bought the creation below, whose silver patterns resemble embroidery but are actually needles coaxed into various shapes.

I bought some organic, fair trade Assam tea there, and had a long discussion with Charles about green teas with that toasted flavor—you know what I mean? I love that flavor. And about Intelligent Nutrients, Horst Rechelbacher’s new company. He founded Aveda back in the day and decided to start up a new cosmetics company after he saw what Estee Lauder did to his baby. Motto: “Everything we put in and on our bodies must be nutritious and safe.” So Intelligent Nutrients products use “organic food ingredients.”

You bought some “organic” lotion? Sorry, there is no organic standard for cosmetics in the United States. “Organic” means something only when you’re talking about food—which makes Rechelbacher’s solution ingenious, I guess.

If I had wanted, I could have stayed until closing talking to Charles. He knows a lot more than I do about recycled and organic products.

But I had to get a move on. I said good-bye to Valentina, the shop mascot; snapped a picture of SAME Café (So All May Eat), which closes at 2 pm most days (open all day Saturday); and headed to the African and American Trading Company, just a block west of City Park.

African and American Trading Company

I walked in, and a voice greeted me from among the shelves of baskets and dolls. John Henderson was sitting in the back corner of the small shop, talking with his friend Harold Brewer. I introduced myself, and the second wonderful conversation of my Friday began.

Mr. Henderson is an importer of goods from Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Iceland, and England. For thirty years he’s been indulging his “hobby” because he likes to meet interesting people. He told me all about his trip to South Africa, the gold miners (both men and women) who descend 11,000 feet into the earth to do their job, the times he was mistaken for a Zulu, and the South Africans who were so excited to meet American blacks because they’d only seen them in the movies.

When he found out I was from Kansas City (he’s from Wichita), he told me about the restaurant on the Country Club Plaza he visited in 1951. They wanted to serve him in their kitchen, but he said he wasn’t that hungry.

What struck me first were the tiny Zulu baskets, some of them called “oops” baskets, for “out of the ordinary production system,” and made by girls who are learning basket weaving so that they can make a living when they’re grown up. The baskets are made by hand from Ilala palm and bark and grasses and natural dyes. Some baskets are woven so tightly they can hold beer. Women do most of the weaving in the Zulu Kingdom, as far as I could tell, but men now weave baskets from telephone wire; the one I saw in the store was bright orange and blue.

I really wanted to take home some of the dolls below (those with woolen capes are initiation dolls for girls), but I settled for 3 baskets.

I told Mr. Henderson my review would appear on December 23rd. If I’ve gotten anything wrong, I hope his friend with the Internet connection will leave a comment here correcting it.

The African and American Trading Company will be open until 6 on the 23rd and from 8 am to noon on Christmas Eve.

Urban Pantry

Update: Urban Pantry closed in mid-2009. Alexandra Failmezger can be found on Facebook and Linked In.

When I walked into Urban Pantry on South Broadway in Denver, the first thing I noticed was the selection of beautiful holidays wreaths hanging over the cash register. And the second was how the layout of the store draws your eye toward the back, where the meat and cheese case awaits.

On the way, you walk past enticing displays of everything from oil and vinegar to nuts to chocolates.

Owner Alexandra Failmezger chose Denver as the location for her store after extensive research indicated it was a promising market for the kind of specialty market she envisioned. As she says on her website, she wanted Urban Pantry to be “a fun place where people can explore different flavors, sample new products, and learn more about food.”

And learn I did, because she was happy to talk to me and the other customers about how special the Iberico ham was (at $89.99 per pound, it had better be) and how hers was the only store in Denver to carry it. I took home some of the Iberico (see its history here and here), as well as prosciutto, and once my husband finished exclaiming over the price, we sampled both. The Iberico had a stronger flavor than the prosciutto, both more nutty and more fatty. We had only a few slices between us, but it was quite filling.

The case in the back was full of out-of-the-ordinary meats and cheeses (such as “Stinking Bishop, Sheep, Raw”) from the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, and the United States. On the left were shelves full of crackers, and blackboards listed the sandwiches and fresh pasta available.

If you don’t fall in love with any of the hundreds of offerings at Urban Pantry, each selected by Alex, well … for a consolation prize, you can always pick up a “Chocolate Boyfriend” or “Chocolate Girlfriend” and take it home.

On the way out, I stopped to sample the P. B. Loco peanut butters, one with cinnamon and raisins, another with chocolate (my favorite, of course), and a third with banana. The sign read: “The mind is boggled. But tongue understands.”

