Berlin's temporary Thai-town

Today, we went to Thai Park. This made me very happy.

When we first arrived in Berlin nearly a year ago, we simply expected that it would be filled with great foods from all over the world. After all, it's a big, hip, happening and perhaps even the coolest city on the planet. Therefore, we should be able to find some hole-in-the-wall, authentic-to-the-point-of-being-kinda-scary, Thai, Vietnamese or Indian food on every street corner. No?

No.

Berlin may be teeming with fantastic, cutting-edge art, dance, lectures, the opera, music and even -- as we experienced just a few weeks ago -- wild parties replete with Gypsy jazz in an abandoned insane asylum. But the food scene isn't quite up to par -- doesn't even touch Portland/SanFran/Berkeley/LA. Sure, we've found great Lebanese fare, and stumbled upon a sublime Italian restaurant not far from our house. But the offerings from Asia have disappointed. They are bland or overpriced or laden with so much MSG that Wendy slips into a hallucinogenic daze shortly after eating.

Dong Xuan Center.

So, last December we headed way out into the East and visited the Dong Xuan center. It's a cluster of kind of rough-looking warehouses nestled amidst the bigblock apartment buildings of the former DDR, and serves as Berlin's Vietnam-town. Even on the coldest day of the year, with snow piled everywhere, the place bustled. Long hallways are punctured with doorways leading into shops, some tiny, some huge, that sell wholesale clothing, nail salon supplies, cheap plastic items and groceries. A guy can buy a live carp and a cucumber-thingy that resembles extra-terrestrial genitalia, get a haircut and a manicure, and buy a Gucci knockoff, all in one building. And it has restaurants, too. Delicious. Authentic. Cheap. But soon after we began the long trek home, the MSG -- or something -- kicked in, and Wendy tried to pick a fight with a lamppost that she mistook for a Neo-Nazi.


If Dong Xuan was good, Thai Park was way better. We'd heard about it long ago: A park where a bunch of Thai people gather and sell food. I envisioned something like the local Turkish market, only with Thai food and goods sold out of kiosks and booths instead. But when we wandered into Preußenpark, we quickly realized that we were in for a brand new experience.

There are no booths or kiosks here. Instead, the vendors set up on blankets and under umbrellas on the ground, and operate out of minimalist camp kitchens that are at ground level (all the cooks are actually sitting on the ground, operating little charcoal or gas fired grills). It's totally illegal, I'm sure. And eating there during one of the worst food-related e-coli outbreaks ever might not have been completely wise. Still, since the source of e-coli is still a mystery, we could be infecting ourselves with our oatmeal each morning, so we figured we'd go for it.

Offerings ranged from a salty/sweet lime drink, to all kinds of alcoholic cocktails, to octopus on a stick, to what I suspect were fried bamboo worms. We got four pork satays, two rice puffers, two Thai iced coffees, three spring rolls, two bags full of fresh fruit, a bowl of pho-like soup with meatballs made out of what I think was beef offal, and a few other things. We spent no more than 20 Euros for the whole shebang, probably less, but as I was suffering from some weird infection of the eye, I was relegated to lying on the picnic blanket in a slightly feverish state, taking a bite now and then, and watching the surreal scene unfold before me, and didn't partake as much as I'd liked in the perusing and purchasing of the food.

Nor do I have any photographs, which is kind of too bad, but I'm fairly sure the dude who sold me the satay muttered something about the Thai mafia, my nostrils and live, flesh-eating worms if I were to somehow expose these open-air kitchens to the world.

So, instead of photos, I'll try to communicate what I saw while lying in the grass: The Thai folks sit in the shade of a rainbow of umbrellas or under the big trees, the light trickling down through the leaves. Out in the searing sun, the Germans lie out, one after another, offering their flesh up to the sun. Germans are always doing this, as though daring the skin cancer gods to punish them. The pungent aroma of marijuana smoke from somewhere nearby. When we arrive at noon, maybe 15 vendors are selling food. More and more arrive with each passing hour, including a group of kind of beady-eyed guys (see Mafia reference, previous paragraph) who quickly set up a square of folding tables encircled by folding chairs. It turns out to be some kind of gambling racket.

