Weekend Grilling Alert

If you like to do some grilling/bbq outside at the end of the week, here's a heads up that this coming weekend is looking abysmal for that, at least from today's perspective. Storms starting to develop Wednesday, then progressing seriously through Sunday. Enjoy today's beautiful forecast to get your grilling in!

Boulder A Kosher Wasteland Right Now

Happy Easter and continuation of Passover! We're planning a traditional Easter dinner today, with a beautiful ham from Whole Foods, golden potatoes with caper brown-butter crumbs from Gourmet magazine, and asparagus with balsamic tomatoes from Cooking Light. Since Easter brunch is also traditional but rarely done in the house, I started thinking about how to incorporate and easy one when a rather unorthodox idea for Easter hit me. Thinking about egg dishes, I remembered an old favorite I haven't made for many years, matzo brei, to which I was introduced by the Jewish family of a childhood friend. The basic idea is so simple, essentially a delicious riff on scrambled eggs. As I remember it, you get your raw scrambled eggs ready, then loosely break up an appropriate number of matzo crackers and lightly wet them before incorporating them, more broken up, into the egg mixture. Then just cook much like scrambled eggs, except the matzos will add so much more interest. I might add a bit of diced onion and/or Whole Foods' garlic granules to amp it up.

This idea sent me in search of a box of matzos on Friday, which was not only Good Friday but also the start of Passover that evening. At the Whole Foods on Pearl Street, I found the kosher food section completely bare, and the nice guy stocking an end-cap Passover display with what little they had left said they'd been completely wiped out. Not a matzo cracker to be seen in that store. Onward I went to the Sprouts on Arapahoe, where I wasn't able to locate a kosher section, although it might exist. Seeking help, I asked a stocker if they had matzos, and he drew a complete blank, saying he'd never heard of them (ah, Boulder). But he kindly went in search of a manager for further help, but since he couldn't find one, I struck out there too. In desperation, I moved on to the mammoth Safeway in the Meadows shopping center. There again their kosher section had been completely wiped out. A nice stocker directed me to another display near the bakery, but the only things left there were five pound packages (actually five one pound boxes wrapped together as one) of matzos. For something I haven't made in decades, I wasn't about to buy five pounds of matzos for it. Yesterday, my husband was in the vicinity of the Whole Foods in Superior, where he found a couple of boxes of matzos remaining (noting you had to be at least six feet to see them). Ironically, they were marked as not suitable for Passover, which might be why they were still there, but he fortunately grabbed one since that wasn't a guiding principle for our brunch.

So the moral of the story is that Boulder stores seem to be seriously underestimating the culinary needs of the local Jewish community and/or those of us with interests in exploring a variety of cuisines.

Taking Care This Weekend

Good morning, Boulder, as the snow starts to fly. If you haven't yet stocked up for the storm, it looks like you have a small window remaining to *very carefully* get your groceries in before the snow gets truly serious. Channel 9 is predicting 17.4 inches for Boulder by the time this thing wraps up. I'm set, with a beautiful organic chicken from Whole Foods' remarkable sale yesterday. It will be roasted along with some winter veggies like sweet potato, leeks, parsnips and the like tonight. For tomorrow, everything's in the house for corn and green chile chowder from the Food Network, drawing on my stock of roasted chiles in the freezer from last fall. Be careful out there.

Trader Joe's Confirmed

After all the rumors that Trader Joe's first Colorado store will make its home in Boulder, today's Daily Camera is confirming that it will be next year at 29th Street (evidently at the current site of Applebee's, which sounds like news to the Applebee's folks). You can read the full Camera article here.

Staying Well Fed On Friday

I usually don't even think about Friday through Sunday's dinners until Friday morning, but our Boulder forecast is suggesting planning ahead. With some significant snow expected starting tomorrow afternoon through Friday (here's 9 News weather forecast), I'm going to be sure to have provisions in the house to get us through the probable storm. Tomorrow's pasta is already planned and stocked, so I only have Friday to worry about. A quick Sunflower run before the storm should do me for spicy turkey burgers from Bon Appetit for Friday, with Sunflower's ground turkey breast 40% off. (I'll also grab a pound of the very lean grass fed ground beef from that same sale for a later idea.) They have organic yams at an excellent 88 cents a pound to roast in spear form as yam "fries," too.

Real Freeze Coming To Boulder

It's amazing that we've escaped it for so long in this glorious Boulder fall, but it looks like we'll get our first true hard freeze this Tuesday night into Wednesday, with Monday night looking pretty chilly as well. My herb pots have been spectacularly successful this year, but their time is nigh. I'm making pesto today and freezing it in ice cube trays for convenient access.

Revised Deal On Boulder Kitchen Tour

As I suspected, the BoCoDeal announced this morning for this weekend's Kitchens Are Cooking tour was faulty (see two posts below for the start of this). They have now revised their description to say that you get a pair of tickets for $18, not just one as it originally appeared, and indeed, that becomes a really good deal. See this link through tomorrow evening to purchase tickets for this weekend's tour, then get remodel ideas/enjoy cooking demos/go green with envy touring fine kitchens in Boulder, all for the I Have A Dream Foundation of Boulder County.

Boulder Kitchen Tour This Weekend

A benefit for the "I Have A Dream" Foundation of Boulder County, ten of Boulder's finest kitchens will be open for voyeurism and cooking demonstrations at the Kitchens Are Cooking tour this weekend. Their ad published in the Camera says that tickets are $18 each or two for $35. In a mysterious twist, today's BoCoDeals is offering tickets for $18, which it says is half price. That would be fine if you get two tickets with your purchase, but I don't see that anywhere in the description.

The Natural Foods Scene Around Boulder

Today's Daily Camera has a good article summing up all the expansion activity happening in our lively natural grocery store environment, including the super-sized Whole Foods under construction for the Pearl Street store, next week's opening of a Sunflower in Lafayette, and the reincarnation of our beloved Alfalfa's next spring, as I've already mentioned a number of times. What a great place to be a natural foods shopper.

Boulder: America's Foodiest Town

Yet another accolade for Boulder, Bon Appetit has named us "America's Foodiest Town 2010." Read the article as the author runs, bikes, and eats his way through town.

IQ in Boulder on the Decline?

Sometimes you just gotta wonder... I was in Whole Foods today, capitalizing on today's fabulous one-day sale on Rio Briatti fresh mozzarella (see the post three below this for details). I happened to see a woman put a container of Whole Foods own brand of fresh mozzarella, the 8 oz one that sells for $3.99, in her cart. I couldn't help mentioning that the same amount of fresh mozzarella was on sale today in ball form for only $2, half what her current choice cost. She replied, "Do you think that's a better deal?"