***

Urban Pantry has an extensive party menu; please allow twenty-four hours notice for catering. The staff can create a basket for you combining food from Urban Pantry and wine from Divino next door.

]]> http://bethpartin.com/south-broadway-the-place-for-food/feed/ 6 http://bethpartin.com/everything-for-wine-and-more/ http://bethpartin.com/everything-for-wine-and-more/#comments Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:09:52 +0000 Beth http://bethpartin.com/?p=780 Continue reading →]]>

équipement de vin

It was embarrassing, I confess.

The proprietor of équipement de vin, Cheryl Webster, caught me in the wine cellar photographing a champagne cooler with my cell phone. I had forgotten to bring my camera to my second visit to her store and was making do with my phone.

Even if I wasn’t professional enough to ask whether I could take pictures, Cheryl was both professional and warm, handling all the customers with ease, and letting them feed carrots to her dog.

In honor of the holidays, Larimer Square was holding a “tailgate” party, with some stores offering food or drink to their customers (see the website for information about the party on December 17). Cheryl had set up some hors d’oeuvres in the wine cellar and was directing customers to go next door for beer.

Equipement de vin is an attractive, Tuscan-style store, long and narrow with echoing wood floors. When you enter, you can see all the way to the back, but displays are arranged to slow you down and entice you to consider the wares. Everywhere you turn you find wine racks or glassware or bottle cozies or just about anything else you can imagine having to do with wine or entertaining.

On the tall black shelves across from the register, which display color-coordinated sets of candles and tableware, I discovered the perfect coasters, made of black slate, to complement my blue slate tables with wrought-iron frames.

Cheryl was dealing with several sets of customers while I was in the store, but she took the time to answer this rather pointed question: “How do stores make money when most of their stock is fairly inexpensive? Is it just volume?”

Well, yes, she said, but her store also sells furniture, wine-themed art (a popular item), and glassware, including exquisite decanters that cost as much as $300.

My next question was about “nosing” wines, a subject that has vexed me for years. She suggested a way to develop my nose using the store’s wine-tasting guide:

1. Throw a wine-tasting party focusing on one varietal.

2. Find a small amount of every item listed under that varietal on her store’s guide (blackberries or spices for merlot, for example) and put each item in a separate glass.

3. Smell the item, and then smell the wine and see if there’s a match.

She solved my problem, and I bought the wine-tasting guide, a wine and food matching wheel, and the coasters.

Equipement de vin offers tastings of Colorado wines Thursday through Saturday. Cheryl’s cellar was full of Colorado wines that were new to me. I’m looking forward to doing a wine tasting this weekend.

***

After a long day of visiting stores in Denver on Saturday, it was a relief to return to équipement de vin and hang out at the bar in the back with Matthew, who knows a lot about wine and is a writer to boot. We tasted the Whitewater Hill Riesling (a wine made in Grand Junction, Colorado) and four red wines from Bonacquisti, a winery at 46th and Pecos (the grapes are grown on the Western Slope). Our favorite was the Riesling; I didn’t love any of the reds, but the Delagua Red (mostly merlot) and the cabernet franc were my favorites.

Among the things I learned from him:

1. Merlots are fermented with the grape skins for only a short time in order to preserve the silky texture of the wine.

2. Merlots don’t spend much time in oak.

3. When I perceive a “burnt” smell in a wine, it has to do with how deeply the oak barrels in which it was aged are toasted.

4. To properly smell a wine, tilt the glass and smell from the “bottom” of the glass to the “top.”

5. He also explained the difference between aroma and bouquet, which I can’t remember. Another tip he gave me (so I can remember more of this stuff): take wine classes at International Wine Guild in Denver.

Tender moviegoers should probably start their acquaintance with Schneemann at Americana I Ching Apple Pie. It’s a hilarious deconstruction of baking an apple pie that involves hammers, two-headed axes, car scrapers to mix dough, audience participation, and deep questions, such as “Should I just throw it on the floor?” Eventually the audience got their pieces of “pie” on napkins, but there was a moment when I thought they’d be diving for the goodies and licking them off the floor.

Academics who like to bake will be doubly delighted with this film.

Compared to Meat Joy and Fuses, the first two films Schneemann showed after receiving the Stan Brakhage Vision Award, Americana was mainstream and lighthearted.

I guess there’s a narrative of sorts in Meat Joy, but it’s not exactly a whodunit, though apparently there were lots of rules involving what happened if you got hit with a dead fish or a plucked chicken or sausage.