On the other side of us, a makeshift massage parlor has emerged as if from the dust and grass of the park. A Thai woman with cateye glasses vigorously rubs a nubile young German woman clad in a tiny bikini. My eye aches, and inexplicably, an epiphany: I should have become an accountant. The urge quickly disappears. Light trickles through the leaves, and the marijuana odor lingers.

Behind us, some older German folks have set up their own cooking operation, and they sit on parkbenches with TV tray things before them off of which they eat slabs of meat, very white bread, and potatoes smothered in a creamy white sauce. I'm not sure if this is an affront, or an effort to join in. A Thai woman walks urgently from blanket to blanket, carrying a big blue plastic trash bag. She's not collecting trash, but seems to be selling something from the bags. She doesn't stop at our blanket.

Ahhh, but the food. The food. Grilling, frying, boiling. Crispy, salty, sweet and sour. Meat and sprouts and electric-colored cocktails. I lie on the blanket and let the aromas waft over me. My eye hurts. But I am happy.

An apple in Naples

An apple. Two, actually, on a white plate. They were not sliced and put into some buttery pastry, or ground down and frozen into gelato, or zapped with some beam that broke them down into their pure molecular form. They were just apples, their peels -- a burnished off-red color with no shine at all -- completely intact. A long stem, with a leaf attached, still jutted out of one. We were in a dimly lit little osteria on a side street in Naples. The thick green glass of the label-free bottle was almost empty and our bellies pleasantly full. Donna Teresa, for whom the place was named and its sole cook, sat on a stool, watching her patrons. The waitress -- or rather, I suspect, Teresa's daughter, beautiful but who also looked tired and almost apologetic that her mother's food was so good -- brought us our desert: two apples, on a plate, with two knives. That's when I fell in love with Naples, a city of chaos and history and crime and beauty. A place where one's senses are constantly under assault.

My wife Wendy, daughters Lydia and Elena, and I had come to Naples three days earlier almost by accident. We flew into Rome, and intended to stay there for a week, seeing the city and its surroundings; I had hoped to find Rome's best gelato and Negroni. But Wendy has a hard time sitting still, and after a three-day whirlwind tour of the Vatican, the Forum, the Colosseum, "Invader's" street art, Trastevere and Testaccio; and after sampling several off-the-beaten path Roman rosticcerias, no fewer than eight gelaterias and a negroni or two, we decided to head further south. Naples was less than two-hours away by train, at just 57 Euros for the whole family. So, why not?

In retrospect, it might have been too much to go directly from the zurückhaltend populace of Berlin to Naples. Luckily, Rome helped acclimate us to what we would experience when we got out of the Montesanto metro station in a bustling hillside Napoli neighborhood: a full-on sensual battering. Bright orange storefronts beckoned. Through the window of a barber shop, we saw a man sitting helplessly in the chair, his hair half shorn, as the two barbers yelled and gesticulated frantically at one another. The smell of garlic and pizza and garbage mingled together in an olfactory stew.

The Google map had shown a mere 200 meter walk from the station to the bed and breakfast we had booked. It did not mention that the walk also included a 100 meter vertical climb, through narrow passages (I'd use the word sidewalks, except cars and scooters used them, too) that were paved with black volcanic stone worn shiny from a millenium of use and that did not easily accommodate the wheels on our low-grade luggage. Clothing hung above us from every balcony like awnings, and there was more graffiti than in Berlin. I knew enough Italian to ask an old guy in which direction we should go, but not enough to understand his answer, except that he kept repeating the word "funicolare." Later, we would discover what that meant: A cable-pulled train that makes climbing Naples' formidable hills a lot easier. We kept walking. The old man laughed, threw up his arms and pointed up the hill.

