Denver, Colorado - Feb 2-5, 2016

I was invited to go on a business trip with my "old team" to Denver, Colorado to meet with the Vendor that we work with.  I was really touched that they wanted me along and happy to join them in this meeting. We flew out on Tuesday afternoon and returned home late on Friday.  We had been cautioned to prepare for the elevation change by drinking plenty of water and closely monitoring for headaches.  Some breathing difficulties might also be experienced.  I kept myself well hydrated and had no issues with headaches and I didn't find that I had any problem with the breathing either.


Denver is a beautiful city, filled with history.  I took advantage of my visit by getting up early each morning and took hour long walks exploring the city.  The weather was beautiful and the temperature moderate.  I didn't know this but they get over 300 days per year of sunshine. I wished we had that in Toronto.

We met daily at the Vendors office which is located in a Historic home..  It was built in 1890 and is referred to as the Butters House.  It was beautiful and I could envision Ralph and I living in a home like this.  There was a fireplace in almost every room and even one right at the entrance.  They certainly must have had to cut alot of wood.  Throughout the home you saw Oak trim which added to the warmth of the house.  There were beautiful stained glass windows going up to the 2nd story and the other windows were still the original glass.  It was beautiful.  The fixtures were all original which really blended well with the home.  The offices were on the 2nd and 3rd floors and the conference room was on the main floor.  It was a 3 story home with a carriage house in the back which was also converted to offices. 

We ate some pretty amazing meals while we were in Denver.  I especially enjoyed one restaurant -Vesta Dipping Grill where I enjoyed the Venison. Each entree came with dipping sauces to use as a compliment to your meat. The menu proposed two sauces but you also could change them for a wide range of other choices.  It was a really interesting compliment to the meal.  As an appetizer they had a cheese and meat platter that was set out which fed us all.  The food was really tasty.

Cheese & Meat Platter

Mixed platter served with house made mustards, pickles, candied walnuts, and black pepper truffle honey:

cheeses gorgonzola piccante, dutch girl gouda, schnebelhorn, casatica du bufola, house-made burrata

house made meats duck rillettes, salami, masala chicken galantine, beef bresaola, spicy coppa

Madras grilled venison   

Pommes frites, ginger ale oyster mushrooms, dried cherry butter reduction
SUGGESTED SAUCES: sambal aioli**, pineapple pedy marmalade

We weren't that close to the mountains and really only saw them when we were driving back to the airport.  They looked amazing and it would have been awesome to ski there.  Maybe another time and visit.  It was a busy couple of days, but I enjoyed it very much.

Home made chicken stock

Over the weekend, I thought I would try to make some home made chicken stock.  I went to the butcher and purchased 5 lbs of chicken necks, wings and backs and placed them in a deep stockpot.  To this I added 3 carrots (cut into 2 inch pieces), 3 celery stocks (cut into 2 inch pieces), 1 parsnip (cut into 2 inch pieces), 1 large bunch of parsley (roughly chopped) and one onion chopped. I then added 2 tsp of kosher salt as I figured we could increase later if needed and filled the pot.   I let it simmer for about 6 hours.  The house smelled so amazing.  Once it was ready, I strained all the liquid out of the pan and threw away the vegetables.  I picked through the bones and saved some of the chicken meat to be used in the soup and placed the stock (in the pan) in the fridge.  This morning I scraped off the fat from the top and then filtered the stock through cheesecloth.  I now have 1.5 bags of home made stock.  I can't wait to make a full pot of soup with it next weekend.