Schneemann said the scene at the end, in which the 4 couples dive into a pile of shredded paper, took 14 hours to rehearse, because everyone needed to be in the paper and it needed to be moving.

But it was Fuses that really amazed me.

Warning: Many people would consider Fuses to be pornographic.

Schneemann was inspired to make this film after she noticed her cat watching her and her partner having sex. She wanted it to somehow be from Kitch’s point of view. So she hung a camera from the ceiling and got into bed with her partner.

When the film ran out, she changed it and got back into bed. She never had any idea how it would turn out until she got it back from the lab.

Sometimes the camera fell off the rope that held it.

In between the sex scenes, extreme closeups of genitals, and shots of the cat, there were many lovely, tender moments, but they were interrupted by collage and all the damage she intentionally inflicted on the film. “I wanted to interact with the film [pause] almost the way the apple was treated [being smashed with a hammer in Americana], she said. She painted the film with aniline dyes (but here she mentioned as an aside that she never put the dyes in her mouth. Brakhage did, and she thinks that may have caused his cancer). She collaged the film, baked it, and hung it out the window.

There was no sound, except for other audience members breathing. I kept wondering if I heard people breathing heavily.

Fuses was made in 1964 and understandably for that time, was censored.

I’ve never seen anything like Schneemann’s films. I’m thankful I live in a country where I can watch them.

If you want to see them, you can order them at Electronic Arts Intermix.

Bird continuity: the chickens in Meat Joy

Sorry this post was not up until Wednesday. I had a deadline Tuesday, and then I had to get to the airport. I’ll be posting from Chattanooga for the rest of the week.

]]> http://bethpartin.com/carolee-schneemann-an-affinity-for-the-unmentionable/feed/ 2 http://bethpartin.com/monhaibun-detox-in-denver/ http://bethpartin.com/monhaibun-detox-in-denver/#comments Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:18:02 +0000 Beth http://bethpartin.com/?p=695 Continue reading →]]> At Market Street Station, a fat, drunk, white man has passed out on one of the circular cement benches. A cop and an RTD guy stand over him, calling for detox. The cop coaxes the guy to sit up. Sitting behind him, I can see his butt crack.

A man and a woman from Denver Health Medical Center appear. The man confronts the drunk, raising his voice to him about a knife. He tells the drunk he is intoxicated, and the drunk replies, “I am not.” The other man says he would have to disagree. The woman also asks the guy about a knife. They make him stand up and walk him off. The cop packs up his bag and jacket.

MSNBC has posted a story titled, “Gay Animals Out of the Closet?” I’ve heard this stuff before, but this article is very informative. Check it out.

This is a post about getting to know people and places. When I first met Mickki Langston, co-founder and executive director of the Mile High Business Alliance, I thought she was the business-marketing type, by which I mean far more talkative and outgoing than I am. We first met at a gathering of the alliance next door to the Vine Street Pub in the Uptown neighborhood.

There were about 10 people in the room, which is my comfort level for a roomful of people I don’t know. Any bigger than that and I can’t find an entry point. But Mickki made us feel at home, and soon a woman from the Vintage Theater was trying to convince my husband Todd to do sound design for her plays, and I was talking to the designers of the Local Flavor Guides to Denver neighborhoods.

But it wasn’t until last Tuesday that I got a better idea of what Mickki and the Mile High Business Alliance were all about.

She held a meeting that morning at Illegal Grounds coffeehouse, at 17th and Emerson in Uptown. It’s a great place to get away from it all with your coffee. It’s a quiet ground-floor location in a  house built in 1888, surrounded by other old houses and new condos, with a great patio, comfy chairs for the dawdlers, and straight-backed chairs for the hard workers.

I was in the dawdler category Tuesday as I sat down on the couch next to Mickki with my peppermint hot chocolate. She was talking to a couple who are starting up a business providing performance parts and accessories for Chinese-made scooters. Here’s a blog entry about their business, and here’s their website, though it seems to be under construction at the moment. We eventually made it to five people when a rep from Womenof.com showed up.

As most people do these days, we came around to the subject of the economy and the $700 billion bailout. And that’s when I discovered that Mickki is passionate about building sustainable communities, which she calls “eco-villages.”

I asked her about the difference between co-housing (which Todd and I have considered as an alternative to the single-family home) and eco-villages, and we were off and running. The meeting lasted twice as long as it was supposed to, but we had a fascinating conversation about the financial situation and how we need to nourish communities instead of playing with fake money, about how we need a new economic model that doesn’t depend on constant growth, but how do we get there?

