We showed up at the Squeaky Bean at 5:30 (the only reservation we could get, unless we wanted to wait until 8), and the hostess bowed to me when I complimented her argyle tights. We sat at a small table by the window.

I ordered the Smoking Frenchman, consisting of Pierre Ferrand Ambre 10-year cognac, Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur (fortified with cognac), Angostura bitters, lemon bitters, and a Talisker rinse (single-malt Scotch). It was sweet and smoky and strong. Todd ordered the Castelvetrano olives with Marcona almonds, and then we followed up with a small plate of pears and roquefort with walnuts and olive oil cake. The globule at the bottom is pear juice, which our waiter said the kitchen compressed by wrapping it in plastic (this during Plastic-Free February). The cheese was pungent, and firm slices of pears contrasted well with the cheese mousse and the pear juice.

After that, I felt the need for something hearty and asked for the No-Bake Shepherd’s Pie. Todd chose the seared Hiramasa (yellowtail amberjack). You can see the orange on top there, along with sliced fennel on top and a roasted leek on the bottom; the dish also included lentils and a tomato broth infused with proscuitto, which was poured into the bowl at the table. That was a nice touch.

Despite the variety of ingredients, Todd’s dinner was rather bland. Neither one of us could taste the ham in the tomato sauce.

The shepherd’s pie arrived, every bit as tasty as it looks here. The lamb, which included shoulder and roasted leg, ranged from lightly seared to well done, and I thought the latter was somewhat better. I was struck by the use of Chex in the little dollops of mashed potatoes (to look like eggs, I suppose) and by the pleasant saltiness of the sauce. Even so, I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed at its delicacy. I know chefs want to reinvent old standbys, and I thought this reinvention was lovely, but I wanted twice as much.

One of the things Squeaky Bean emphasizes on its website is the use of locally sourced ingredients, from its own garden or Aspen Moon Farms in Longmont. I couldn’t help but wonder just how much of this meal was local: the lamb, perhaps, and the veggies if grown in a greenhouse, but not the Hiramasa, certainly, or the pears or the oranges.

A truly local, seasonal menu would not offer nearly as much variety, of course, and given Americans’ expectation of fresh fruits and vegetables year-round, a restaurant that stuck to seasonally available foods might not stay open for long.

Our desserts were plated as beautifully as everything else, and since we weren’t at the Cheesecake Factory, we didn’t expect to them to be massive. I chose the chocolate and blood orange three ways (I think someone is imitating D Bar, which frequently has “threeways” on its dessert menu), and Todd wanted the peanut butter.

Is it just me, or has blood orange been overused lately? The orange gelee on the chocolate mousse was pretty to look at, but its texture put me off, and I preferred the truffle without the candied fruit. The drink was my favorite, nut-flavored with an orange finish.

If “romantic dinner” means “cuddling” to you, then I wouldn’t recommend the Squeaky Bean, with its cafe atmosphere and tables spaced too close for truly intimate conversation. But if you want attentive service and food prepared with care and imagination, then grab a seat on the patio the next warm weekend day. Here’s the version of Pigs in a (crepe) Blanket I had last fall, with fig. Todd had a frittata.

Last Saturday I found beauty in 2 trees, 1 in Lower Highlands and 1 in South Platte.

Across the street from the Smithson Clinic, on Vallejo between 28th and 29th Avenues, I turned to see this gnarly old cottonwood. You don’t see too many of these big cottonwoods in cities anymore. Their spreading roots wreak havoc on plumbing systems and crack driveways and patios. Their branches are weak and often break in storms.Nevertheless I love them and hope more of them grow in the Denver Metro area. Last year Boulder cut down the huge cottonwoods at 75th and Arapahoe so as to add a lane. It would have taken at least 2 people to circle one of those cottonwood trunks; their branches extended out over Arapahoe. I still get mad when I drive by that intersection.

But this post was supposed to be about trees making me happy. Let me try again.

At the end of last Saturday’s walkabout, I took 29th Avenue to 16th Street to the bridge over I-25 that ends at this example of Denver public art.I wrote about it last fall; that post begins and ends with a picture of the bridge. In the courtyard surrounding National Velvet, someone pasted a beautifully detailed paper tree. If you zoom in close enough on the left side of the tree’s canopy, you can almost read the signature: Barney, perhaps.Last Saturday, I visited the tree again. It’s had a difficult winter.There’s more snow now than tree.

How do the CEC/North Middle Colleges work? Enrollment in CEC/North Middle College of Denver creates a smooth transition from high school to college. Freshmen and sophomores spend half a day in academics and half a day in career class. As juniors and seniors, students take their academic classes on the CCD campus. If they qualify, they can take up to four college classes per year, allowing them the opportunity to earn up to a year’s worth of college credit toward their college degree by the end of senior year.

Sounds like a much, much better version of the Vo-Tech stuff we had in high school in the 1970s. In fact, the CEC was founded in 1976 and has been educating students ever since.