That was good enough. While our room -- the cheapest one we could find in Naples -- was not exactly plush, it was adequate. It's part of a building complex perched perilously on the edge of a cliff high above the city, and was also serving as the residence of three college-aged women studying at the local fashion design school. Andrea, the owner and a Naples native, is friendly, fluent in English, and gave us great tips on how to spend our time in the city, steering us clear of tourist traps. Indeed, as it was lunchtime when we arrived, he sent us right back down to the chaotic neighborhood below, where we ducked down a street so narrow that felt like night, at noon. After dodging several scooters and even a small car, we found the doorway to the olive oil shop next to the big shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary (these shrines, or madonnine, are everywhere in Naples, but this one was especially ornate). There -- the place has no name as far as we could tell -- we found a few tables, a woman slaving away in a tiny kitchen, fresh octupi piled up on a counter. There was no menu, but somehow we managed to stumble through the language barrier and get a lunch of simple pasta, seafood meatballs (I don't know what else to call them), a couple of plates of vegetables drenched in beautiful olive oil and a jug of wine, all for about $30.

Naples is steeped in some 3,000 years of history. Greeks settled nearby islands in the 9th Century B.C., where the Sirens had once lured sailors to their deaths on the rocky coastline,  and in the 5th Century B.C., Greeks founded the "New City" of Neápolis. Even after the Romans took over and danced a gluttonous jig on the Greeks' collective graves, the Greek culture persisted in Naples. Evidence of those early times can be found at Pompeii, of course, about half-an-hour by train down the coast. But better yet is Herculaneum, another city that in 79 A.D. was buried, and thus preserved, by Mt. Vesuvius' ash. Excavations began in the 1800s, and continue to today. It's closer to Naples' center, has relatively few visitors and is remarkably well preserved. Lydia and Elena refused to leave without seeing -- and narrating the significance of -- every room, every mosaic, every fresco. We were there for nearly five hours, seven if you include our trip to the National Museum and its artifacts from Herculaneum and Pompeii, not to mention that tantalizing "Cabinet of Secrets," full of Roman erotic art (kids not allowed).

Mosaic, circa 79 AD or earlier, Herculaneum.

One simply can't immerse oneself in so much history without fortification, so we made sure to stop and sit down -- okay, stand up, since that's what you do in Italy -- for caffe machiato and pasticceria. Our gluttony, er, gastronomical research, focused on the crostatta di fragola (tarts topped with what appeared to be wild strawberries), canolli and sfogliatelle, a phyllo dough pastry filled with ricotta and candied orange peel. In those narrow streets, under the watch of more shrines, it was easy to imagine eating an identical treat 400 years earlier, when these pastries were new -- sfogliatelle were reputedly invented in a convent in the heart of Naples in the 17th Century. In Naples time, that's a mere eyeblink. I suspect that 2,000 winters ago, the great poet Virgil sat at a Taberna in downtown Naples and enjoyed a plate of friarelli, a close relative to Brocolli Rabe that's rarely found outside the Campania region of Italy. Napolitans sautee it in garlic and oil, cook it with sausage and put it on pizza, which, by the way, was born in Naples.

Night, Pignasecca market.

Virgil, ancient Rome's most famous poet, wasn't born in Naples, but he penned some of his greatest work while living here during the 1st Century B.C. Virgil's epic poem, the Aenead, includes a number of scenes around the base of Mt. Vesuvius; Aeneas entered Hades to search for his father via Lago Averno, just up the coast from Naples.

Dante Alighieri drew on Virgil's knowledge of the underworld when he portrayed the latter as his guide through the Inferno.
Indeed, as I tried to navigate the dark forest of humanity that is the Pignasecca market, I summoned the guidance of Virgil. Maybe he wouldn't help me find Beatrice, but at least he could guide me to the next pizza and bottle of wine. Luckily, there in one of the city's oldest markets that runs every day, that wouldn't be difficult. The Pignasecca is a jumbled mixture of cheap plastic kitsch and Italian delicacies. Here, a man is peddling cigarette lighters; over there, a pig's head hangs in a window. Still-wiggling fish fill simple tanks at the pescheria, artichokes are piled high at a produce stand, and it can all be had at ridiculously low prices. We got dinner: a huge loaf of beautiful, wood-oven baked bread; marinated local artichokes; olives; salami; cheese; and wine, for just about $10.

