I had been sitting in the park fronting the state Capitol building, on the low wall along Broadway. There were at least 50 people and their sleeping gear strung along Broadway and around the corner up 14th. Across 14th Street stands the new Ralph Carr Justice Center, proclaiming “Liberty and Justice for All.” State troopers patrolled, since this side is state property; Civic Center Park is city property. I chatted for a while with a friendly young man who said he spent a lot of time there. I didn’t know if he was an Occupier or not.

When I saw the march return, I crossed Broadway and made my way to the auditorium. A small group stood behind the mic where the emcee introduced the first speaker. I sat and listened for a while, but I was more interested in the signs. I’m always a sucker for spectacle.

The “99%” sign made its appearance and meandered over to the Statue of Liberty. 

Here is my favorite shot. I love the statue’s bug-eyed expression.

Eventually, the emcee brought up the teach-ins, the reason I was there in the first place. I was hoping to attend one in each of the two sessions. I headed toward the pink flag, passing the free food stand (where I got an orange) and getting a flyer from the Foreclosure Resistance Coalition.

University of Colorado philosophy professor Chad Kautzer spoke on the topic “Neoliberalism and Labor: The Struggle Today.” He contrasted neoliberalism, a politico-economic system in which the state supports but does not regulate capitalism, with the system in place after World War II, which he called “embedded capitalism.” Neoliberalism is a much less regulated form of capitalism, and since the 1970s, has become the dominant form of capitalism in the world, bringing us outsourcing and the resulting loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States, a weakened labor movement, and the financial crisis we experienced since 2008.

My favorite point? His assertion that debt is a tool used by the neoliberal state to keep citizens in line. People who have tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt are reluctant to fight too hard for their rights. If they lose their jobs, who will pay the bills? Kautzer’s suggestion: eliminate your debt. Then you have more freedom of political movement.

After the first teach-in, I returned to the auditorium, where I listened to Live Animal play folk songs for a small crowd. I was feeling tired and hot. Only two hours, and I was fading. As I left, I heard the speaker saying:

We’ll be back next year, and the year after that . . .

Occupy movements may be small outside New York and Oakland, but they are tough and persistent. In addition to the people who sleep on the sidewalks and in the parks, they have committees organizing events and educators teaching people. They are engaging with politicians. They are learning and growing. Occupy Denver is here to stay.

In fact, you could live in the museum residences above Mad Greens, and find salad and coffee and dessert and wine and cheese at the restaurant, and go see art. You’d hardly ever have to leave that one block.

Here’s the cheese plate we ordered for $15. (The two glasses of wine we ordered cost nearly $20.)

From left to right, the cheeses are Manchego (Spain), Roomano (a 4-year-old Gouda from southern Holland), and Barely Buzzed, from Beehive in Utah. The latter is rubbed with coffee grounds. The dark stuff in the spoon is a tart plum spread. I liked all three cheeses, but my favorite was the Roomano.

The DAM solicited a bunch of artists to create the Embrace! exhibits using the strange geometry of the Hamilton Building.

The first exhibit, on the ground floor, uses the walls but doesn’t take quite as much advantage of the corners as some of the others. Rupprecht Matthies asked immigrants to Denver to give him words (in any language) describing their initial experiences here and then carved the words in wood, plexiglass, and foam. The words were finished with help from volunteers, staff, and visitors. For example, the words on the walls themselves were supplied by visitors to the museum, who can add a favorite word to a card. The word is then cut out and put on the wall.

Kids can pick up the foam words and read them or, if they’re not familiar with the language or alphabet, read the translation.

My favorite exhibit was “Chamber” by Charles Sandison. Using projectors and computer-generated words, numbers, letters, and symbols, he created the effect of a room lit by firelight. We had fun playing with our shadows and trying not to let the lights “get us.” This man had the right idea: lie down and watch the patterns.

My friend’s children were fascinated by this exhibit, “Mirage,” by Zhong Biao, especially the funhouse mirrors. Here’s a small section in closeup.

Possibly the kids’ favorite exhibit was this one by Tobias Rehberger. Several of the Embrace! exhibits encourage visitors to touch, but Rehberger’s installation lets you walk (or, more accurately, struggle) through the bungee cords. If you look closely, you’ll see a child in the back. You’ll also see a window on the left with bright colors peeking through it. That installation takes up several floors.

I’ve shown you only 4 of the Embrace! exhibits, though we saw about twice that many, and there are at least 3 that I missed, even in 2 visits. As my friend’s daughter said late that afternoon, “But we haven’t seen all of it.”

We did, however, get some good cheese at Mad Greens and Wine.

Civic Center Park hosts Denver’s newest farmers market (this is the first year) on Tuesdays from 11 to 2. It runs through September 29, but please NOTE: there is no market on September 8. If you want to check it out, go on September 1st, 15th, 22nd, or 29th, but not the 8th!

