ISSUE #1: Sugar, Spice, Slice of Life
The Real Housewives of Orange County Eat Aspen! Plus: Dining legends lost, Jerome's greenhouse harvest, breakfast with horses, ski-training fuel, and the fluffiest pita bread
Hello, Aspen food fans!
October 22, 2021: Welcome to *ISSUE #1* of Amanda Rae Food, a Substack e-zine presenting the fresh scoop on Aspen. This newsletter idea has been marinating in my mind for years as I’ve eaten my way through Aspen as a freelance magazine journalist. Still, as soon as I announced the launch of AmandaRaeFood.com in my final Aspen Times Weekly “Food Matters” column, I panicked: What the heck is happening, food-wise, in October in Aspen? It’s about to be deep offseason….
Turns out, a lot is happening right now, quietly, behind the scenes. Change is happening. I’m editing a dining guide that will join my site soon, and it’s alarming to see, at-a-glance, how different our dining landscape looks today versus one year ago:
Farewell to Jimmy’s: An American Restaurant, Piñons, The Red Onion (expected to reopen in a year or two), Bamboo Bear, HOPS Culture, Tatanka Western Bistro, and SO Café by Epicure Catering at the Aspen Art Museum (new foodservice, possibly, after December 3). Winter 2021/22 newcomers include Aspen outposts of Catch Steak, CHICA, The Crêpe Shack by Mawa’s Kitchen, and (crushing it since summer) Casa d’Angelo. More about these in upcoming newsletters.
Speaking of change, ISSUE #2 will feature an exclusive interview with Tiziano and Enrica Gortan of L’Hostaria Ristorante, who announced on Wednesday that the local-favorite Italian haunt will close after 25 years on November 5, 2021. Judging from social media, Aspenites around the world are groaning in disbelief right now. How do we move forward with positivity? They have some soothing words of wisdom for us—stay tuned!
Got a hot local dining tip to share or source to suggest for a spotlight? Send me a note, I wanna hear from you: amandaraefood@gmail.com. And be sure to feed your friends by sending this newsletter along and urging them to subscribe, free for now.
Bon app from Aspen, A-Rae
ISSUE #1
Relax, Aspen: It’s The Real Housewives of Orange County
A catfight was essentially off the table. At least that’s what producers reassured French Alpine Bistro (FAB) owner Karin Derly, shortly before filming an episode for the upcoming Season 16 of “The Real Housewives of Orange County” on October 6.
“‘Don’t worry,’” Derly recalled, “‘they got it out of their system last night at Bosq.’”
A source who attended the Bosq taping confirmed: After breaking glass inside the dining room, the quarreling castmates took it out into the alley behind the restaurant. The facts on how the fight started are fuzzy. What was it all about? Cue the Bravo tagline: “WATCH WHAT HAPPENS!” (Season 16 premieres November 30.)
The FAB taping, meanwhile, was all smiles, Champagne, and friendly shouts of “More shots, more shots!” Maybe mellow thanks to the cast’s pre-dinner amuse-bouche à la Dalwhinnie Farms dispensary down the street? I was tucked among FAB friends (and a cameraman, for a spell) in a nook facing the central community table and overheard a glowing review:
“The escargots are like [those at] Pastis in New York—similar but different,” declared Heather Dubrow, dark locks coiffed into a high, sleek bun. Dubrow, who is married to celebrity plastic surgeon Dr. Terry Dubrow, returns to ‘RHOC’ this season after a four-year hiatus, presumably to spice up the series with her signature “Fancy Pants” pep.
Once filming wrapped, longtime ‘RHOC’ veteran Shannon Beador swanned over to my table. We jammed about food: Beador is relaunching her Real for Real Cuisine low-cal food line on QVC in January. She also teased her homestyle barbecued pork ribs, a family recipe she’d serve at the “Rack & Roll” rockstar-themed bash at her home in Newport Beach that Saturday, the season finale taping.
“I’m the silly one of the show,” she said. In almost the same breath, Beador matter-of-factly divulged that she’s also the first Housewife to speak openly about her (ex-) husband’s affair, thought to have begun the day she started filming ‘RHOC’ eight years ago. Her brand of raw vulnerability resonates with viewers, clearly.
Amid the revelry I did spy another Housewife grimacing and holding a plastic bag of ice to her forehead. No cause for chatter, though. She’d only bumped into the bistro’s low-hanging décor.
The Aspen episode of RHOC Season 16 is slated to run in March 2022. This is the third TV appearance for the French Alpine Bistro, named one of the Top 5 Most Romantic Restaurants in the US by the Food Network. The restaurant reopens for its tenth winter on November 27, 2021. frenchalpinebistro.com
Farmer Jerome’s “Catch of the Day”
Climbing the craggy, red-dirt road that snakes 7,200 feet above sea level on Basalt Mountain—20 miles from Aspen—one has to wonder: How can anything grow up here, especially in October?