Virgil is also said to be buried along the coast in Naples, his bones serving as protectors of the city. Attempted attackers are allegedly chased off by huge swarms of flies. The bones, I don't know about. The thing about the flies, I can believe. They emerge not from Virgil's remains, but from the mountains of garbage on many a street corner. Naples is perhaps as notorious for its trash heaps as it is for its pizza. In the mid-oughts, trash collection came to a standstill as landfills were filled to capacity and garbage workers went on strike. There's some sort of connection to organized crime here -- the city hosts one of Italy's most powerful crime families -- though I can't, for the life of me, figure out what that connection is. Berlusconi, apparently in between his dalliances with teenagers, cleaned things up in 2008, but the problem resurfaced just last year, after a proposal to build a huge landfill on the slopes of Vesuvius was met with riots. How this led to piles of garbage in Naples' streets, I'm not really sure. But, as an Italian told us with us a shrug of his shoulders during a moment of train chaos: That's Naples for you.

Street art in Naples.

That piece of wisdom came after an already long day on public transportation. As we were waiting for the metro to arrive, an announcement came over the loudspeaker, in Italian, of course, and incomprehensible to us, of course. Suddenly, everyone on our platform jumped down to the tracks, and ran across them to the opposite platform -- something you would never see in Germany -- and boarded another train. We followed, fearing for our lives. Then another announcement came, and about half of the people jumped back off the train, and ran back across the tracks. This scene repeated itself several times. A group of Italian musicians assured us that we were on the right train, and to stay put. They were right. I don't know why the other people were running back and forth. I don't know what was wrong with the trains. Nor do I know how the same pickpocket could work the same part of the train station day after day, without getting rousted by the cops. But there he was, first on Friday, then on Sunday. That's Naples, I guess.

And that's part of the reason Naples has a reputation as a hotbed of organized crime, petty crime and just outright chaos. Then there's the garbage, the big volcano, the huge fault line and the crumbling buildings perched precariously on vertical hillsides. All of which adds up to one big reason that a lot of people stay in Sorrento, or along the Amalfi coast, and just visit Naples for a few hours to eat some pizza.

Not us. We figured we'd do something like the opposite. We picked up one-day passes on the public transportation system for 4,70 Euros each (our nine year old was free, and the tickets are cheaper on weekends). That allowed us to ride a really slow train along the coast to Sorrento, via Herculaneum and Pompeii. Sorrento is clean, orderly and a cruise ship stop, meaning it's also a bit boring and overpriced (though beautiful). So, with our same one-day tickets, we boarded a public bus to, well, we weren't really sure where. It quickly filled up beyond safe capacity with very loud teenagers, including a kind of chubby obnoxious boy who kept yelling something about muzzarella, which I suspect has a broader, more crude meaning than just being a type of cheese.

The bus climbed, an impossibly steep, windy, narrow road that twisted through olive and lemon and orange groves and tiny villages, and offered a tremendous view of the Mediterranean, far below. Then it stopped at the top of the mountain, and we had to get off. Our hoped-for journey to the Amalfi Coast was cut short. We had boarded the wrong bus. We panicked. I think one of the girls started crying, or maybe that was me: The cafes were all closed for siesta.

Fortunately, after wandering around the sleepy little village for half an hour, we got on a bus going back down. Unfortunately, the bus driver was insane. As soon as we got on, he accelerated enough to throw us all back into our seats and caught up with the bus in front of us. Then, he engaged in what appeared to be a race or strange game of chicken with the other bus, passing those little Italian truck/scooter things that all the farmers drive on blind curves, tearing around the switchbacks way too fast, never falling more than a few feet behind the bus in front of us. Meanwhile the two bus drivers made faces at each other and gestured wildly via rear view mirror.

Procida, a 6 Euro, 40 min. ferry ride from just outside Naples

We survived, but we needed to get away from the cruise shippers. I needed a Negroni, truth be told, but would do with more caffe, a quiet beach, some gelato. All of which we found a few train stops away from Sorrento, at a town called Vico Equense. Getting to the beach here requires another steep descent on foot, but it was safer than the bus, and for the girls it was worth it: The beach was littered with sea glass and sea tiles -- pieces of ceramic tiles that had somehow found their way into the sea and had been worn smooth, like little pendants. We're convinced that we even found a piece of ancient Greek sea glass. Sitting on the beach in the day's last sun at Vico Equense, or the next day, on the island of Procida, which provided much of the setting for the movie il Postino, I could see why people might choose one of Naples' outliers as a base rather than the city itself.

