This was one of the courses for the Gabby Gourmet dinner last night. I started by dehydrating roma tomatoes for 48 hours. I then placed them in the spice grinder with celery salt, Cayenne and sugar. We then sprayed vodka on the popcorn before it went into the liquid nitrogen. It was a hit. 
Gabby asked me to come on her show this past Saturday. We did a remote brocast from Snarf's, a sub shop on 11th and Ogden in Capital hill. I had the Italian, one of the best sandwiches I have ever had. This is Snarf, he is from Chicago and he knows a good sand.
This might be the most difficult job in any kitchen. She deals with my crazy dispositions, constant mood swings and hours that are never consistent. I met my wife in culinary school, she looked amazing in that jacket with her shy demeanour. We began to live and work together in a very demanding industry. We would lean on each other to get through the really hard times. I cannot imagine where I would be in my career without her support, she is the reason that I am where I am. It seems like it only gets harder, more hours, more stress but she always finds away to pull me back into the most important thing in this world, my family. Thank you Melissa, I love you
Chili calamari with avocado and fried yogurt
Heirloom carrot, curry jel, sweet pea powder
You rarely meet a line cook that does not have some crazy tattoo. Mike surprised me yesterday with this mustache on his finger. We talked about getting him a different expression on each finger. A living mister potato head
What a difference a few days off makes. I had a great weekend celebrating some friends birthdays along with my daughter and I. People often ask why I live in Denver and why I don't move to more of a culinary city. My answer is quality of life. I have visited many places and lived in a few but Colorado is the place where I want to raise my kids. The quality of life here is amazing. For example we have the best concert venue in the world at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. We saw OAR along with Brett Dennon on Friday night. I feel much more creative when I am rested. We are back to our regular tasting menu rotations.
Jonathan from Mile High Eater asked if I would come to the Erie library to give a molecular presentation to some kids. I had a few extra minutes to run up there between doing some wedding prep and schedules. I made pineapple bubbles with vanilla ice cream and home made sprite. It always amazes me the great questions I get from these kids.
This has become a favorite pasta sauce when we want a little Asian influence. It is a basic Alfredo recipe with the addition of grilled nori and sesame oil.
Pat invited us and a few other restaurants to channel 7 today to do a segment for Mother's day brunch coming up. I ran into Gene Tang of 1515 restaurant in lower downtown. I have not seen Gene since Ben Alandt worked there around 8 years ago. Seing Gene reminded me of Ben and all the great times we had together. I wonder if Ben is looking down on me lauphing his ass off. I was the chef that told him not to be to crazy when he worked for me at Indigo. Now I am that crazy chef, I miss you Ben. 
This is Jacob Williams. He is working with us for his day on the job project through Stanley Lake High School. What do I tell these young culinarians about my business. Don't do it unless you really love it. The hours are horrible, the stress levels are sometimes unbearable and if your looking to get rich, look somewhere else. I have a school demo coming up this week. The kids at Mckinley-Thatcher have challenged me with homemade root beer, should be fun to learn how to make it.
We will be starting a mixology program here at the hotel in the next couple of weeks. This is a Corona super cooled with LN with lime juice powder sprinkled on the frozen foam. There is nothing better then a super-cooled beer
I first heard about this when I did the miracle fruit demo at the New York Academy of Science. The premise is simple, some people have more taste buds then other people. It is believed that 20% of the population are super tasters, 60% are regular tasters and another 20% are non tasters. I have really never thought about the fact that a customer might not have the biological make up to enjoy a meal. Super tasters are believed to be attracted to the food industry either working in it or being a foodie. It would be interesting experiment to take a picture of all of the great chefs tongues to see if the theory is correct. My other thought would be to have a scanner at the host stand when the guest walks in. A kind of molecular finger print to determine someones taste profile.
We had a great class at Cookstreet the other night. We demoed everything from a A-1 sphere to the coconut air freshener. I have learned that it is very hard to pull off a class when I am not here at the hotel. The amount of equipment and prep I need to take is insane. Thanks to my wife for coming and assisting me again.
I should have kept my big mouth shut about not getting any snow. Last Thursday we had a good size storm that dropped around 20 inches. The hotel was slammed, we did around 600 covers for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That is the main difference from working in a independent. If I was in my own restaurant, I wouldn't have made it off the couch that morning. I would have called it a snow day but here at the hotel we have customers that are here everyday and when it gets really cold out we get slammed. I will have a small news segment on Wednesday on channel 2 in the 9 o'clock hour promoting the cookstreet class
We just purchased this water filtration/carbonation system for the restaurant. We now can bottle our own water in reusable glass containers. I am anxious to play around with the machine to see how I can implement it into our molecular work.http://www.naturawater.com/
This has become my favorite garnish for consomme. They actually look like little rocks sitting in the bottom of a pond. I use the cold oil method to make them. 1# of chives are blanched and shocked. They are then placed in a blender with a little water, honey and salt. I add a small amount of xantham to help keep the mixture emulsified. I then use a ration of .45% agar to the the weight of the puree. I then cook the mixture until it comes to a boil 
We hosted our parent companies awards gala here at the hotel last Monday night. The banquet room was transformed into this amazing set. I was asked to give a sorbet/floating food demo on the main stage as we served the final course. The next day I took a team down to the Curtis hotel to make our ulitimate wonton with soy bubbles for a reception for all of the Sage executives in town. For the most part it was a boring event except for a ballon animal artist and a guy walking around on stilts. I finagled the ballon man to make me a flower arrangement for my wife. The stilt guy was hillarious, he always had a joke about his height as he walked buy. "This is why I am so skinny" he yelled down to me. "I can never reach the food"I should have tackled him at the knee caps before I left but I had to be on my best behavior
I just planted this herb, tomato and pepper garden on the patio outside the restaurant