“Forest garden” pioneer Jerome Osentowski’s five greenhouses, built on a shoestring budget since he founded the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute (CRMPI) in 1986, make it possible. In fact, the fruits of his labor are literally overflowing to the point that he’s offering “Catch of the Day” to adventurous chefs and home cooks.
Osentowski produces some 150 varieties of plants native to a wide range of climate zones, including tropical, Mediterranean, and warm temperate. “Pomegranates, cactus fruit, cherimoya, oranges, kumquats, papaya—some green, some ready to eat—lots of spilanthes, lemongrass, figs,” are harvesting now, he says. “And we planted 100 paw paw seedlings today in the nursery.”
Vegetables ripening on the vine currently recall midsummer in the Rocky Mountains: kale, basil, peppers, celery, salad greens, herbs, and, yes, tomatoes.
“We could be eating tomatoes in December because they ripen slowly,” Osentowski quips.
Contact Jerome Osentowski about “Catch of the Day” at CRMPI: 970-927-4158, jerome@crmpi.org. Read more about this local food leader in “Lush Life,” my Q&A in the Summer 2021 Issue of Edible Aspen.
Spicy Boxes by Susie: Pro Chef Meal Prep
Chef and CrossFitter Susie “Spice It Up” Jimenez knows that hiring a private chef to tackle time-consuming meal prep is out of reach for most folks (even in Aspen). So, in September she launched Spicy Boxes by Susie: heat-and-eat meals ready for pickup from fridges installed at Aspen CrossFit and Thunder River CrossFit in Carbondale.
“They’re inventive, delicious, and made fresh,” explains the chef and runner-up of 2011’s “Food Network Star” (Season 7). Prepared in Jimenez’s kitchen in Redstone, the meals are packed and delivered to fitness studios the same night, for pick up beginning at 5 a.m.—after a morning workout.
Each weekly menu features salads, grain bowls, and plant-and-protein-packed entrées infused with worldly flavor: Mexican, Indian, Italian, Japanese, among others. Think: salmon with tamarind-lime sauce and roasted green vegetables; beef anticucho with fingerling potatoes over lemon cauliflower “rice” with peppers and fennel; polenta-stuffed portobello mushrooms with chicken Parmesan; shrimp, vegetables, and vermicelli rice noodles tossed in ponzu sauce; and Jimenez’s signature vegetarian tamales (made without lard, natch).
The low-sodium, gluten-free meals typically include six ounces of protein (some clients split the meals for kids or light eaters), and most are made without nuts. “We are very conscious of dietary restrictions,” notes Jimenez, who invites prospective clients to inquire about ingredients. She hopes to expand Spicy Boxes by Susie to O2 Life and Pure Barre Aspen soon.
$54 for three meals ($18 each). Email: susiespiceitup@gmail.com
From the Horse’s Mouth
Strolling into an open pasture on a brilliant Colorado morning, grain bowls in hand, horse whisperer Gabrielle Greeves blows my mind.
“Not all horses eat apples,” she tells me. “I have horses that will sniff an apple and they’re like [wrinkles her nose]: No!”
Eating preferences vary widely among the “four-legged staff” at WindWalkers Equine Assisted Learning and Therapy Center in Carbondale’s Missouri Heights. Elder horses of all breeds and backgrounds come to this nonprofit sanctuary to help treat upward of 75 to 130 clients with a spectrum of cognitive, physical, emotional, and social needs each week.
Feeding is part of that: students gather food from the grain room, lead horses to munch on hay, and prepare horse treats from molasses, applesauce, oatmeal, pumpkin purée, and shredded carrot.
“The health of the horse is through the gut, the same way it is for us [humans], including individuals with disabilities,” says WindWalkers executive director Greeves, who works with veteran veterinarians and supplements horse feed with nutritious beet pulp, honey, and chamomile flowers. “I’m pretty serious about how I feed horses. At other times I give them exactly what they want at this stage of their life. It brightens them up.”
Seven-year-old thoroughbred Athena, for one, enjoys a raw farm egg, shell and all, in her morning bowl of grain. (She’ll kick it over in protest if the egg is missing, notes owner and WindWalkers certified therapeutic riding instructor Kristen Wolff.)
Others prefer avocados, watermelon rinds, or a Pop-Tart once a week as a treat. Not every horse will eat a peppermint candy when offered.
“There are no givens in this life,” Greeves says. “There is uniqueness. Relationship dynamics—[the horses] teach us all the time, in so many ways. Why can’t they teach us from a food perspective, too?”
ISRAEL CALLING: Jaffa Kitchen, El Jebel
This past spring—Aspen’s other offseason—I sat down with Israel-native Lior Lilah, and business partner Alexei Rotaru, who shared stories behind their authentic Middle Eastern fare at Jaffa Kitchen in El Jebel. One nugget: They scoured America for the fluffiest, leak-proof pita bread, sampling ~75 kinds before choosing a winner made by expat-owned Angel Bakeries in New York City (since 1927). Read more about Jaffa Kitchen in my April 2021 ATW “Food Matters” column.
Love it. Love you!! Keep it coming!!!! V