Goldilocks in reverse

Who knew that bears can find the refrigerator?

One of the things I hadn't heard a lot about prior to moving to Colorado were the stories of bears breaking and entering and raiding the fridge. It happened again this morning when an Aspen woman heard a noise and went to investigate. She walked into the kitchen and got slapped in the face by a black bear.

The woman was able to get away, her young son called 911 and the woman was taken to the hospital to be treated for cuts from the bear's claws.

Authorities say that in this case the bear found the sliding glass door unlocked and simply slid it open to gain access to the house.

Bears in Colorado at this time of the year spend 20 hours per day eating in order to consume the 20,000 to 30,000 daily calories needed to prepare for hibernation.

Pitkin County, which includes Aspen, has relocated 24 bears this year and has had to put down 12 bears, mostly for breaking and entering.

High Country

It is almost midnight Mountain time and I'm hanging out among the peaks in Colorado's Summit County. The windows are wide open as we expect a low temperature tonight in the 40s. We'll cuddle under blankets while we sleep. It is calm and a welcome break from travel schedules and suburban life.

We have no plans for this long weekend in the mountains. We simply want to be here. The five year old wants to hike. The three year old has a bum toe and wants to ride in a stroller. We'll have to find a happy medium.

On the drive up today, we stopped by the lake in Georgetown, Colorado and ate a sugar cookie. It was so simple. We didn't do anything elaborate. There were no picnic blankets or even any preparation. It was a family moment. We pulled off the highway, parked by the lake, got out of the mini-van and enjoyed being surrounded by mountains as we looked at the water and ate our sugar cookies. It was beautiful.

$10 for Breakfast food

The family would like to go out for breakfast food tonight. Unfortunately, I can only find one good local joint that serves great breakfast food AND stay open after 3:00 PM.

As a result, our choices are IHOP, Village Inn, Mimi's Cafe and Sam's No. 3.

Now Sam's is great but we were just there last week so I don't really want to go again.

I'll give $10 to the first person who can provide me with a list of good local restaurants within 20 miles of Lone Tree, CO., that serve breakfast food at night.

Avoid Cheap Tickets dot com

Cheap Tickets released their list of the top 10 places in America to enjoy bar-b-que on the Fourth of July. I've always liked bar-b-que but I learned a lot about it when I lived in Central Texas for eight years. If you are looking for red meat, then you've got to eat your bar-b-que in Texas, Missouri or the South.

One look at the Cheap Tickets list and even someone from Minnesota would realize that they haven't got a clue. Here it is according to the Memphis Business Journal.

10. Memphis
9. Little Rock
8. Charleston, SC
7. Cincinnati (Chili - not bar-b-que!)
6. Kansas City
5. Dallas
4. St. Louis
3. Washington, D.C. (Crabcakes - not bar-b-que!)
2. New Orleans (Really? I'm going for gumbo.)

and number one is almost too hard to type.








1. New York City

I want to write words that would upset my mother right now.

Here's how you do a top 10 bar-b-que list.

Fly to Austin. Sleep for as long as possible. Get up early, rent a car. Drive to every Central Texas town which has a name starting with the letter "L." Eat at each of the many bar-b-que joints in town. Make sure you get sausage if possible.

As you wind your way through Central Texas stop in Elgin, Gonzales and Marble Falls as well. Actually, just stop every time you see a bar-b-que joint. Finally, stop and pick up a six pack of beer and head for the Salt Lick in Driftwood. I know they've got one in the airport and one in Las Vegas but nothing beats the BYOB, Texas countryside feel of the original.


Finally, if you can't make it to Texas, I'd recommend Sonny's bar-b-que at locations throughout the South. Or you can stop in just about any city from Myrtle Beach to Kansas City and find much better bar-b-que than anything you'll ever find in NYC.

The problem with expectations

I'm in DC. It is a monthly trip I make for work. Last night, after attending a political event, I headed through the rain to Central, the new restaurant from Michel Richard.