Hanging a right at Federal, I noticed Denver Fire Station 12 on the corner. I turned right again at 29th Avenue and was rewarded with a honk. Some man was waving at me, though I’m certain I’ve never seen him before. Going east, I passed José Valdez one more time and Three Tomatoes on my right. Three Tomatoes used to cater restaurants at the Botanic Gardens. I interviewed Three Tomatoes as a possible caterer for my wedding and was impressed, though I finally chose Spice of Life in Boulder.

As I stopped at the corner of 29th Avenue and Zuni to take a picture of a Coke sign, a dark-haired man in a truck shouted, “Take a picture of this ugly mug!”

And that, my friends, was the walkabout. I hope you enjoyed it.

I cut around the corner at Zuni and realized the area looked familiar. Two years ago I participated in a walking tour of the Highlands neighborhood with Phil Goodstein, a local historian and author. On my left between 29th Avenue and Dunkeld stood Emerson Street School, which I assumed was an elementary school. On my right, Ashland Recreation Center. Remember that crazy intersection I talked about yesterday, where 15th meets 29th and there may or may not be a vortex? Well, it’s just 4 or 5 blocks from a rec center.

According to the Denver Recreation Center Task Force report of April 2009, Ashland is designated as a neighborhood center and also as a local center (1 step up) because of its indoor pool. In the winter it offers swimming classes, basketball, volleyball, football, and oil painting, among other things.

Ashland is not open on Sundays (I wonder if that’s a budget-cutting measure?), so I was left to photograph the entrance, which impressed me. Here is the right-hand building of the rec center complex.

Obviously, swimming is important to the people who designed this entrance. I moved the camera to my left to get the main entranceand kept going to find the male swimmer backlit against the afternoon sky.And now I’ve come full circle, back to her.I crossed West Dunkeld Place to inspect this mural painted on the fence that bordered the elementary school. I saturated the colors a bit, but what you see is pretty true to the section closest to Zuni.

Here’s another section of the mural. I’m doing a liquid diet today, so Loncheria La Mexicana (in the center-bottom) sounds pretty good.

I walked around to 29th Avenue and discovered the school is called José Valdez Elementary School. As of this year, it’s an early childhood education (ECE) 7 school, teaching children from preschoolers (Montessori, ages 3 to 5) to seventh graders. According to the Principal’s Message on the website, however, in 2010-2011, Jose Valdez will become an ECE5 school until it figures out how to better serve middle school students. Its main goal is to graduate students who are fluent in English and Spanish and comfortable in a multicultural setting. Here’s a final section of the mural.

Emerson Street School nearby is very small, with about 40 students and 10 teachers; it educates students who have been expelled or are on parole.

North High School is located northwest of José Valdez. Does it strike anyone else as funny that North High School (located at 29th and Speer) is west of West High School (located on Speer between 9th and 11th)?

Earlier I had spotted a white cat prowling, and the snow in this picture reminds me of a cat investigating the flowers.

Soon tulips will be peeking out of snow and mulch. They’re my favorite flowers. I can’t wait.

Right after Christmas, when we visited, the featured artist was Daniel Berv. This bejeweled painting hung over our booth, but my favorite was the atmospheric purplish one in the back room. (I know that’s not a sophisticated description, but it’s what I remember. I assumed it was Berv’s painting, although it had no price tag.)

I don’t recommend going to Vita while you’re on a diet; almost everything on the lunch menu is substantial. I was tempted by the panzanella after reading about Denveater‘s struggle to find a good Italian bread salad in Denver; I was also tempted by Shrimp Two Ways (tempura and tequila-poached). I chose the Caprese sandwich, with slabs of portobella and mozzarella, tomatoes, pesto, and watercress on focaccia. The mushroom and cheese were both sturdier than the bread, which crumbled in my hands. I mentioned it to the waiter, and he responded, “Yeah, but it tastes good, doesn’t it?” It did (mushroom and olive oil and mozzarella, oh my!), but I really do prefer not to drop crumbs and watercress all over the table. That complaint aside, I ate the whole damn thing, as well as the butternut squash soup. It tasted of cardamon, and the pepitas on top added a crunchy finish.

Todd ordered the Cubano, with braised pork, ham, Swiss cheese, mustard, and pickles on a Amoroso roll, and he did indeed seem to love the sandwich. It’s hard not to love such a meat-fest, with brown pork and pink shaved ham hanging out everywhere.

All the food was beautifully presented. In fact, the presentation reminded me of the finesse demonstrated at Encore over on Colfax.

Vita opened 3 years ago and was a 5280 favorite early on. Its rooftop offers a wide view of Denver in the summer.

On that cold day, a warm summer night on the roof sounded like a dream. Is it just me, or did winter linger too long before it officially began?

Coffee, that is. I was actually looking for Red Trolley, the ice cream and cereal place. Then I checked the map in my Lower Highlands Local Flavor Guide and realized it was farther away than I wanted to walk.

So I went to Shangri-La (the green building on the right). How many people can say that?