Compared to the Cherry Creek farmers market or the Boulder farmers market, it’s fairly small, but it has the advantage of a central location. If people working downtown got wise to it, I could see it really taking off.

When I showed up at 1:30 on a hot Tuesday afternoon, there were a few people having a late lunch and shopping. The woman at Verso Cellars winery wasn’t sure if she wanted to keep her booth at this market; she said they did much better at the Greenwood Village market. Perhaps, I suggested, people are reluctant to taste wine in the middle of the day, and she agreed. I enjoyed the Cabernet 2004, made from Palisade grapes, and the pinot noir, which was very fruity; you can try them at Verso’s tasting room at 46th and Pecos or at Metropolis Coffee.

I noticed this market was home to several vendors who do not yet have storefronts: Sugar Bakeshop and My Mom’s Pies, for instance. The Sugar Bakeshop cupcakes looked really good, even though the frosting was melting.

Also present and accounted for: a looseleaf tea stand, falafels, tacos, Malaysian food, Papardelle’s Pasta, Beijo purses (great-looking but made from vinyl), the Produce Stand, Raquelita’s Tortillas, located at 31st and Larimer (I liked the blue corn tortillas and the tiny yellow corn tortillas), and a well-stocked spice stand (Spice Guys or something like that; it’s not the business that used to be located in the Golden Triangle on Cherokee Row).

I recommend going there for lunch on a cool fall afternoon.

***

Friday is the last Skyline Park Summer Concert, featuring Speakeasy Tiger, Pirate Signal, and Danielle Ate the Sandwich. The concert begins at 12 pm at Skyline Park off the 16th Street Mall. If you’re feeling generous, you can bring a non-perishable food item to donate.

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.

Outside the park still damp from the first rain this year on the plains. I pray for more.

In the vegetable garden I have begun to lay mulch. First the greens: weeds and kitchen scraps. Then the winter-frozen leaves and pine needles.  Then repeat: one layer after another, until I’ve used them all up, until it’s deep enough to support a seedling.

The energy of spring

will soon give way to the pall of summer heat.

All I know now is, there are never enough tulips. And never for long.

I convinced my husband to join me there, but first I had a solo “splurge hour” at Gateaux down on Speer between 11th and 12th.

I wanted to see if I could match Timothy Ferriss’s record for cupcake consumption that he mentions in The Four-Hour Workweek (12 cupcakes in one day). But I have to confess I am a wimp when it comes to sweets: I could only manage 1 double-chocolate cupcake, 1 white chocolate peach torte, and 1 frosted cookie. Clearly, I require more training.

One question that recurs to me as I haunt Denver is this: “How do these small shops earn enough money to pay their bills?” I was in Gateaux for a little less than an hour on a Saturday, and at least 7 other customers came through the door, one to pick up a custom-made cake. I spent $14 on 3 pastries and a cookie (keeping up with Ferriss is not cheap, plus Todd required a cherry pastry), and I think one of the customers dropped $30 on a smallish cake. So the store brought in perhaps $50 in that hour? In an eight-hour day (and Gateaux is open only 5 days a week), that would be $400, or about $8,000 a month, not counting large orders like wedding cakes.

Half of the customers were white women and half were black; some were overweight, and some were skinny. One said, “If I worked at a place like this, I’d weigh 5,000 pounds ’cause I’d always have to taste everything.”

I guess that wouldn’t be as much of a problem at a place like Mad Wine. If you tasted everything there you’d be too drunk to keep your job. Though I wouldn’t say that Mad Wine has a large selection, I did enjoy the 2007 Muga Viura Malvasia from the Rioja region of Spain. (Wasn’t that a tongue twister? Viura, and, I guess, Malvasia, are the grapes here.) And I got the 2007 Montes Sauvignon Blanc from the Leyda Valley in Chile for half price. It was drier than the Muga, and better, I thought.

It wasn’t exactly a wine tasting, since Todd was immersed in his Cobb salad. Or I guess you could say he tasted the white wines I chose, and I finished them. Is that like being a cleaner? Or do you need French wines for that?

Our waiter/bartender/general party tender took good care of us. When this cheese plate came with Brillat-Savarin triple cream (France, on the left), Cana de Cabra (Spain), and Pecorino Ginepro (Italy), and I said, “I ordered the Manchego” (from Spain), he brought me a fourth cheese without apologizing overmuch.

I liked the first two, the soft cheeses, better than the other two. The Cana had a nice bite to it, and of the hard cheeses, the Manchego lived up to its nutty description from the menu. I think they might have paired better with red wines, but I ordered whites because Todd prefers them.

