Fran Collin

Winner announcement: Congratulations to kristenschenck2, the winner of our Michael Pollan contest, who wrote: "Trying to eat ground beef after reading Omnivore's Dilemma is like trying to swim in the ocean after seeing JAWS." Kristen, we'll send you an e-mail about how you can get your tickets.

Michael Pollan has been called, among other titles, a "food god" (true), more recently a "sexist pig" (false) and a "warrior" (depends on your definition), and in this week's Chef and Tell piece, I interview Pollan, who discusses the American diet, what we eat and how we should eat. He even includes a shout-out to homegrown Chipotle, a quick-service Mexican joint that, applauds, Pollan, "has taken big steps to source their meat -- or at least their pork -- sustainably and, in many places, locally. They're trying to walk the talk."

See also:
- Author Michael Pollan on portion control, the future of food and fast food
- Author Michael Pollan on Chipotle, canned haggis and making organic accessible
- Fuel's Bob Blair on Cooking for Michael Pollan

More »

Realfoolblog.com

This is part one of my interview with Michael Pollan, author of Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation; Food Rules: An Eater's Manual; The Omnivore's Dilemma; In Defense of Food; Second Nature; The Botany of Desire and A Place of My Own. Part two of Pollan's musings will run tomorrow. Pollan will appear in Sturm Hall at the University of Denver at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 8, in conjunction with the Tattered Cover. Tickets to his lecture are $35, and while the event is sold out, you can add your name to the wait list by calling 303-871-2291.

In the last decade of penetrating -- and probing -- what he calls the "Western diet," Michael Pollan has delved into everything from modern-day agribusiness and widespread obesity to sharing communal family meals at home and eliminating, once and for all, high-fructose corn syrup from our daily diet. His books, which number seven with last week's release of Cooked, are all New York Times bestsellers, and his doctrines, rules and personal policies have garnered immense public attention, leading to endless watercooler discussions about the pathetic American diet -- and how our country's tainted food landscape has become "needlessly complicated" amid "pseudoscientific food baggage" and the so-called "experts advice telling us how to eat."

See also:
- Fuel's Bob Blair on cooking for Michael Pollan
- Michael Pollan: The food industry creates patients for the health care industry
- Where did Michael Pollan eat post-Denver speech? Fuel Cafe

More »

Cast-iron cooking is an art unto itself, as any Sister on the Fly will tell you. And members of the nationwide sisterhood of adventurous women who caravan together in vintage trailers all over the U.S. spend a lot time perfecting their camp cuisine.

Local author Irene Rawlings, a Sister herself, pulled together Cast-Iron Cooking With Sisters on the Fly, a book of recipes from her fellow canned-ham travelers; she'll be signing copies at 7:30 p.m. tonight at the Tattered Cover LoDo. For added atmosphere, a few sisters will be parked outside with their brightly decorated trailers, but if that's not enough impetus to get you down there, read on for a recipe preview. Be a happy camper!

See also:
- Cast-Iron Cooking With Sisters on the Fly
- Cooking with Pete and Barb Marczyk: lemon pound cake
- In the kitchen with Patxi Azpiroz, chef of Patxi's Pizza: meatballs

More »

When Carolyn Aloisi Magro was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2005, her daughter, Barbara Magro, noticed that one of the first things she was forgetting was how to cook. Her mother had always been in charge of family meals, and now her recipes were in danger of being lost. So Magro decided to capture her mother's recipes while she could still remember them, working with other family members to record them. And now she's turned the collection into a book, Recipes to Remember: My Epicurean Journey to Preserve my Mother's Italian Cooking from Memory Loss.

See also:
- Muy Bueno cookbook shares recipes and memories from three generations
- The Sweet Basil Cookbook debuts just in time for the 2012 holidays
- Remember When - A Colorado nursing home explores new territory for treating Alzheimer's patients: the past

More »

Sweet Basil.

Vail's Sweet Basil restaurant produces some beautiful dishes, like their signature cauliflower and black truffle bisque, crispy veal sweetbreads and Greek yogurt cheesecake with honey-poached blueberries.

And on November 20, owners Kevin Clair and Matt Morgan, with executive chef Paul Anders, will spill their sweet, savory and spicy secrets in The Sweet Basil Cookbook.

See also:
- Hush "spring chicken" dinner with Sweet Basil chefs was windy, but the dishes flew right
- A Flavor for Vail
- Taste of Vail

More »

Photos by Jeanine Thurston

Old family recipes written on yellowing note cards can be easily forgotten, never to be cooked again. Yvette Marquez-Sharpnack didn't want that to happen to the recipes of her mother and grandmother, so she decided to write them down. But her small family cookbook grew into a larger project that caught the interest of a publisher, and now her family is sharing recipes with the whole country.

See also:
- Deck the shelves with boughs of cookbooks: Local chefs sound off on their favorite culinary reads
- In honor of his Taco USA, the Mexican sounds off on Mexican food
- Los Carboncitos - Everything's better with bacon.

More »

Taylor Stephan was living in a house with five other guys in Boulder, and they had a problem: how to feed themselves without staring into the uncaring face of the Maruchan kid night after night after night. And so he learned to cook. "Instead of eating out all the time," Stephan says, "You can make food for yourself, healthier and cheaper."

See also:
- Tonight: Award-winning cookbook author Diane Morgan at Tattered Cover
- Westword cover girl Claudia Folska's cooking show is a play on words -- and local food

More »

The Tattered Cover at 2526 East Colfax Avenue welcomes acclaimed foodie Diane Morgan this evening at 7:30 p.m. The cookbook author, culinary instructor and restaurant consultant will be signing and discussing her latest book, Roots: The Definitive Compendium with more than 225 Recipes.

More »

Doron Petersan is the owner of Sticky Fingers Sweets & Eats in Washington, D.C. -- but folks around here might know her better as the vegan cupcake warrior who slayed the Food Network's Cupcake Wars and Cupcake Wars All-Stars competition, alongside Sticky Fingers' head baker Jenny Webb.

Petersan has become a cupcake celebrity -- thanks to the Food Network, such a thing is now possible -- and a hero of the vegan community for her steadfast refusal to use any animal products in her recipes. Tonight she's rallying like-minded locals -- including Beet Box and Vegan Van (a Westword Best of Denver 2012 winner) -- in support of her 7:30 p.m. appearance at the Tattered Cover, 2526 East Colfax Avenue, where she'll be signing copies of her new cookbook, Sticky Fingers' Sweets: 100 Super-Secret Vegan Recipes. We recently caught up with Petersan to see if she'd spill some secrets in advance.

More »

With Memorial Day comes the start of camping season, and here's a new tool to put in your pack: Patty Ruwoldt's Open Range Cook'n: Home on the Range Cooking Made Easy -- A Camp Cook's Guide to Tasty Vittles. Not only does the book include recipes for satisfying meals you can cook in the great outdoors, but also songs and snippets of folklore that should spark up those late-night campfire sessions.

We caught up with Ruwoldt to talk about camping, cooking and the art of conversation, and she gave us an al fresco recipe to share: chicken stew for two.

More »