Adventure of the Senses: Denver and Boulder, Colorado.

For those of you that know me, you know that my 9-5 involves event planning and marketing of the virtual variety. To date I have produced hundreds of webinars and 95% of those were done with the technological support of our preferred vendor and partner, ReadyTalk. Our relationship with them has strengthened with time, and we've met so many great people (and have eaten so many great meals) when they've come to visit us in Chicago.

So, when they graciously extended an invite to our online events team to come out for an open house at their new offices; and to meet face to face with some of their strategic/sales teams, we couldn't say no! Obviously this was a business trip, but it was mixed with a ton of fun, some amazing food experiences and a little adventure in the Flat Irons of Boulder.

But before I chronicle the past few days, I have to go back a few years to my first visit to Denver and Boulder. In the fall of 2009, I had the pleasure of stopping at ReadyTalk on a short 36-hour trip while en route to Santa Barbara for a wedding. This trip, too, was filled with great food and a dinner at Jax Fish House & Oyster Bar, which really put Boulder on the map as a little untapped foodie paradise. I wish I had documented it then, but I had the most amazing meal - a first course of the most decadent Butternut Squash Soup topped with Smoked Trout, followed by an entree of Fennel Pollen Dusted Sea Scallops (which were seared to perfection) served atop a Sunchoke Puree. I still remember it to this day, which I think speaks volumes since I've had a lot of great meals since!

Fast forward to this trip and the experience was no different - on Wednesday night we arrived and enjoyed coastal Mexican food at Lola (located in the adorable northwest neighborhood LoHi), where we had an amazing ceviche flight as an appetizer and I dug in to a bowl of Caldo de Mariscos, complete with saffron broth and bread to soak up the yumminess!

On Thursday, following our day of meetings, new office tour and a open house party, my colleague Anna and I went to dinner with some of the RT team at Linger (located in LoHi). This place was really cool, not only because of their tapas-style food and drink offerings, but because of the semi-creepy history behind it. Here's how Eater.com put it when it opened in June of 2011:

"The former site of Denver's historic Olinger Mortuary is now a new bar and restaurant called Linger. Rather than being skeeved out by the building's history, chef/owner Justin Cucci has embraced the concept, darkening the first letter of Olinger's prominent neon sign to name his place, and changing the word "mortuaries" to "eatuaries.'
The body of Buffalo Bill reportedly spent six months in the space in 1917. Fortunately the restaurant, which has a menu divided into different regions of the globe, avoided the temptation to give creepy names to the cocktails, or include buffalo wings on the menu."

Cool, huh? I thought so!

And despite the indulgence of the day and early evening, I really enjoyed the overall experience at Linger. They even customized some of the tapas to my pescatarian diet, which was nice since I was able to try a lot of the same items as everyone else. I would say a few of my favorites were the Masala Dosa, Roasted Beet Salad and the Seared Diver Scallops. After dinner we went up to the roof deck, which has an amazing view of downtown Denver and enjoyed one last cocktail (as if we needed more) before we called it a night.

Friday during the day was filled with some friendly competition with sales, detox yoga (we needed it!) and a hike at the picturesque Chautaqua Trail - of which I've included some photos for your enjoyment!

Notice a trend here? These were ordered at 3 different places throughout the trip, but were basically the same drink. Guess I have a thing for cucumber, lemon and gin!

Highlights from the trip - including a fierce game of giant Jenga, a hike and drinks, of course!

Friday night the Rocky Mountain culinary tour climaxed at dinner with a once-in-a-great-while foodie experience at Frasca Food and Wine (and it will get it's own post since it was THAT good!). Following dinner and full on decadence, we went to a hipster-ish spot called Bitter Bar for a last cocktail underneath the stars. It seemed like an apropo ending to a fabulous trip - I have to say a big THANK YOU to our friends and colleagues at ReadyTalk for showing us a great time. We can't wait to come back!  

Post Holiday Treats

Yeah, that's all I need right now... more treats.

Feeling sufficiently uncomfortable in my skin due to overindulgence in food and booze (cut to cliche of resolving to lose weight in the new year). Truthfully, I can't resolve to do anything right now unless it's less than a week away. There's too much uncertainty swirling around in this little head of mine to commit to more than taking each day as it comes and trying to better myself with each passing hour.

And speaking of, I am going to blatantly plagiarize right now by copying a section from a true artist's blog - there's none that's said it better when it comes to the new year - "Another year is fast approaching. Go be that starving Artist you’re afraid to be. Open up that journal and get poetic finally. Volunteer. Suck it up and travel. You were not put here to work and pay taxes. You were put here to be part of a vast organism to explore and create. Stop putting it off. The world has much more to offer than what’s on 15 televisions at TGI Fridays. Take pictures. Scare people. Shake up the scene. Be the change you want to see in the world. You’ll thank yourself for it."

While this is a total non-sequiter, I've fallen in love with a new online web series called 'Quarterlife". Given it's namesake, you can pretty much deduct that it has to do with twenty-something year old people and the drama they go through - but the approach to the series is genius - and so is the online community they've built around it. Video blogging...amazing. Check it out: Quarterlife

Happy New Year to you and yours...bring on 2008!