The last time I was in Mad Wine, I sat alone on the wine side of the restaurant, and the place was just about empty. This Saturday afternoon, there was a party in the main section of the wine bar and people getting coffee and salad and whatever else was to be had. More people milled around in the sculpture-laden space between the restaurant and the art museum. There was a busy, friendly feeling in the air.

So of course we had to spoil it by going to see a movie with incubi* in it.

*It just now occurred to me that the translucent square plates in front of the incubi faces might have been inspired by their name. And when they took off the plates, their eyes glowed like headlights (on buses?).

I think I’m taking this just a little too far.

The oldest buildings in Denver—that’s where Todd and I had a late dinner Friday night.* Cuba Cuba restaurant in the Golden Triangle consists of two houses soldered together. And the sloping, spongy floors certainly showed their age. But the wall of talk that greeted us as we walked in to put our names on the list was as young and vibrant as the crowd—and, well, rather impenetrable.

At that point we beat a quick retreat to Gallery 1261, which was much quieter, and had cake for an appetizer. Only the first of the evening, it would turn out.

When we did return after an hour, we scored a table in the corner of the left-hand house near the bar and ordered mojitos. What else would we order? They were strong and refreshing and packed with mint. Not just mint: it turned out that an uninvited guest had hitched a ride—one of those small brown beetles whose back looks like a geometry problem.

I didn’t scream or anything. After all, it wasn’t a cockroach or a spider. And I was even happier after I showed the waitress and she brought me a new drink and didn’t charge us for any of our drinks. “That’s awesome!” she said, about the bug on the mint.

Which is the vibe you’d expect from a Cuban restaurant.

Turns out we could have looked at art for another half hour. About 8 o’clock we got a table in the right-hand house, where the volume was more conducive to talking. When our croquetas de jamon came, they were delivered by a no-nonsense woman who informed us, “Your server is right there,” when we informed her we were ready to order.

And she was right there, with red lipstick and black braids but still managing to resemble Heidi.

I am not a fan of ham. So for me the main attraction of croquetas is the contrast between the crispy-fried outside and the squishy inside. Oh, and the novelty of putting something as pretty as that dark-red croqueta between two saltines.

I ordered the Picadillo, which is really the Cuban cousin of Sloppy Joes. It’s ground beef in a sofrito base (onion, garlic, tomato, pepper) with raisins and potatoes, served with rice and maduros (fried plantains). The maduros were wonderful, but the meat was a little too salty and had two raisins, as far as I could tell.

I much preferred Todd’s lechon asada. The pork was wonderfully tender, and I kept stealing bites of his rice with black beans.

The last time Todd and I had Cuban food was at Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine in Fort Lauderdale, where we’d flown to scuba dive and celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. We ordered croquetas there too, so I must be a hypocrite about them. Todd had a monster meat plate, and I had grouper in a cream sauce, which was good.

In my two experiences of Cuban food, I have yet to be blown away. But that seems ridiculous—like going to a couple of Mexican joints and ordering, say, fajitas and tacos, and then deciding Mexican food isn’t for me.

I’ll keep hoping there’s more to discover, and try Cuba Cuba again sometime.

*According to Robin Riddel Lima of the Native American Trading Company. Of course, the first building in Denver was supposed to be a saloon. But she didn’t say “first”; she said “oldest.”

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…

All that whining was a prelude to explaining why I don’t have a bona fide Golden Triangle/Capitol Hill post today, though one of the places I talk about is in the Golden Triangle. I spent most of the weekend copyediting instead of going to Denver, which would have been much more fun.

But at least I’ll nod in the GT’s direction while I blather on about various restaurants in Denver.

Mad Greens—Inspired Eats has a restaurant right across from the Denver Art Museum on Acoma between 12th and 13th. Started by two New York guys who apparently met at Colorado College, it’s a salad restaurant where you can build your own or order a Napoleon or a Mad Molly Brown straight from the menu. (Tip: buy a half-salad, and ask for “light” dressing, which means about 5 squirts of dressing instead of 10 or so. Unless your definition of salad always includes 1 cup of mayonnaise.)

The first time I went to a Mad Greens, in Boulder, I was put off by the astounding amounts of plastic they wasted by serving salads in disposable plastic bowls. They’ve long since switched to metal bowls, so I don’t feel guilty about enjoying their salads anymore.

The cool thing about the restaurant near the Denver Art Museum is that it includes a Novo Coffee, a Denver-based coffee company, and a Mad Wine and Cheese. The night I was there, I was about the only person in the restaurant, so I took my salad over to the wine side and surveyed their selection of reds.

I had ordered the Edgar Allen [sic] Poe salad, with greens, apples, pears, walnuts, and blue cheese. In other words, not so different from the salad I had at Le Central, only much bigger. The wine was a 2006 Paso a Paso Tempranillo from La Mancha, Spain, about which I remember—there was a lot of it. The other thing I remember from this far-off meal is that I wanted to get a group of people to hang out for an evening at the wine and cheese bar and see if it could ever be really mad.