As for me, I'll take Naples. It's scary, yeah, and disorienting and sometimes overwhelming. Its past seems to press down on you, its present has a darkness of its own. But it's also alive, fecund, raw and real.

Oh yeah, and then there's that apple. By the time we got back to Naples, we just wanted a quiet, simple meal, so we took the funicolare up to the relatively posh, somewhat calmer Voremo neighborhoodin search of a pizzeria. Elena spotted a little place with just a few tables and said, "Hmmm, this looks good." So we sat down. No menu, just two of each piatto to choose from. Wine arrived. Then a white bean, friarelli soup ("This is comfort food," said Elena, "and I need some comfort.") A plate of roasted, marinated vegetables. Meatballs. And two plates of exquisitely tender, tiny octupi, cooked in a tomato-based broth.

And then the apples. Raw. Simple. Tasting of the earth, of this place, of this history.

See a video slideshow of images from our trip.

Pfifferling und Makrel: Saturday at a Berlin market

This is the time of year -- late July and early August -- when my home mountains of southwestern Colorado start getting hammered by the monsoon cycles and its regular afternoon rain showers. That's enough to coax the chanterelle and porcini mushrooms from the cool, moist forest floor, and to lure the mushroom maniacs into the hills. It's also enough to make a Colorado boy in Berlin a bit homesick.

Happily, we have a homesickness cure here: The weekly market. Just about every neighborhood, or at least every district, has its own market in some prominent platz or plaza at least once a week, usually on Saturday morning. Today, we found our favorite thus far, the Winterfeldtplatz market in Schöneberg. Dozens of tents and booths huddle around a grand brick church, peopled by peddlers selling everything from sunglasses to sausages, flowers to cappuccinos. Nearly every produce seller has a big bin of chanterelles -- Pfifferlinge* in Deutsch -- with their earthy aroma and apricot-like color. We planned on just picking up enough shrooms to make a risotto (the scorching temps gave way to cool rain and cloudy skies, making the idea of standing over a pot of cooking rice tolerable). Then we got hungry.

So we got some kind of middle eastern spinach-cheese pastry thing, and some pancakes smothered with sugar, cinnamon, plum sauce and vanilla. And then we found the fish: Sizzling trout and mackerel and trout cooking on a grill. The chef recommended the whole mackerel, and he was right on. Wow. We were told that this was an imported delight; Berliners are known for smoked or pickled fish (indeed, one can find nearly any variety of fish, beautifully smoked), while the Bavarians specialize in grilled fish. The only complaint is that we didn't find out that the guy two booths down was selling a nice chilled white wine by the glass until AFTER we finished the fish. Next time. But while we ate, a very nice woman told us about another booth that sold homemade bratwurst to die for. We just had to try some. On the way, we saw some cookies made of nuts, and coriander and cardamom and dipped in chocolate. Couldn't pass that up.

Finally, we got a bagful of chanterelles for a mere 2 Euro. Homesickness: Cured.

*Pfifferlinge/Chanterelles apparently came into season here right when we arrived, and the things are as ubiquitous as donerkebap stands. A lot of restaurants even have Pfifferlinge menus, with chanterelle pastas, salads, and schnitzel -- pounded, breaded, fried veal -- smothered in shrooms.

Blossom Sno Cones

Blame it on Fishtank Ensemble.

See, they played in Ridgway, in the Pickin' in the Park concert series, and Fishtank Ensemble rocks (gypsy style). And Ursula -- that's her in the picture -- is oh so sawcy. Yeah, that's a saw she's playing, and she can make it SING. So we had to go. Great concert (see that look she's giving me? Sizzling sauce). Much dancing.

On the way -- it was sweltering hot, you see -- we saw a big sign in Montrose that said "Snow Cones." Jay insisted we stop. We did.

