Frasca A James Beard Finalist

Eater Denver is reporting that this morning, Boulder's own Frasca Food and Wine was named one of the five finalists for the James Beard Foundation's award for Outstanding Restaurant. With other contenders being luminaries from New York, Chicago and the like, Frasca is certainly putting Boulder on a prestigious map. Master sommelier Bobby Stuckey has already won a Beard award for Frasca for Outstanding Wine Program in 2013. Winners for this year will be announced at a gala on May 2nd.

Kudos To Pizzeria Locale

I'm usually too busy cooking at home to mention much about our vibrant Boulder restaurant scene, but I'd like to give a shout out to Frasca's Pizzeria Locale for making Bon Appetit's top five choices for one-page wine lists (check out the wine list itself here). You can read the article about the virtues of the slimmed down, well chosen wine list, mentioning Frasca specifically, in this article from the September issue of Bon Appetit.

A Green Bean Salad From Frasca

Local chef Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson of Frasca Food and Wine is getting national press again (certainly nothing new for him), this time appearing in an article in the August issue of Cooking Light magazine on cooking with the bounty from our local farmers markets. The market in question is of course our Boulder Farmers Market, and Lachlan's recipe is green bean salad with mustard crema. Hey, so that's what I'll do with all the green beans I bought at the Whole Foods one-day sale! Nice pics in the article, and my favorite Cure Organic Farm gets a shout-out as well.

Think Good Thoughts For Frasca

Let's all send our best thoughts towards NYC, where one of the five contenders for tonight's James Beard Foundation award for outstanding wine service is Boulder's own Frasca Food and Wine, Bobby Stuckey wine director. The competition of course is stiff, and includes Jean Georges of NYC, so let's send good vibes for a win by Frasca. If like last night's book and media awards, the Foundation should be tweeting the awards live, @beardfoundation (they'll also be blogging the results). BTW, in last night's awards, Saveur, one of my favorite magazines, did quite well, and Denver's Westword picked up an award, too.

Update - as previously tweeted (@WhatsCookinBldr), the award did go to Jean Georges. Bummer. Let's hope Frasca gets the recognition it deserves next year.

Wine Kudos for Frasca

Departing briefly again from home cooking, we're so lucky to have the restaurant scene that we do in a town the size of Boulder. Frasca continues to make headlines, this time in the wine department. Last week, the news was its being named a finalist for the James Beard Foundation's outstanding wine service award, so stay tuned on that one. Today, I opened my April issue of Food & Wine magazine to find an article on food and wine pairings that names five "pairing meccas" across the country, and you guessed it, Frasca is one of the five. Wow.