***
The Oceanaire Seafood Room, at 14th and Arapahoe in downtown Denver, was the restaurant Todd and I chose to visit during Denver Restaurant Week, on a Sunday night. Everyone else had apparently made the same decision, because the place was packed.

Oceanaire has a lounge vibe going on, but not the red-light-at-the ceiling tackiness I found at Copeland’s in Louisiana—maybe it has an ocean liner vibe? I would call it swank, especially since our bill was about twice the $52.80 base price for Restaurant Week (that’s $52.80 for two people, not counting drinks and tax and tip). I mean, $15 for a glass of Chalone chardonnay? I don’t think a bottle costs that much.

I could go on about the food, but I’ll say just this: if you like seafood, by all means try the Oceanaire. It has 16 locations nationwide, and the seafood we ordered was cooked perfectly, in my opinion. My mahi-mahi in crab bisque was better overall than Todd’s marlin with blue cheese, but they were both good. However, the food did not leave me “lusting for more,” as the website promised. (To be honest, I think conch fritters in the Bahamas are the only seafood that’s ever had that effect on me. OK, so I’m lowbrow, or I need a beach to get lusty. Sue me.)

What impressed me most about Oceanaire was the service. Our waitress recommended a Joseph Drouhin chardonnay (also $15 for a large glass) that went well with both soup and entrée. Three managers, I believe, stopped to chat with us. I’ve never seen servers help each other out as much as they did at Oceanaire, without anyone asking. There was definitely a spirit of camaraderie among the staff.

The milk chocolate mousse was good, and the cheesecake was the whitest I’ve ever seen.

***

I’ve been to Patsy’s Italian Restaurant twice, most recently to have dinner with a couple Todd “met” through a D&D blog. Located at 36th and Navajo (formerly Little Italy, now Lower Highland), across from the Bug Theater and Edge art gallery, it’s been in business since 1921.

Patsy’s is a Denver institution, the place to go for basic Italian. Todd had a massive red serving of chicken parmigiana in a baking dish, with a side of noodles, as if he didn’t have enough food, and I had fettucine alfredo. I liked it (for dinner and lunch the next day), and I liked our waiter, who was attentive and very tall. I’d eat there again, on one of those cold evenings when I wanted warm, solid food, but if I wanted more interesting Italian, I’d go to Pulcinella in Lafayette (since the one in Denver closed).

***
By far the most luscious dish I’ve had recently was the ravioli small plate special at the Mediterranean Restaurant in Boulder, filled with portabello mushrooms and Wagyu beef (Kobe beef comes from Wagyu cattle) and covered with a balsamic reduction. It was rich and smoky and went well with the Grenache/syrah I was drinking.

The Med is a great restaurant if you like a party atmosphere. We arrived at 6 on a Saturday night and it was already bursting with energetic conversations. The servers whizzed by and never dropped anything. I had dinner with 8 women, only 1 of whom I’d met before, and it was fun. Almost all of them were taking a night away from toddlers, so I didn’t whine to them about my copyediting woes.

See how lucky you are?

*According to Webster’s, the characteristic dress of the professional fool.

Le Central

On my way from the Native American Trading Company to Le Central for lunch, I passed the Diamond Shamrock where Todd and I used to fill up our Honda Civic GX, a natural gas vehicle. I much preferred driving that smaller car to driving our bounce-along Dodge Dakota (now sorely in need of a paint job we don’t feel like paying for), but neither of us preferred having to drive the Honda 10 miles to Boulder or Denver to find a natural gas pump. When we bought the Honda, we could drive it from Denver to Glenwood Springs, but the stations along the way closed over the years, and so it became more and more inconvenient. It’s too bad, because it was nice to drive a car that had no emissions, though every time I drove among the Western Slope natural gas wells I felt guilty about the problems gas wells caused the homeowners (gas in their water supplies, for example).

That was a rather long segue into what should probably be a Restoration Nation post. But instead this is a restorative lunch post.

Todd and I have been to Le Central before, including for my fortieth birthday dinner. (I still have the menu; they change it every day.) But today was the first time I’d ever eaten there alone.

And I got the dreaded table for a single diner by the kitchen! OK, there’s an entire room by the kitchen, which is perfectly pleasant, but I was in a two-top right by the door. I immediately suspected something was up.

At least it was an exciting place to sit: waiters kept whizzing by with their arms full of plates. Getting up to go to the bathroom required the utmost care on my part to avoid sending one careening into other tables.

I even saw one waiter bearing a full tray catch his foot in a purse carelessly set down across the aisle. Amazingly enough, he managed not to fall, and the woman pulled her purse strap off his foot.