Overwhelmed, I was, by the scene: Teenaged girls licking syrup off their lips while a mediocre jazz band played. Then there was the wacky flavor selection. Dragon's blood? Blue (blue???) coconut? I ordered some combo with Cajun (cinnamon) and Mango. Refreshing, but just not that tasty. Syrupy sickly artificially sweet.

What if? I thought. What if there was a snow cone stand that sold really yummy snow cones with homemade syrups, seasonal and local and the like?

Turns out, there's at least one other place like this, but it's way over in Kansas City, and that's too far to drive for a snow cone.

Then we started talking: What if the snow cones were not just ice and syrup, but actual snow cone CREATIONS? What if they were inspired by great art? Or literature? What if our cart flew under the radar, and it would show up randomly at selected places, with just a few select snow cone flavors, and people would find out where by word of mouth or our twitter feed? Like they're doing like crazy in the Mission of San Francisco (everything from a creme brulee cart, to a sexy soup cart, to salami cycle).

Yeah. What if? So, it's on its way. We call it Blossom Sno Cones. Best way to keep track of Blossom's awesome flavor ideas is to follow on twitter.

And, of course, we'll have to have a Fishtank Ensemble snow cone. Hmmm... something spicy, something fruity, something oh so saucy...

Alamos dos: Street food vs. ....

It's a lesson I've learned nearly every time I've traveled to foreign lands. And yet. With each new journey, I seem to lose the lesson, only to repeat the same mistake. I'm sure you've done the same.

Imagine the scene: After two days of driving, we arrive at our destination, a small town in northern Mexico. We pull the deerslayer -- our trusty but stinky minivan -- up to our friend John's humble casita. As soon as we drag our stiff bodies out of the car (followed by the wrappers from the only fast food place open in the Tucson region on Christmas Day), and into the distant clatter of ranchero music and John's dusty yard, which has been plagued by the neighbors' chickens, we are overpowered by the scent of guavas and limes and an undercurrent of smoke.

Something's always burning in Mexico.

Naturally, we eat street food. Carne asada, mostly, the kind you can get from a little nicho off the alameda from the young and unusually lithe woman with short hair died golden blonde almost orange and the big sunglasses. For five bucks we get a container of carne, a dozen tortillas, salsa, grilled onions, guacamole -- enough for four people.

What's not to like? But here's the age old dilemma: One day, we go to a small town in the hills. After a hike, our judgment impaired somewhat by sun, we stumble upon a restaurant that promises "gourmet international food." John says it's a five star establishment (judged by whom, I wonder, but don't ask). We look at the menu: twenty bucks a person, plus. Looks nice and quiet inside, with the promise of sophisticated conversation over wine. Just outside the restaurant, in the plaza, sits our alternative for dinner: A long, white table holding only several large jugs of red sauce with three bare lightbulbs strung overhead. Flames leap from a grill, black with many many uses. Two men cook something over the fire.

After a bit of back and forth and counting of pesos, we decide that the five star restaurant might be kinda nice. There is a logic to this decision that goes like this: If we can pay five bucks for a great meal on the street, then shouldn't a meal costing ten times as much be ten times better? It's based loosely on the axiom: You get what you pay for.

We sit down. We are immediately assaulted by the proprietor, who tells us how great his food is, how great his restaurant is, how everything is made by hand right there in that tiny little town. This is red flag number one (why's he blabbing to us instead of slaving away over masterpieces in the kitchen?). Still, the margarita is exquisite, the Chilean wine decent. Then the food comes: The garlic-saffron soup tastes suspiciously like french onion. The bread has a tight, bleached crumb (passable with a big coating of butter). The salad is fresh, but not remarkable. The chicken is chicken, no mas, no menos. Then dessert. The proprietor had promised that his chocolate gelato was "killer." So we ordered it. Or we thought we ordered it. Instead, we got vanilla ice cream (store bought, I'm sure), smothered with more talk from the proprietor, and then the bill, smothered with an obvious gringo tax that John and I paid just to get away from the guy's incessant, arrogant, blather. You get what you pay for.

