September!

September was one hell of a month!! Events, offsite, weddings, rehearsal dinners, buyouts... Is't September a slow month in the restaurant industry!?!
My 3 favorite moments of September:
Suburban Home Records Sweet 16 Brunch (since I couldn't make the actual shows, ha!)
Flavors of Denver
9News Saucy Affair

First was the Hangover brunch. You can read about that in my previous post. :)

Flavors of Denver was an absolute blast! The event had 20(?) of Denver's chefs cooking a four-course dinner paired with wine tableside for 10 people, each paying $400 a seat to raise money for the American Liver Foundation. We all made a passed appetizer for 100 people as well.

Schmoozin' my table

My menu was as follows:

Passed appetizer: Wonton chip topped with avocado goat cheese and pickled corn salsa

First course: California caesar with fresh berries tossed in plum aioli, served in romaine leaves with mandrin oranges.

Second course: Poblano crab bisque

Third course: Soy marinated portobellos, wasabi hummus, sweet ginger bechemel

Fourth course: Sake-cilantro marinated beef tenderloin, seared sweet potatoes and onions, jalapeno soubise

It was a very hectic day, but so much fun!







Two days later I participated in the 9News Saucey Affair. 15 Chefs come up with an appetizer and, most importantly, a sauce to top it off with. I did root-beer braised ribs with a sweet poblano BBQ sauce. After setting up and getting rolling, Andrew Lubatty, executive chef of the Avenue Grill, came over to my table. His stove burned out and  asked if I could spare one of my burners. I use Coleman camping stoves for offsites rather than the single german stoves, so I cleared my burner and hung out with him for the remainder of the event talking about food, offsites, the Denver scene... it was great!! The night couldn't have gotten better...


til the head judge approached our table. "excuse me, how do we spell your last name?" I had won the judges choice for the event!

So what do you do when you win a bowl with a golden whisk trophy?

You take a shot out of it!

I'm not going to say I'm going to miss this crazy ass September, but man was it a fun one!!!

Suburban Home's Sweet 16

Sitting at home on this fine Sunday afternoon and trying to get over the flu, I realized I have had a couple of posts I've been meaning to write but haven't had the time, especially this month! It's been a crazy month with a lot of events, but one of them was especially important to me.

Growing up in Blackhawk as a little punk rocker was a very lonely time. In my K-12 school of 500 students, there was plenty of rap and rock fans, but for someone who could care less about the new Nelly or Nickleback album, there wasn't a lot of musical camaraderie to be found. I carried my discman with me between every class and had my headphones around my neck from 8-4 every schoolday, which was fine with me, but finding new music proved difficult when it was just me.

Keep in mind, this was back when chat rooms were still the thing to do... well... were they ever really "the thing to do?" Anyways, nights at home would often be spent watching Adult Swim back to back to back and sitting in AOL's Denver chat rooms. I was like the coolest kid I know...

I happened to start talking to an individual who was a huge Snapcase and Zao fan from Denver. I don't remember his name, but I'll never forget the website he recommended to me:

www.suburbanhomerecords.com

This was back when the entire website was black and white and Virgil went through the trouble of posting damn near every show that came through Denver on it. Had it not been for finding that website, I can't imagine how many of the shows that I attended that made my entire adolescence tolerable I would have missed. The only contact I had with Virgil at that time was when I was trying to get our medicore-yet-best-times-of-my-life band signed to SHR, ha! I think I checked that website more at that age than anyone now checks their facebook...

Fast forward a few years. A few of the local bands that I grew up to and loved were all part of the Denver scene that, high times and low times, has always seemed to be kept breathing by the hard work Virgil has put into it. I ended up, mostly through Andy Thomas, meeting Virgil, as well as and Scooter and countless other people who played in bands I listened to in rotation with Strung Out and A.F.I., making me view them in that little-kid-meeting-a-rockstar fashion. It was amazing hanging with friends and end up talking over drinks with the same people that I listened to over and over while walking up and down the halls through highschool.

Forward more to this September. Virgil had contacted me about holding a hangover brunch at the Lobby for the Suburban Home Records Sweet 16 Weekend. I can't tell any of you how proud I was he contacted me and excited I was to finally be able to put something together to show my thanks for all the hard work Virgil has put into Suburban Home Records and the Denver scene.

September 10th definitely went down as a great day in my book. While I was too busy to get upstairs and really enjoy it, I am so stoked that I got to be a part of that weekend. Thank you Virgil and everyone that is, and was ever part of Suburban Home Records, be it an employee, a band, or even just part of the scene.

If you’ve got the stamina, Virgil invites one and all to the Hangover Brunch, which starts at The Lobby at 11am on Saturday, September 10th. Head Chef Nate Gravina will be whipping up some Bananas Foster French Toast, Bacon, 2 Eggs, and a special cocktail (all for $12). “It's exactly what you will need after the first night of the Anniversary weekend,” says Virgil.