All this activity made me hungry, and I promptly ate all the bread, despite the fact that their pretty little butter pats were ice-cold. And blindingly white. But good.

I made friends with my waitress by admiring her necklace, which she said she’d bought in Pasadena, and I replied that my sister lived in Glendale, just down the road in California terms.

When I asked her whether I should get the salmon salad or the duck salad (Salade de Magret de Canard), she jumped up and down at the thought of my ordering the duck. And when she brought it to me, she announced, “The best salad EVER!”

Actually, I’m not sure what the best salad ever would be. I think of salad as a utilitarian dish, one that I eat when I’m tired of meat or I’m trying to maintain my weight or I need a certain quota of vegetables. There are weeks or even months when I have a large salad every day. Occasionally, they’re very good—ever had a really wonderful Caesar or a salad with just the right combination of fruit and nuts and a not-too-tart vinaigrette?

When she said that, though, it raised my standards. And although the salad was good, I couldn’t get quite as excited about it as she did. The “smoked salt-cured duck” slices were just right and nice with the apple and candied walnut, the blue cheese and cranberry went well together, and I was even able to get a bite of everything on my fork one time. Just to say I did.

The salad was the perfect size, especially after eating all that bread. The only thing I wondered about was the slice of tomato on top. Is that French?

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.

On the way, I stopped at Dozen’s to get tea, mostly to warm my hands, and passed Cherokee Dining. I was surprised to see the “Open” sign illuminated. A man’s arm was polishing the bar. I guess if I ever move to the GT, I know where to get my early morning buzz on.

I stood on the bridge over Speer and saw only one distant, dark figure on the creek path. Then I kept going, over to West High School, which is shaped like a big stone hug. Sunken Gardens Park fills the space between it and Speer. I took some shots of the school and walked down the concrete steps into the park, wondering how the land around Speer got so varied in height. Was Cherry Creek always so much lower than the street, or did the construction of the reservoir tame it into its current mild self?

Like a little kid, I balanced along one of the narrow concrete borders in the park. At one time it must have surrounded a lake. I wondered if West High now used it as a playing field. There was a basketball court at one end, heavily decorated with graffiti, and a Mennonite Church beyond it.

It was a peaceful place, despite the constant traffic along three lanes of Speer, and there was space enough in the open, sunken park to breathe out forever, a rare feeling in a city. I heard the bell ring in the school all the way across the park: 10 am.

As I crossed Speer and made my way to the concrete wall bounding this side of the creek, I spotted a homeless man, standing in a concrete alcove, arranging his belongings. He had a bright red blanket. I wanted to talk to him but was too chicken. When he noticed me, I finally turned away.

The sun came out, warming me, and dog-walkers and cyclists motored by across the creek, which gurgled and rushed some 10 feet below me. I balanced on the wall, feeling everywhere and nowhere the way I do on a plane.

At Bannock I crossed back to investigate the bright blue jungle gym. I can’t remember the last time I’ve swung on a swing set. The surface in front was speckled blue and spongy to match the paint job, and I bounced up and down on it, watching four teenagers around a table under the trees. As I walked by, I wanted to ask them why they weren’t in school. (Then I remembered I haven’t had a real job in fourteen years. Funny how, after so long, I still think of offices outside my home as more “real” than the one inside my home. I guess I should read more Dilbert.) One of the dark-haired girls was cupping her hands over a paper on the table. I told myself they were making some art.

It was getting late, I needed to check out the Native American Trading Company and get some lunch at Le Central. I battled the fierce wind up Bannock and found myself staring into the window of a building marked “Civitas.” Sounded like a nonprofit, but then why do they have a car and a motorcycle in their lobby?

I’m still not sure, but I liked this line from their website: “We value the richness, diversity, and vibrancy of cities.”

Dazzle Supper Club

Originally I’d planned to take my husband to Dazzle’s happy hour last Wednesday, February 11, partly because there was no cover charge for the music. But Todd decided it would be too much for him to work a full day and then go straight to happy hour without a nap. He’s healing well from his surgery for superior canal dehiscence syndrome, but it’s only his first full week of work since the surgery. He still needs a lot of rest.

So we made reservations for Dazzle’s Urban Brunch, which showed some foresight, because when we arrived at 12 on Sunday, it was packed. The hostess offered us a booth right next to the door, in the Dizzy Room (next to the bar), but we declined and then had a short wait before we were seated at a two-top on a raised platform in the Dazzle Showroom, where we had a good view of the stage.

The stage was empty at that point, the band on break.

Dazzle reminded me of DC somehow, when I lived there in the 1980s, of Kramerbooks and Afterwords Café at Dupont Circle, where I went once or twice for breakfast on weekends. Except that Kramerbooks never had music in the morning, as far as I know, or at lunch.