What had we done? Our lesson learned, we've indulged in street food three times a day ever since. Lots of carne asada, sure, but also tacos pescado (frito), with crispy fresh salsa and cucumbers and onions and avocados and yellow sauce and pink sauce out of squeeze bottles and a Coca-cola from the old glass bottles. Bare light bulbs hanging overhead just a few feet from the cars cruising the alameda and the man with a blue cloudy eye looking out from the darkness of his pickup truck and the men in the white cowboy hats and the women glittering from their eyelids to the sparkly studs on their black jeans sticking to every curve and fold and the competing ranchero music and a little brown bag of churros crispy and still hot, their grease seeping into the bag, and Negra Modelo in a bag of ice and lime and chiltepin hot sauce so hot "I can feel it my chest" says Wendy and the bus station across the street lit up and cold and, next to the Tecate store, in a sunken empty lot, a canopy with candles burning and people sitting solemnly and silently oblivious the the carnival on the street paying their respects to the man or the woman or the child in the coffin under a shawl bathed in the orange light of the fake candles under the canopy in the empty lot next to the store where they sell Tecate and only Tecate, ice cold.

Barrel tastin' in the North Fork

Here's what's great about the place I live, known as the North Fork Valley in Western Colorado.

On a Saturday afternoon, I can head out into the 'dobes and shoot things amid rotting animal carcasses, garbage and a variety of abandoned appliances. An hour later, I can be in a setting that, to a foodie, rivals the south of France.

The 'dobes is an area of badland-like terrain, ubiquitous in this part of the state wherever irrigation doesn't reach, that is scruffy with scrub and dotted here and there with juniper trees and sage. There's one particular part of the 'dobes, not far from Paonia, that locals use as dumping ground, nightclub, shooting range and, apparently, a place to sacrifice both deer and Whirlpool washing machines. This Saturday, my daughter Lydia and I headed out there to practice archery with some friends. Scattered about were dozens of deer and elk bones, hides, and heads in various states of decay. It was tough to walk without stepping on a hair-covered skull, or a still meaty ribcage. And the ground -- grey brown by nature -- was instead green, red and metallic, thanks to a plethora of spent shotgun shells and Keystone Light cans. But it gave us plenty of things to shoot at, including an old air filter that we threw up into the air and tried, unsuccessfully, to take down in flight.

Within an hour after returning we were here:


The cave, or cellar, of Alfred Eames winery. Eames, who produces the most consistently delicious wine in the valley -- and perhaps the state of Colorado -- held his annual barrel tasting event this past weekend. On hand were Joe and Corrine Coniglio, of Roubideau Farms, with their very French raw goat milk cheeses. Eames gave us a taste of Merlot from the barrel (it had a very raw taste to it; unrefined; rustic; and for some reason reminded me of Jean Giono, the great French author. A lot about this area reminds me of Giono, who often writes about places in France where farming and nature collide -- in a nice way.


Plenty of other tasting -- from bottles, not barrels -- was to be had. The Pinot Noir is a favorite of mine, for no other reason than the grapes all are grown right here (it's too cold to easily grow Cabernet Sauvignon or Franc -- those grapes are imported from Palisade, over the Grand Mesa from here).


But that wasn't all: Delicious Orchards had its own open house tasting. I once referred to this place as a "fruit stand," which is partly true, but doesn't get near the reality. It's really a full-blown local grocery store, general market and wine bar (with gin and vodka, too!), located just outside Paonia. They even have an entire wing devoted to yarn and knitting.


I tasted a fair number of wines, but my favorites there were the Stone Cottage Cellars Syrah and the Bethlehem Syrah/Cabernet Sauvignon blend. Both have a lot of character to them.

Today, I didn't get to go dance around on deer carcasses. But I did get to enjoy the fruits of my tasting labors of the night before. I cooked up a flank steak (local) with mushrooms and arugula (local) -- really quick and easy recipe, if you want it, let me know. Some delicata squash (local). We accompanied it with Eames's Menage (which is a spicy, forward threesome in which Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot come together to create a whole much bigger than the parts) and had a Coniglione Tomme goat cheese for desert.

Lovely.