We didn’t answer that question, of course. That will take decades.

But I did gain a little more insight into what kind of neighborhood Uptown is. It’s not just this hip, up-and-coming, soon-to-be-priced-out-of-sight Denver neighborhood. It’s a much quieter place than downtown Denver because it’s mostly residential, with these pockets of commercial activity here and there that make really good conversation possible.

The Mile High Business Alliance is a non-profit membership organization of local Denver Metro businesses and supporters committed to nourishing our community through enhancing local business-building a sustainable economy which provides a healthy environment, meaningful employment and strong communities.

Dietrich’s Chocolates and Espresso Place

Dietrich’s Chocolates and Espresso Place had a pleasant, festive, old world atmosphere when my husband and I arrived there for breakfast September 6 and settled into a corner by the window. Business was brisk. A woman and her young sons occupied the table next to us, and a group of four sat across the way.

The lady I’d met the weekend before served the food, while Erich Dietrich stayed busy in the kitchen, cooking. Since Dietrich’s is open every day except Monday, I wondered if he spends six days a week there, cooking breakfast and lunch and making chocolates.

Todd ordered the Bavarian breakfast and I ordered the egg breakfast, along with hot cocoa. I melted one of my last Wen Chocolates homemade marshmallows in the cocoa and felt deliriously happy. Todd said the breakfasts reminded him of the breakfasts he had in Germany the summer he and his best friend spent six weeks in Europe. Ah, the memories of youth—when we could eat all this stuff and not get fat.

Our two breakfasts were heavy on the meat and cheese and light on the fruit, but mine looked so pretty on the plate, I had to take a picture of it. I tried to make my poached eggs on a croissant into an Eggs Benedict without sauce. It was a little awkward, and I felt that I was failing Restaurant Etiquette 101. I guess I should have slid the cheese under the eggs. Somebody tell me how to eat this food, please! I don’t have any memories of Bavarian breakfasts to fall back on!

The first time I’d visited Dietrich’s, on Labor Day weekend, they were closing early since business was so slow—everyone was up in the mountains, one of the women at the store said. Personally, I’d rather stay in town and check out the candy stores. I’d grabbed a box of 25 chocolates and proceeded to devour them within two days (with some help from Todd), but this Saturday I had some time to linger, observe the vibe, and try the chocolates I’d missed before.

The store sells virtually every kind of chocolate candy imaginable. If you’re craving some kind of chocolate-covered thang, it’s the place to go. When Erich comes out of the back, get him to tell you how he double-dips the truffles to keep them from drying out in Colorado’s arid climate. He’s happy to talk about all the new flavor combinations he’s created lately.

One of my favorites was the chocolate-covered pistachio marzipan. Another, the mint truffle, was gently minty. I also liked the ginger and port truffles. Subtle flavors are definitely a hallmark of Dietrich’s creations. But then, as if to contradict me, there’s the lemon cream, and the Irish cream is rolled in bright green sprinkles.

And, of course, since it was one of the first stores I visited, I didn’t think to take pictures of the individual truffles. My apologies. They looked good, OK? Go see for yourself already.

Dietrich’s Chocolates and Espresso is one of the oldest chocolate stores in Denver, if not the oldest. Erich Dietrich trained as a chocolatier in Germany, opened his first shop in the United States in 1975, and brought it to Denver in 1978. Perhaps the Russell Stover’s stores in Denver are older, since Russell Stover’s was founded here in 1923.

NOTE: Indulgences, Etc., has closed. The only Belvedere Belgian Chocolate shop now open in the Denver area is the one in Boulder. The factory is located in Castle Rock.

I’ve been sampling chocolate in Denver for two weeks now, and part of me is disappointed that I still weigh the same as when I started.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started this blog. I’d done blogs before, and it was like talking to myself. This time I wanted to talk to other people.

I knew that the Democratic National Convention would offer up all kinds of craziness and probably come with a built-in audience, but then what? What else about Denver could I use to show people its heart and mine without sounding too self-absorbed or too much like a travel guide?

I picked chocolate because it’s my passion. I assumed it would be easy: I’d eat lots of candy at unique shops, maybe even experience the unusual sensation of having enough chocolate. But I didn’t anticipate the challenges to my taste buds. The difficulty of deciding which truffle was best.

I’ve discovered that every store hides a story.

