It is truly a sad day in Colorado today. The Rocky Mountain News, a celebrated newspaper shut it's doors just a few days prior to their 150th birthday. I grew up with the Rocky, I used to read it every morning on the bus on the way to school. After I moved down to Denver I became enthralled with the food reviewer John Lendorff. He always explained everything with such passion and insight. I have a few funny stories about John. I use to work for this crazy owner ( who am I kidding all owners are crazy) that would sit outside a local radio station and snap pictures of the food reviewers as they came out from doing special programs with Gabby Gourmet. We had a whole wall of profile shots and makes and models of the cars they drove. Pretty crazy right? Well I never had a picture of John, all I new was that he was a heavier set gentlemen. John slipped into the restaurant with out anyone knowing it one night. Instead of posting his review, he called me the next day to tell me about his experience. How was the duck?"It was very good but the taro cake was horrible. How was the steak pizza? " It was OK, the blue cheese flavors did not go with the rest of the dish." I was so taken back that John would call me up and speak to me as a friend first. He still wrote about how bad the taro was and the pizza flavors but he cared enough about me to call and have a conversation. I finally got to meet John the other night. He looks nothing like what I thought he would. I gave him a giant hug and thanked him for all of his support over the years. He gave a glowing review to the James Beard House to get my father and I in the first time 8 years ago. I will miss reading his stories and his passion for gastronomy. I will also miss Penny Parker's column. She was the gossip columnist for the Rocky. I was one of Penny's spies letting her know about different events or people coming through Denver. You could not go a morning with out reading her buzz. I will truly miss their dedication to journalism. I hope they find homes doing something that they are passionate about. We will miss you Rocky
I met up with Curtis and Fernando and we headed down to the event. The building was amazing, it had a open glass lobby with little cubes that lit up like the water cube in China. We went up to the 40th floor where the NYAS is located. I found my package which had been dropped many times. It did not even look like a box anymore. I opened it to find that my meringue textures were broken but the cold items were still cold. I began to organize and gather my prep. Where is the fruit that was suppose to be delivered at 3:00? After I got set up I walked this amazing space and stared at the view. As the event grew closer I ran my speech through my head. Where the fuck is the fruit?
Out of the corner of my eye I see Mr. Harold McGee walk in. This man has inspired me on many different levels. First and foremost he has made me ask why and if I don't have a answer to try to find one. I wanted to walk up and have a conversation but I still needed to cut my fruit. Lots of people began to arrive and fill the auditorium. In the end the fruit showed up with about 20 minutes to spare. We cut it as fast as we could and we were ready for the flavor tripping party. Towards the end of the lecture I got up and talked about how I like to use the fruit. It was pretty amazing looking down at this scientific community and relating my experiences. After I was done everyone came into the lobby and experimented. It was a great event. After it was over I got to talk to Harold about a few therioes that I have. It was nice that he did not lauph in my face rather talked through my therioes with me. It was a plesure meeting him and Linda.