Michel Richard is an excellent chef. I had a wonderful night, a few years ago, at his fancy restaurant Citronelle in Georgetown. After a multi-course meal by myself in the dining room, I asked the waiter if the chef was in the restaurant and if so if he would be willing to come out so that I might thank him for the meal. The waiter came back to tell me that the chef had invited me to join him in the kitchen at his table where he was about to eat dinner with friends. When I got to the kitchen, Richard had me sit next to him at his table and proceeded to order an entirely new multi-course meal of his choosing. I ended up having somewhere between 12 and 16 courses of food that night and the kicker is I had a different glass of wine with each course. It was (even with the wine) a memorable night! It was an honor and a lot of fun to get to visit with Chef Richard.

How good is Richard? He was recently named the 2007 "Outstanding Chef" by the James Beard foundation. It's the chef equivalent of winning the best actor Oscar.

So last night I went to his new restaurant.

The review?

The service was inconsistent.

The ingredients in the food were out of this world. It is amazing what a huge difference high quality ingredients make in cooking.

The food was very good.

It wasn't as good as Citronelle but this restaurant isn't supposed to be as good as Citronelle. My bill at Citronelle was well more than double my bill from last night. But the food was good. And I'll probably go back.

The problem, however, is that I kept having to adjust my expectations downward. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't at Citronelle and that I shouldn't expect that type or level of food. After all, this is a Michelle Richard restaurant. And that's the problem with expectations, isn't it? Once expectations are set, if they are not met, we get disappointed.

As for the coffee? It wasn't great. But the way things have been going with me and coffee I didn't expect the coffee to be great. Maybe the addiction is over.

Losing My Addiction

I haven't had a good cup of coffee in two weeks. At least I haven't had a cup of coffee that I've enjoyed in two weeks. This is a big deal. I'm a many multiple cups of coffee per day kind of guy.

The strange thing is that it doesn't matter where I get my coffee. It could be coffee I make at home, it could be at Starbucks or it could be at a fun little French restaurant on Capitol Hill. It all tastes bad.

Either my tastes are changing or something tragic has happened to all the coffee beans in Colorado and DC.

I'll try again tonight, hopefully at Central, a new restaurant from Michel Richard. The website says they take walk ins which is good because the website also says they don't have an open reservation until June 19th.

Pink, Blue, Yellow, White and...

If you look at the history of the obesity epidemic in the United States you can trace the almost the entire thing back to one plant; corn.

It was the introduction of high fructose corn syrup as a sweetener that helped spur the massive increase in obesity in this country. It seems our bodies metabolize the syrup in a different manner than we metabolize sugar. As a result, the more we replace sugar with high fructose corn syrup the more chance we have of getting fat.

Today, however, in an announcement that is sure to shake up the processed food world, Cargill and Coca-Cola announced they were working together to begin sweetening Coca-Cola products with a new sweetener. The new sweetener is called "rebina" and is a derivative of the stevia plant. It is reportedly 100 times more sweet than sugar. Cargill is also working on a new table top version of the rebina to compete with Equal, Nutrasweet, Splenda and natural sugar. I wonder what color Cargill will choose.

I haven't heard if anyone knows the impact of rebina on our bodies. According to Coke, Stevia isn't approved in the U.S. for use in food and beverages, but is approved in 12 other countries, including Brazil, Japan and China. Cargill is currently conducting clinical trials in an effort to get FDA approval to use the plant here.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest says that more tests need to be done before Stevia is approved by FDA. While there is no evidence that the plant causes ill effects in humans, CSPI says there are warning signs that need to be investigated.

Brain Power -- Eat your carbs

I'm reading the book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma." It is a fascinating look at how food is produced and consumed in the United States. This little nugget of information popped out at me last night.

"The adult human brain accounts for 2 percent of our body weight but consumes 18 percent of our energy, all of which must come from a carbohydrate."

What's interesting is that the author, Michael Pollan, also says that brain size and gut size are inversely linked in animals. The bigger the brain, the smaller the gut and the bigger the gut the smaller the brain. Animals with large guts and small brains tend to usually only eat one or two items. Animals (like humans and rats) with big brains and small guts tend to eat a wide variety of items.

Pollan says that zoologists theorize that the brain of koala bears has actually shrunk over time. It seems that koala bears' brains don't even come close to filling up the space in their skulls. He says that this shrinkage has happened as koala bears have gone from a diet that included a number of different plants to a diet made up entirely of eucalyptus leaves.

Here's to eating a wide variety of carbs!