Take Indulgences, Etc., formerly of Cherry Creek, now located on Colfax near the Capitol, and selling Belvedere chocolates. After talking to Laurie and Ivan (the proprietors) and Marie, whom I met on my first visit to the store, I found out that maintaining a chocolate store in Cherry Creek was not easy. I would have expected a small specialty store featuring Colorado chocolate to flourish there, but irregular foot traffic and high rent motivated the owners to move downtown. It’s a common story in Denver and around Colorado, for homeowners as well as businesspeople.

Indulgences opened on Labor Day weekend, 2008, during the Taste of Colorado just down the block at Civic Center Park. Laurie said the foot traffic in the new location was much better. She was full of plans for the future, involving wine and chocolate pairings and martini and chocolate pairings and art exhibits and donations to charity, but said that first she would just like to get established.

Did I just say Indulgences was a small store? Perhaps it was in Cherry Creek, but the Colfax location is huge compared to the other stores I’ve written about so far. It feels open and spacious. At one end sits a bar, awaiting their liquor license, and they also serve Colorado Novo coffee and tea and baked goods.

I’ve been to the Belvedere store in Boulder several times and had thought each location was the same (like the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory stores), but apparently not. Last year Laurie and Ivan bought American Country Candies, operating in Fort Collins since 1930, and moved the equipment to Denver. When they get the back of their new location remodeled into a kitchen next month, their store will be one of the few places in the country making old-fashioned ribbon candy.

I had a revelation on this visit: maybe I should actually show my readers the chocolates, instead of just stuffing them in my mouth and writing about them later, so here’s a picture. Laurie gave me 5 samples, and I bought 6 truffles. My favorites were the seashell (a typical Belgian chocolate with crunchy hazelnut filling); the sugar-free chocolate with coffee (sweetened with Maltotol, a natural corn extract, according to the Internet; the square one with the coffee bean); the green tea, which had a really long, dark finish (upper left on the cookie); and the caramel with rock salt (the only truffle on the plate). I had to buy another caramel and rock salt for my husband.

When I left at 6, after hanging out for an hour, I stopped to take a picture of the window. Downtown Denver has lots of cool details like that. People were finding their way home from work, and a bus drove by spewing diesel fumes, sporting this ad, “Take Care of Our Summer Air (ozoneaware.org).” And when I got on my bus, I sat next to to a man reading Ivan’s War.

Denver also has its quirks.

]]> http://bethpartin.com/like-feet-walking-for-chocolate/feed/ 3 http://bethpartin.com/where-is-wen/ http://bethpartin.com/where-is-wen/#comments Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:58:18 +0000 Beth http://bethpartin.com/?p=250 Continue reading →]]>

Wen Chocolates

Note: Wen Chocolates closed its Platte retail location on February 14, 2010. Please see the website for more information.

I’ve had extraordinary chocolate in my time—Vosges from Chicago, Belvedere from this area, Chuao in San Diego, Neuhaus—but I think Wen Chocolates has them all beat. Of the three, I think Wen is most like Vosges in the composition of the truffles, though Vosges, of course, is a much larger company creating large batches of truffles to be shipped around the world. But some of chef William Poole’s creations are more creative and exotic than any I’ve had from Vosges.

My favorite was the “Violette,” described as “an infusion of black violet tea, brushed with violet pearl dust, and topped with candied violets.” I could clearly taste the tea (which I can’t say about all so-called tea truffles), but the flavor was delicate. I was sad that Wen was out of “Prazen Sladkor,” covered in edible gold dust. Maybe next time.

(I remember reading about some restaurant in LA that Tom Cruise supposedly frequented—and there was some kind of “Gold Dust” dish on that menu. At the time, I got real busy scorning all those rich people who eat gold. What if it had cyanide in it from the leaching process? I sneered. And now … well … I guess chocolate makes it all different.)

Wen Chocolates has been in its location, near 15^th and Platte, for a year now. The neighborhood isn’t new, of course, but it seems much more shiny and spiffy than it did years ago, when I used to stop in for coffee at Paris on the Platte, only a couple of doors down. There’s a Vitamin Cottage across the street, a spice store next door, and REI a block or two away. New condos rise next to the grocery store, and the Platte River flows shallowly on the other side of them. The neighborhood gives off a self-contained air; I think I could live there for years without leaving the block.

The only bad thing is that Wen Chocolates is a little hard to see from across the street. I was looking at the numbers, knowing it must be over there somewhere, but the signage is cryptic. And when I walked into that tiny store, I was immediately struck by how big it seems because the back window opens onto the spice store.