I saw people of all ages at Dazzle, mostly families, mostly white. The inner sanctum we sat in had burnt orange walls and chairs with dull red upholstery. All the paintings in the Dazzle Showroom were by Bunky Echo-Hawk. He’s a Pawnee and Yakima artist based in Denver.

There were two buffet stands, 1 in the Dizzy Room between the booths and the bar, and one in the Dazzle Showroom between the raised platform and the other tables. The one near the bar had smoked salmon and a limited selection of cheese and fruit and desserts. OJ and coffee and cider with brandy were on the bar.

The other buffet stand had roast beef (I found a lovely piece with burnt ends and lots of fat—yum, heaven), a man with a puffy beard making omelets, mac and cheese, grits, some kind of frittata, and a few other hot foods. It was somehow appropriate that the twin omelet flames never went out, burning blue until some fat hit them and they sparkled.

At times I feel cheated at buffets because I just can’t fit in enough food to justify the price. But not at Dazzle: I went through 4 plates, and Todd had 3. I had 2 servings of the “award-winning” mac and cheese (which deserved its award, but I’ll have to do a D Bar versus Dazzle mac-off sometime) and 4 of the pretzel-shaped chocolate cookies frosted with white icing and pink sprinkles. Those tasted really good dipped in coffee. I also had a small bit of waffle with lingonberries, roast beef, several pieces of cantaloupe (some of which looked like “blood cantaloupe”—I’ve never seen such reddish cantaloupe before), crackers with cheese and smoked salmon that I had to cut through because it was so chewy (I was a little disappointed because the last time I had it, at a bar mitzvah, it was soooo flaky), 2 deviled eggs, 2 pieces of bacon, and half a stuffed chocolate donut. I was so happy about the pastries cut in half—genius!

The band came back on after we’d been there about an hour. Julie Monley sang and played the congas, and Frederic des Moulins played piano. Two other men played upright bass and accordion, which I couldn’t hear at all. She had a pretty good range and was well miked; I could hear her clearly. At first people talked over the band, but the crowd got a little quieter the more the band played, and there were smatterings of applause after each song.

By the time we left, they had put the Twinkies out on the dessert bar. You know it’s time to leave when they run out of regular dessert and have to bring out the Twinkies.

Dazzle opened in 1998 and has had live jazz since 2003. It was named one of the top 100 jazz clubs in the world by Downbeat magazine. Dazzle Records launched in January 2008.

Metropolis Coffee anchors one corner of the Prado, and I went in to check out their baked goods. The biscottis from Spruce Confections in Boulder just weren’t enough to tempt me; I have to be in the right mood for biscottis. So I hiked down to Speer to find Gateaux and remembered that it was a few blocks northwest.

Luckily, I made it in the door before Gateaux closed at 4. And what a sight greeted me. Fanciful cakes, mini-pastries, cookies galore, and this plate of cupcakes. I was restrained: I bought only two heart cookies and a couple of mini-pastries. A snack, I would say. And then I returned to Metropolis Coffee after a nice little walk.

I don’t know what your criteria are for a good latte (or just plain coffee). Mine is smoothness, because my stomach isn’t always happy when espresso drops in.

The latte at Metropolis was exceptionally smooth. The cookie frosted with chocolate icing was crisp but not hard and tasted of butter, giving the sweetness a strong foundation. It was perfect for dipping in coffee and didn’t last long. At that point I looked at my remaining treasures and realized I was about to eat all four. Shouldn’t I save one for Todd?

There was a brief skirmish somewhere near my amygdala, but love and marriage won out (and the looming specter of Valentine’s Day). I saved the pink-frosted cookie for Todd…all’s fair when eating sweets, right? I had to go get them, so I get three, right?

As I was eating the red velvet cake, Lou Reed was playing. Not “Sweet Jane”; I can’t remember the song. But I do remember my hands were finally warm.

Maybe it’s the Golden Triangle’s sense of potential, all those parking lots just waiting to be turned into condos. Or retail. I think it draws people.

On Saturday I found some places where the rich buy and the rest of us slum.

Howard Lorton Galleries is a furniture gallery three floors high where you could wander from floor to half-floor for hours. I had always thought it was an art gallery, and the prices certainly corresponded. I saw $10,000+ dining room sets, gaming tables, and a round table that had triangular leaves—the latter definitely tempting.

I could just about afford the pillows. I asked myself, Why are some of these pieces so expensive? Is it just payment for the name?

I want furniture made of sustainable materials, built by hand by local craftspeople. I have a table like that in my house, and it didn’t cost nearly as much as the dining room sets at Howard Lorton. Although I suspect that its craftsmanship may not be quite as high as some of the pieces at HL, I don’t believe the difference accounts for all the dollars.

