Colorado Cottage Food

​ Home cooks are rallying at the State Capitol today in support of a bill that would make it legal for bakers and cake-makers to sell their goods directly to consumers. The bill would require certain information to be printed on the products' labels -- and would exclude baked goods of the "medical" variety. Cooks would have to register with their county or public health agency and pay a fee of no more than $100. Read more on Latest Word.

Rocket Fizz Denver.

​It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that adults love candy and soda pop just as much as kids. According to Patrick Evans, owner of the new Rocket Fizz Soda Pop and Candy Shop at Writer's Square (technically 1512 Larimer Street), the majority of his customers are between the ages of thirty and eighty.

"The public response to the store has been so overwhelming," muses Evans. "We've tapped into everyone's inner child."

Rocket Fizz is a sweets franchise whose flagship store is in Camarillo, California. Each shop is independently owned and operated; Evans left a corporate-track career to run his own store. "I was a corporate accountant for fourteen years," he says. "It was a soulless, thankless job, and I thought, 'I gotta stop this madness.'"

More >>

J. Wohletz

​Sugarlicious, the sweet brainchild of Jill Landman-Alfond and her sister-in-law, Stacey Landman, is a boutique-style candy shop with upscale gifts, a smattering of gourmet kitchen goodies, and lots and lots of candy. The store is decorated like the inside of a girl's jewelry box (sparkles, glitter, shiny baubles) and houses something sugary for every imaginable taste: vintage favorites, European treats, gluten-free and vegan candies, and 250 bins of self-scoop candies that range from caffeinated gummy bears to chocolate-covered Rice Krispies.

"I stopped eating real food weeks ago," laughs Landman-Alfond.

More >>

Fruit drinks: Are they as healthy for you as you think?

​In one year, the average American consumes 45 pounds of sugar (enough to fill a wheelbarrow) -- and most of this is sugar we drink. Excess sugar intake is a driving force behind the obesity epidemic, and while soda gets scapegoated, the fastest-growing marketing sector is the so-called "fruit drink" (or "fruit drank," if you prefer).

Below is an infographic prepared by the folks at Health Science that may make you think twice before you order that Snapple or other fruity drink at the gas station.

More >>

​I tend not to like contrived and cutesy challenges, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching the chefs putting together cookies for Sesame Street's Cookie Monster and his friends Elmo and Telly when they visited the set of Wednesday night's Top Chef, seeing everyone's expression lighten suddenly as the Quickfire was explained, watching serious Richard in conversation with Elmo, hearing the Cookie Monster expatiate on the existential glory of the cookie.

It was odd hearing Dale say he'd never made a cookie before -- odder still that it was his sweet-and-salty confection, crammed with potato chips, that won. Antonia's offering sounded the most delicious, chocolately and sticky with caramel, though it wasn't the best- looking, and one of the Muppets compared it to a cow pat. Richard, who'd made ice cream disks with zucchini -- once again wielding those nitrogen canisters -- came out on the bottom, and so did Angelo.

And I think that's were Angelo's nerve began failing him completely.

More >>

Yigit Pura: How sweet it is!

​It's nice when contests end the way they should. Of the three finalists, Morgan is the master technician, cool and generally unflappable, and Danielle is strong on taste, not quite as strong on finesse. But Yigit, who has both heart and an impressive range of skills, wound up winning the first-ever Top Chef: Just Desserts title last night.

The last test was to make a four-course dessert tasting menu. For the prep, the finalists were given sous chefs, all highly respected professionals. Morgan got Claudia Fleming, a traditionalist baffled by his molecular gastronomic approach (I know no one actually says molecular gastronomy any more, but I don't know what else to call it). She disliked his macho posturing, and they didn't work together well. Danielle was paired with Elizabeth Faulkner, who willingly and good-naturedly shelled hundreds of pistachios for pistachio ice cream. Yigit's sous was Sherry Yard, and you knew they were off to a good start when you saw them actually dancing together while they prepped.

As for concept: Danielle went for flavors she loved and knew would work well, beginning with a cheese offering -- hazelnut cake with Spanish goat cheese and fig jam. Yigit's fanciful notion was that he was taking the judges out on a date, starting with flirtation -- cucumber-lime sorbet -- and ending with a satisfying, let's-go-home together hazelnut dacquoise with milk jam and caramel ice cream. Morgan wanted to take it to the max: Rather charmingly, he envisioned light broken into layers of color. His first offering, a passion fruit cannoli with mango carpaccio, fluid gel (I've always wanted to taste fluid gel, haven't you?) and tarragon jelly, and his last plate, which featured a perfectly layered baumkuchen and an impeccable square of transparent caramel laid over creme brulee, were visual poetry. Ironically, given his mastery of chemistry, he was brought down by a very traditional sweet: His chocolate souffles fell, and some were undercooked.

More >>

Will these truffles take the cake?

​ And then there were three ...

Yigit tried too hard, Morgan didn't try hard enough, Zac pretty much gave up and turned his failed 61st anniversary cake into a messy kids' romp at the beach. And Danielle -- the girl with the rubbery face and the "Oh, well" attitude, Danielle who we've all been expecting to go home from day one, Danielle who made the edible dress that looked like something thrown together by a bunch of drunken sorority girls -- Danielle won the cake challenge and is one of the three finalists. She jumped up and down like a happy three-year-old when she heard the news.

More >>

Zac's dessert was Inspired by the Pink Panther

​I really like this batch of contestants on Top Chef Just Desserts -- well, perhaps not "I focus on me" Morgan, who does seem to be a bully in the kitchen -- and also the general dynamic among them. Several are clearly fond of each other, and almost everyone is genuinely sorry when someone gets sent home. In fact, it was his affection for Heather, eliminated last time, that almost brought Yigit down this week, when he was called before the judges for his half-hearted Elimination Challenge sweets. "I completely came undone," he said, "and that directly translated to my food."

What I don't like so much is the shallow whimsicality of the challenges.

More >>

Erika Davis's blue cheese milk chocolate soup

​This week's Quickfire challenge was to make desserts using savory ingredients and -- the really hard part -- only one pot. "I'm used to having all these fancy little tools," mourned Zac, while Morgan, unable to use an ice-cream maker, tackled liquid nitrogen, which he'd never worked with before.

I know the lines we draw between sweet and savory are arbitrary: Traditionalists regularly use lard in pie crust, and the English make delicious steamed puddings with suet; we put carrots in cake and sweet potatoes in pies; mince pies used to contain real mincemeat, and some still do; sugar gets sprinkled on meat dishes in Morocco. We're increasingly aware of the way a little salt heightens the pleasures of chocolate and caramel; I've tasted bleu cheese ice cream; and bacon crops up in all kind of desserts these days.

But I still have qualms. Yigit's dessert with foie gras and bacon? I'll take the judges' word that it was delicious.

More >>

​The very wealthy have played around with their food for centuries. Think of those crazy medieval dishes: real birds baked into pies, swans stuffed with edibles and brought to the table dressed in their original plumage and looking alive, a cock dressed as a knight -- tiny spurs and all -- and mounted on a roast pig "horse."

While, of course, the peasants sated their hunger with slops and coarse bread.

That's what last night's Elimination Challenge on Top Chef Just Desserts reminded me of. The mission was to create an edible dress, along with a couple of petit fours, all inspired by a pair of killer shoes -- the kind with heels as high as a church steeple.

More >>