The whole place gives off a fairy tale vibe. Renovated by Poole, Wen Chocolates has brick walls and a beautiful gray ceiling. There’s room for a few people to stand and look over the displays and, on the right wall, a display of cards with pictures of the truffles. As in a sushi restaurant, you order your truffles on a slip of paper and hand the order to the person behind the counter, who wraps them up for you.

The website states that Wen offers “small-batch artisan chocolate with no added sweeteners, preservatives, or stabilizers” and that “no machinery is involved.” (I did notice some dyes in the ingredients list in one of the beggar’s coins, however.) While I was perusing the other candies (and asking about the pate de fruit, which my husband loves), the clerk assured me that Poole makes everything by hand (in a kitchen in Wheat Ridge).

There were cube-shaped cakes in one display case, which can be ordered with 3 days’ notice, and chocolate art pieces, called “tiles,” with raised designs on them. Poole also makes his own marshmallows, which melted obligingly into a cup of hot chocolate supplied by Paris on the Platte. (I tried eating one to “cleanse my palate” between chocolates, but I don’t recommend it, unless you really love the taste of marshmallows by themselves. I’m such a dork.)

Wen Chocolates was recommended by two other chocolatiers in the area, Patty Moore at Le Chocolatier and Roberta of Roberta’s Chocolates (see last week’s posts). Their recommendation was right on—and I applaud them for not being afraid of the competition!

***

Wen’s has a new look these days. The shelves with pictures of truffles are gone (“We got through the first year with those pictures,” the clerk told me the last time I visited), replaced by a nice glass case.

I don’t visit Wen often enough to get to know the staff, especially now that I’m on a diet. But Saturday, May 26, was my splurge day, so I went to the tiny store (maybe 100 square feet) and started ordering truffles. As always, I got some freebies, one of which pleasantly surprised me: the Rozmary truffle, my favorite of the day. It looks plain but has a distinct, delicate flavor of rosemary. Prazen Sladkor is simply the best caramel I’ve ever had, and the pear hazelnut is awfully pretty (see picture above). I couldn’t taste the pear at all; next time I order it, I’ll eat it first.

The full review of the Downtown Denver Arts Festival, from which this update is excerpted, can be found here.

Chocolatier: “A maker or seller of chocolate candy” (from Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary)

Roberta’s Chocolates, Candies, and Nuts is a full-service chocolate shop, offering a selection like that of Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. I have to admit my prejudice: all I really care about are the truffles. But if you’ve got a hankering for chocolate-covered nuts or raisins or gummy bears in milk chocolate (?!) or aspen bark or nonpareils, then Roberta’s Chocolates is the place to go. Or if you need customized chocolate favors for your party or business gathering, they have 10,000 molds (some unique to the store).

A case full of colored truffles greeted me after I walked in the door and scooted sideways to avoid setting off the doorbell again. Roberta’s offers twenty-four varieties, plus holiday flavors. My six-pack of truffles featured blueberry, pineapple, key lime, coconut, lemon, and pomegranate—definitely a more unusual selection than you’d find at RMCF, but the truffles I tried had about the same level of sweetness.

Like most of the chocolates shops I’ve visited in Denver (five so far), Roberta’s doesn’t offer a lot of space to sit down and enjoy your treat. The location features two rooms, one with chocolates and one with gifts, plus the kitchen where the chocolates are made. Each of the two rooms has a table and chairs, but there’s not much room between the tables and the displays. There are two benches outside, where I sat when I visited and enjoyed two of the truffles. It was a pleasant spot to rest on a Saturday afternoon in the summer.

While I was outside, Roberta came out with another customer. She saw me sitting there, invited me in, and told me to let her know if I had any questions. Although the shop was busy and, when I went back in, she was doing work on the computer, she took the time to answer my questions.

I started with the pomegranate in dark chocolate and decided the ganache was to die for. It had the loveliest texture, and the mold was delicate (they’re all shaped like cones rounded at the top). The blueberry and pineapple truffles didn’t do too much for me, but I liked the lemon. (My husband got to try the lime after I got home. He approved, which I didn’t expect, because he usually prefers less sweet chocolates.) My favorite by far, however, was the coconut, which smelled wonderful and had just a little bit of coconut crunch, followed by creamy white chocolate.

The location is off the main drag of Highlands, in a mostly residential neighborhood, but 32nd Street is only a few blocks north. Roberta said she wished she had foot traffic, but she’s been in business since 1995, and her milk chocolate mint just won best truffle at the 2008 Colorado Chocolate Fest (on Mother’s Day at the Merchandise Mart).