I’m handicapped by my ignorance of what makes furniture great. All I can do is look at a piece and notice unusual fabrics or what looks like good joinery. I don’t have encyclopedic knowledge of the features a high-quality dresser or couch must have.

Next on my list was Walker Fine Art, which didn’t have the best signage. It’s located in another Craig Nassi building, the Prado, but inside the gallery looks like a garage. In fact, that’s how Sarah referred to it when she suggested I turn my flash off to get better pictures.

I felt a bit intimidated, walking in. It’s not that the rich intimidate me—I went to Georgetown University, which in the early 1980s claimed as a student the son of the richest man in the world. I knew one freshman who got an airplane for her eighteenth birthday.

Even so, I’ve never dropped $5,000 for art. For a set of kitchen appliances, yes. Art, no. When I thought about it, I realized I could spend that on art if I wanted—it’s all a matter of what you value, what you save for. I guess my parents’ Depression values got passed on.

Once I met Sarah, though, I had a great time. I especially enjoyed Roland Bernier‘s mixed media pieces. He’s been doing “word art” since the 1960s, objectifying words and divorcing them from meaning. In one piece, he sculpted letters from wood and then covered them with reproductions of tattoos.

Not sure that’s sustainable, actually, but there was so much to discover in the piece. And I felt a certain kinship with him—we’re both wordsmiths in different ways.

It was quite peaceful at Walker Fine Art until the repair guy showed up and made light-jackhammer noise in an effort to fix something. So I hied myself down Cherokee Street to William Havu Gallery and another artist I’d never heard of: Emilio Lobato.

He is, apparently, a student of the line—just about every painting except the one I photographed was all about lines of varying colors and thicknesses and layers. What drew me to the painting below was the word “tellurium” in the pages collaged onto the painting: I’ve been trying to write a poem about the element tellurium, which most often appears as a telluride of gold.

How appropriate.

Local celebrity alert:

I crossed 8th Avenue and gave $2 in dollar coins to the couple begging there on my quest to get to Le Central, one of my favorite restaurants in Denver. Before you fall all over me calling me generous, please recall that I just spent $3 on a hot chocolate so that I could pee.

I saw a side of Le Central that’s new to me—the south side. I think I’ve always gone there at night, and I never knew the outside was so brightly painted, especially on the side away from 8th Avenue. The office building behind it is faced with golden glass.

When I got down to Speer, I saw where Ferrugia might have been coming from: the 7 News building. Three local TV stations sit within a mile of each other in Denver, two on Lincoln in the Golden Triangle and one farther down Speer.

Speer, named after early twentieth-century mayor and crook Robert Speer, is an impressive boulevard. Occasionally it reminds me of Ward Parkway’s graceful sweep through Kansas City, where I grew up, though the latter street is more residential.

Unfortunately, Cherry Creek paid the price for Speer’s grandeur: Speer was built up high above the creek to avoid flooding and in the process hemmed it in. A bike path runs on either side of the creek, and I moseyed down the ramp to stand by the brown water. I always feel sorry for it. I wish it could be a little more like Boulder Creek, with a wider riparian area, but I don’t see any chance of that happening unless the car culture dies out and people start ripping out lanes on Speer.

As I come up the ramp and look at all the peeling mauve paint, I think again how unlovely, thrown together, the Golden Triangle is here. It’s having growing pains, at least on its perimeter. But as I head northwest by Rickenbaugh Cadillac, with its gleaming SUVs and the statue The Bannock, I peer down streets that look enticing. This area, around 8th Avenue and Acoma, makes me want to explore.

I pause at the Rocky Mountain Bank Note building, which houses PS 1 Charter School. Some kids are washing cars one street over, by the school, and across from them rises the Piranesi, whose website rhapsodizes about the “Golden Triangle Lifestyle.” If the building is as functional as the website, then I worry about the Piranesi. It’s graced by a sign advertising 3.875 percent interest rates—a sign of tenuous economy times.

At 12th and Speer, where I make my second turn on my tour of the Golden Triangle, sits THE BELVEDERE. At least, I feel the name of this Craig Nassi building should be capped. He does seem to be fond of building monumental beige structures in which condos rest on chic retail.

I would not call the Golden Triangle a walkable area. Although cyclists and the occasional family and jogger pass me, I can’t see walking it for pleasure. There’s not enough that catches my eye until I get to the Denver Art Museum and its massive cows.

Of all the perimeter streets in the Golden Triangle, 12th Avenue definitely has the best feel, the best buildings—it reminds me of Uptown Denver, on Logan or Grant and 17th Avenue. All in all, though, the Golden Triangle is resoundingly beige.

Beginning next week, instead of walking around like this, always on the outside, pretending that I’m learning something, I’ll be zeroing in on specific shops and restaurants.

***
Todd just came into my office and said his hearing is back! He was listening to the Police and noticed a mistake the guitarist made on one song. He could tell that another song was poorly mastered.