Not that many in Denver, anyway. It’s a tiny little place with lots of exposed brick. (For an amusing rant about exposed brick, check out Brownstoner: Brooklyn Inside and Out.)

(By the way, is there some connection between winter and “tiny little places”? Tomte Modern Craft, Unity … I’ve been finding them, or they’ve been calling me. )

The gray-haired man at the counter inquired if my camera was a Christmas gift. I guess he thought I couldn’t bear to part with it, so I hung it around my neck and walked it around Denver. He also informed me the current owners have run Shangri-La for 2 years, before which it was Carmen’s vegan cafe and coffeehouse. So this space next to Vita has been serving coffee to seekers of truth for years.

I sat in a black leather chair by the door to the inside hallway and drank my hot chocolate with extra mocha (not the best I’ve ever had). The “second room,” with its high ceilings decorated for Christmas, had 4 tables and a few chairs. The floor was painted concrete covered with wood covered with that hexagonal tile you see in bathrooms. Layers upon layers upon layers… Light streamed in through the large window, and several couples chatted happily next to me. It had a completely different atmosphere than the new Hooked on Colfax (2 doors down from the old location, with no sign the last time I checked), which is much more serious and much larger.

As I left, the man who fixed my chocolate sprayed the chairs with cleaner and wiped them off. I hope he did the same to the chair where I sat, since at that point I was still infectious.

Todd and I went next door to Vita to have lunch and then came back to get Todd a drink. It was then I noticed the selection of Numi tea, not to mention Bhakti chai.

So I trudged across the 15th Street bridge over I-25 to Lower Highlands, which I suppose is elevated enough above the South Platte River to deserve its own moniker (though it’s still quite a ways from 32nd and Lowell, the heart of the Highlands neighborhood) and found Forest Room 5 to be just right.

You can’t tell from the picture of the exterior above, but it was quite dark inside, so dim that the helpful bartender gave me this big candle so I could read the menu (that blurry thing in the foreground). The blue patch on the right is part of a movie that was showing above the bar. I had to rest my camera on the bar itself in order to get any semblance of focus, and that was at ISO 1600.

The 5 or 6 other patrons at the bar (the tables along the wall were empty) looked askance at my gyrations, but they didn’t say anything.

The ostensible reason for the lack of light on the winter solstice: Forest Room 5 is renovating its back room (where Lighthouse Writers often held readings) to be a “venue”: in other words, a real stage. Somehow that affects the amount of light in the long front room, which was never very well lit on my previous visits.

After the bartender figured out that I wanted to order food instead of sit at the bar and eat my own food as some patrons have requested, he took my order for the risotto with eggplant and butternut squash and a Woodchuck cider. Unlike the risotto-soup I had at Brio Tuscan Grille in Kansas City, Forest Room 5′s dish was the real thing: thick with a cheesiness to some of the bites that couldn’t be explained simply by the parmesan shavings on top.

Having not had that many risottos in my life, I did wonder, are they all so pale? Is that traditional?

I was certain that the squash was zucchini, not butternut, and the chef confirmed it. (No doubt you’re thinking, “Of course that’s zucchini there in the lower left-hand corner,” but please keep in mind that I used a flash for this picture. I really couldn’t see what was in the food.) Where the eggplant was, I’ll never know. I could have eaten one-quarter of the dish and had enough, but I didn’t stop until all the rice pearls were gone.

Forest Room 5 is one of my favorite places in Denver, partly because I associate it with poetry (Lighthouse) and activism (I’ve been to meetings there) and partly because I once ordered the hot chocolate, which involved a massive mug of cocoa and peppermint schnapps and a selection of cookies. That is no longer on the menu, but the memory of it keeps drawing me back for more good things.

Although the festival website discouraged it, we drove and parked at a “nearby” school. So we weren’t quite as eco-friendly as this man.

It was a colorful festival, from these mysterious T-shirts to this woman at the Thailand tourism booth. I don’t think she would be able to eat in this costume.

As always at Denver festivals, there was good food, from Chez Thuy, my absolute favorite Vietnamese restaurant in the Denver metro area, to this somehow appropriate pairing, to the place I settled on because I’d never had Filipino-American food (Tropical Grill).

The dish I got, rice and kahlua pork and egg rolls, wasn’t especially remarkable, but it got rid of my sugar low. And then Todd came back with what he called “Thai shave ice,” which is topped with red beans and 3 kinds of jellies. Weird? Maybe. Tasty? Yes, though the mixture gets less appetizing the more you eat.

And to help work off all that food was this drum-and-dance group, part of the Lao Community of Colorado.

To recover from all that activity, we slumped down on the grass. But later I felt cheated when I wandered through the back-of-the-booths relaxation area. Then it occurred to me that the tents probably belonged to the teams who came to Denver to participate in the boat races. I wonder if anybody spent the night in the park?

These digs were probably the most basic of any I saw. Many tents had cots and coolers and chairs enough to seat a dozen people.