Le Chocolatier

Chocolatier: “A maker or seller of chocolate candy” (from Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary)

Le Chocolatier was the third chocolate shop I visited in one afternoon, and I spent a lot of time there talking with Patty Moore, who’s been running it almost four years. Unlike other chocolatiers in Denver, she doesn’t make any of her chocolates but rather sells Neuhaus chocolates, Telluride Truffles, ralph’s sweets, and other products. Neuhaus has about 200 chocolates, so she rotates through their selection because she doesn’t have room to offer all of them at once.

It’s true Le Chocolatier doesn’t have a lot of space, but there is room for a few people to mill about from the Neuhaus case to the other case containing the small, brightly colored Telluride Truffles. Patty says it’s trendy now to put color in the mold (the outside of the candy).

Get ten people in this store, however, and it would be enough to melt the candy.

We began talking about the longevity of chocolate shops in Denver, and she said she did a lot of research before starting hers up. Some of the knowledge she passed on to me: The word praline is pronounced “prah-lee-nay” and refers to a nut paste (usually with hazelnut, but it may not contain nuts at all) that goes into the mold. A ganache (ga-nash), in contrast, is a chocolate cream.

She said that most of the other chocolatiers in Denver who make their own chocolates (the candies, not the ingredient) order hard chocolate or chocolate nibs from Callebaut (which she pronounced “kall-a-bow”). The only chocolatier in Denver who makes his own chocolate (the ingredient), according to Patty, is Steve DeVries. Some of that goes into chocolate bars sold at several stores in the Denver metro area.

I bought only five chocolates from Le Chocolatier (though I’ve sampled them on other occasions): art nouveau (ganache with hazelnut), a butter truffle (chocolate butter cream dusted with cocoa powder), a lime praline (no hazelnuts), a palet dark (what looked like a communion wafer made from dark chocolate), and a specialty item for the Democratic National Convention called Donkey Chocolates (handmade by B. T. McElrath in Minneapolis, where the Republican National Convention is now happening).

According to the Neuhaus website, more than one-third of its pralines are still made individually, by hand. Those I bought were certainly elegant, and they were all good. I think the lime was my favorite—its flavor is a bit reminiscent of Dagoba lime chocolate bars.

But what I enjoyed most was getting the skinny on the Denver chocolate scene from Patty.

I’m at the Civic Center Park amphitheater, where the red, white, and blue beach ball is still floating around, propelled by the slammers dancing to a punk band brought here by ReCreate68. The crowd is mostly young; they look scruffier than the people on the mall wearing press or DNC credentials. (None of them seem to be here.) An old man goes by wearing a “Gulag” shirt. The woman sitting in front of me holds a sign that reads, “Was your American flag made in China?” In the audience, there’s a woman wrapped in a flag marked “Vote.”

So far I’ve listed to Rebel Diaz (hiphop with a two guys and female rapper with a really good voice) and Whiskey Blanket (three guys doing hiphop with classical influences–note the violin), pictured here with friends.

I don’t know the name of the band playing now. One of the band members starts leading a chant, “Fuck the police,” and then mentions knocking down someone “half your weight.” I think they were talking about this Code Pink protester.

There are about ten police officers standing to the band’s left, my right. They’ve been there every time I’ve gone through the park the last two days.

The crowd just in front of the stage chanted along, and a few people from the audience echoed them. It made me feel bad. I don’t like all the police clogging up the streets in Denver (I just saw a big SUV go by with 11 police riding shotgun), but I don’t like hearing that either. I know how I’d feel if someone said, “Fuck the women!” But when I see a line of police blocking off a street, I don’t feel sorry at all. I wish they would leave.

I asked a man sitting in front of me if he knew the name of the band, and he said, “Not a clue. There might be a generational gap between…” and he gestured from us to them. “Hey,” I wanted to say, “punk started in the 70s. You and I are the right generation.” But then, I didn’t know what punk was in high school. I didn’t figure it out until I went to England my junior year of college and first saw people with Mohawks.

He continued, “My generation may have opened Pandora’s box, but here’s where it went.” He got up and left.

Lady Speech, a local performance poet, once again filled up the space between bands. She mentioned that because she’s black, she knows what it’s like to be oppressed by cops, but that they’re also human. “If we fight against each other, there won’t be anybody left!” There were a few shouts of agreement from the audience.