I guess Louisiana was worth it, even if I didn’t see an ivory-bill.

But first I had to get there.

It was noon on a Saturday when I arrived in downtown Denver, and lunch was my first priority. I stopped at Ling and Louie’s, an Asian-influenced bar and grill on the Sixteenth Street Mall. I ordered the meatloaf sliders, which melted in my mouth, and was tempted to drink the dipping sauce, which tasted like brown gravy with hot and sour spices thrown in. But I resisted.

I took the mall shuttle and turned left up Colfax to Lincoln. The Capitol was right there, golden, but the triangle was still a few blocks away. At 14th and Lincoln I passed the Colorado State Judicial Building and the Colorado History Museum, both soon to be moved.**

When I reached 12th and Lincoln, the first corner of the Golden Triangle, I was facing south. It was a warm day, but the winter winds made me glad of my windbreaker. Parking lots squatted to my right, left over from the 1970s redevelopment of Denver, and St. Mark’s Church filled the corner across the intersection to my left. I headed over there because the building looked cool, checked it out, and disappeared into the shadow of the much larger Chancery office building on the same block.

Both places piqued my curiosity. What’s inside? Could I wander the halls of the office building freely?

In this way I began tracing the perimeter of the Golden Triangle with my feet.

The Beauvallon loomed up on my right at 10th Avenue and Lincoln. There’s no other way to say it: it’s a beige monstrosity with two wedding cake towers on the northern and southern ends of the block. But it is noticeable: I could see it from just about every vantage point in the Golden Triangle that day.

There were shops on the street level, but only the salon was open on Saturday afternoon. Restaurant Nine75 is also at the Beauvallon, right across from the Spicy Pickle Sub Shop, but Nine75 doesn’t do lunch on weekends. (When is this retail strip at street level busy? Must be geared toward the working crowd.) I walked through Avaino Coffee’s fancy wrought-iron entryway because I was desperate for a bathroom*** and ordered a hot chocolate I didn’t want. I saw a Westword I did want: “House of Cards: Craig Nassi Transformed the Golden Triangle, but Some Buyers Got a Raw Deal.”

Craig Nassi built the Beauvallon, the Prado, and the Belvedere, all in the Golden Triangle. Finding that article was fate, right? This theme was meant to be.

*I’ve been going back and forth about the northern boundary of the Golden Triangle. Many people would put the northern boundary of the Golden Triangle at Colfax (15th Avenue), not three blocks south at 12th Avenue, as Denver Infill does. I’m sympathetic to including the Capitol in either downtown Denver or the Capitol Hill neighborhood, but I’ve decided that the art galleries and museums south of Colfax and the Capitol should be included in the Golden Triangle.

**Denver Infill has information on these developments. Go to Central Denver Districts and click on the Civic Center subarea of downtown. The yellow rectangles show upcoming developments. I would link to the map, but he has so many maps that he prefers bloggers download the images to their own server instead of using his bandwidth. I didn’t want to mess with that, so I’m directing you to the main site.

*** Locating bathrooms is the traveler’s most crucial task.

The first thing I noticed about Urban Roots was its location across from the Golden Triangle Learning Center and the Family Flex Early Education Center. Urban Roots is also a school of sorts, for those Denverites who want to find plants suitable for their limited urban living and gardening and commercial spaces.

I entered through the courtyard off 10th Street, admiring the Christmas trees and other decorations, and entered the small interior.

The owner, Diane Stahl, was busy when I walked in, but soon enough she asked me if I needed help, and I told her about my interest in reviewing local stores for this website.

She noted that 80 percent of her plants come from local growers, including the striking painted poinsettias in purple and orange. I would have bought one to take home with me, but I was on foot and afraid it might freeze.

Other local goods included Botanical Interests seeds (some of which are organic), xeriscape plant guides from Fulcrum Publishing in Golden, and Ogden Street Cards. The most unusual item was a biodegradable pot made from bamboo, from Rosso’s International. I had thought the only biodegradable pots were the small cardboard planting pots that nurseries sometimes use for vegetables in the spring.

If you’re looking for gardening advice, the “Reading Room” on the Urban Roots website is a good place to start. The website also details the store’s Greenscape Services for homes and businesses. You can find examples of Stahl’s work in the Portfolio.

It seems appropriate that Urban Roots, with its focus on gardening in small spaces, should be a relatively small store. The arrangement of pots pictured here (some from Germany) shows how much care Diane Stahl puts into every detail of her business.

The day after I visited Urban Roots, a question recurred to me: How do small businesses in urban areas make ends meet, especially when they’re selling relatively inexpensive items? I emailed that question to the owner, who had not replied by the time I posted this article. But Urban Roots has been in business in Denver for 7 years; clearly Stahl has found a way.