Most of the audience left after From the Depths wrapped up their set (I finally found someone who knew their name). Only a few people stood in front of the stage where Black Speech Brigade, another punk band, performed. It’s too bad, because the Brigade is a better band, by my standards: their songs have more of a beat, and I can understand probably half the lyrics. I looked around at the small crowd, at the photographers kneeling on the steps in front of the band, at the colonnade. The police had left. I needed to catch a bus. I left too, allowing myself the pleasure of re-visiting this antiwar exhibit of photographs of Iranians in Civic Center Park. I highly recommend checking it out.

Monday night, about 100 protesters were arrested in Civic Center Park as they attempted to reach the 16th Street Mall. Police suspected they wanted to reach some downtown Denver hotels and disrupt convention activity there. Sue Cobb, a spokesperson for the Denver mayor’s office, said, “It is hard to avoid arresting people who are bound and determined to get arrested.”

Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard if the police presence wasn’t so provocative.

I have no plans to do anything that might get me arrested during the week of the Democratic National Convention, but I sure did finding myself resenting the police on Monday as I made my way around Denver. There were dozens of police at ReCreate68′s demonstration at 19th and Stout (the Federal Building).

Every time I turned around, another group of bicycle cops went by two-by-two. When I was waiting for Code Pink to finish preparations for their aerial photograph of protestors forming the words, “Make Out, Not War,” I noticed one cop filming the demonstrators. Come on! What evil do they think a bunch of women in pink are going to do?

I don’t know about you, but seeing cops everywhere makes me want to push the limits. When I was walking up the 16th Street Mall about 7 pm, just about when the arrests in Civic Center Park were happening, I was following a double line of cops in full riot gear. Another double line proceeded up the other side of the street. Some people were heckling them. One man came by and asked to take their picture, saying, “I think you guys look awesome.” He sounded as if he meant it. And the woman strolling nearby with her boyfriend cozied up to some young officers for a picture.

One cop in the group admitted he didn’t know which group was protesting. He said there are ten protests going on at any given time, which I found interesting, but it made me wonder how they define “protest.” Does a bunch of women in pink spelling out letters on a park lawn qualify as a “protest”? Apparently, according to Denver police, it does. Seems pretty harmless to me.

I say, we should let the protesters go as far as they can without hurting anyone. Let them disrupt a party like this one. Is it really going to end the world if some telecom fat cat or the legislators she’s trying to buy can’t get into the party for a few minutes?

It’s about 1 pm on what will be a twelve-hour day in Denver, and I’m glad to be sitting down in air conditioning. I’m also glad to be using Common Grounds’s free Wifi, which doesn’t require me to pledge my life. I tried to figure out Downtown Denver Wifi, but I couldn’t understand why I had to pay when the front page said it was free.

That was this day for you: I kept going to the wrong places and finding situations that surprised me or delighted me or scared me just a little. I got off the bus and began wandering around downtown until I ran into a most impressive fence and cops checking credentials. The closest I could get to the Pepsi Center was Speer and Auraria. An hour later, I found the beginning of the demonstration route by walking past it, asking someone where it was, and then actually reading the street sign. And when the demonstration started an hour late, the only “float” in the parade was this one. Kind of prophetic, isn’t it?

All I can say is, thank God for ReCreate 68. After they were done with the speeches by the American Indian Movement and the pleas for Leonard Peltier, they came yelling and chanting out of Civic Center Park, doing their level best to sound scary with their chants and look scary in their Guantanamo orange jumpsuits and black hoods, and went straight down the 16^th Street Mall. I did wonder if they had gotten permission for that: the police presence was oppressive. I got ordered onto the sidewalk by a mounted cop, who was nice enough to thank me afterward, but even the horses were dressed in riot gear, with clear plastic blinders and things around their ankles for I don’t know what.

When we got to the Federal Building, people were shouting, “This is what a police state looks like.” And I looked around, at the hundred or so police, with ten mounted, lining Stout and 19^th, compared to a few hundred demonstrators, and thought, Yeah, you’re right. The demonstrators had turned inward by then, with the “torture victims” kneeling, their hoods on, while people took pictures of them. Across the plaza another subgroup of demonstrators was talking about the Cuban Five, whom I had never heard of.

As I was leaving, I asked a young woman stripping off her orange jumpsuit where they were going next. She said, “I’m not sure. Just see what happens.”

I wanted to stick around and “see what happens,” but I was hungry. And so here I am. All morning I’ve been walking in circles in Denver during the Democratic National Convention, and it looks likely to continue for four days. But at least I got to see him.

And he-she!

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