Next time you’re in Boulder, check out Fresh Thymes for a home cooked, allergen free food with quality, local ingredients.  The entire restaurant is gluten and peanut free, and most dishes are free from dairy and soy.  However, even people without allergies will delight in the food Fresh Thymes offers because it is simply good food anyone can appreciate.

The 6 philosophies Fresh Thymes is founded on are:

1. Skip food science.  The food doesn’t have any additives or unpronounceable, unrecognizable ingredients.

2. Eat like your great grandma.  Your great grandma didn’t have a diet full of processed foods.  Instead it was grass fed meats, pasture raised chickens, organic poultry, all natural cheeses and local produce and honey.  Fresh Thymes also believes this is what food should still be.

3. Call dibs on local.  Fresh Thymes uses local ingredients as much as possible, and has a goal to source at least 60% ingredients locally.

4. Listen to your body.  Stop when you’re full, eat when you’re hungry.

5. Show allergens the exit.  Fresh Thymes is gluten and peanut free and other allergenic foods are used sparingly and are marked on the menu.

6. Find better fats.  Fresh Thymes doesn’t use any canola or peanut oils- instead they use coconut and extra virgin olive oil.

New Happy Hour Menu

Fresh Thymes just rolled out a new happy hour menu that is available 4-6:30pm Monday-Saturday that includes small bites for $2 and specials on wine.

Must try items include:

-Anything with their steak

-Zucchini fritters with sriracha aioli

-Curry kale chips

-Chewy ginger cookies

-Any of their grilled pizzas

-Magic bars

Until Fresh Thymes opens a location in Denver, it is worth the trip to Boulder to check out this restaurant.  They are proving you can serve quality, healthy food that anyone can like- including those with food allergies.

Fresh Thymes is located at 2500 30th St. Boulder 80301 303-955-7988.  They are open Monday-Saturday from 11am-9pm, happy hour Monday-Saturday 4-6:30pm.

Conscious Drinking begins in The Kitchen

Wine on Tap

One of the first Colorado restaurants to subscribe to the local food movement was The Kitchen in Boulder.  So it is no surprise that they helped to spawn the local, sustainable drink movement as well.

The wine menu at The Kitchen reflects the restaurant’s sensitivity to just what conscious drinking is all about.  Under each wine, you will read the eco-friendly buzz words “sustainable,” “organic,” or “biodynamic.”  Their eco-consciousness does not stop there.  The Kitchen also serves Conscious Coffees, freshly squeezed organic orange, lemon, grapefruit, and apple juices, in addition to a local all-natural milk from a cow that may have very well been milked that morning.

Whether you are drawn to the local movement for reasons of taste, quality, or for personal values, there is no doubt that you will come to appreciate this movement as you sip on an award-winning, sustainably produced Persian Lemon cocktail.  It is guaranteed to leave you all puckered up, waiting to kiss the next glass of another sustainably produced drink.

Eat Local is Now Drink Local

Colterra in Boulder has taken the commitment to buying local products to a whole new level by purchasing liquors produced in Colorado so that diners at Colterra can even “drink local.”  Among others, Jack Rabbit Hill’s MEII Vodka and Leopold Brother’s 3 Pins Alpine Liquor are showcased in the creative infusions prepared by Colterra’s line of skilled bartenders.

Happy hour at Colterra should, and cannot be missed for its quality and affordable price.  Colterra makes it simple with giving you the choice of a Mediterranean French Red or a classic mix such as Sangria, a Cranberry Spritzer, Sweet Tea Lemonade, or a candy flavored Watermelon Lemon Drop.  All of these are priced at  just $4, with the wine costing only $5.  Equally affordable nibbles are available, ranging from $2 to $6.  The fall vegetable and Hazel Dell mushroom ragout or the grilled pear with gorgonzola and crispy polenta are both, of course, local and delectable.

Colterra is located at 210 Franklin Street, Niwot, CO and can be reached at (303) 652-0777.

For all of you “coffee-holics” Boulder is the place to go. Ozo Coffee located right on Pearl Street offers a coffee tasting on Friday’s at 2 pm at their Brew Bar. The tasting includes one coffee brewed three ways so that you can taste and smell the differences that occur with the various brewing processes. As you inhale rich, toasted hazelnuts with nuances of pomegranate and strawberry, one of their enlightened baristas will educate you on how the brewing affects flavor, body, and the coffee aromas that are filling your nose.

As you take in another taste, you may learn about some of Ozo Coffee’s farmers and families that trade directly with Ozo coffee, cutting out the middlemen. In this way, Ozo Coffee makes the ever-expanding world of coffee seem just a little smaller and more approachable for coffee-holics and novice coffee drinkers alike. If you are not from Boulder, this is still a epicurean experience that is worth the trip!

Ozo Coffee has three locations:

1015 Pearl Street Boulder, CO, and can be reached at (303) 645-4885

1898 S Flatiron Ct #110 Boulder, CO

5340 Arapahoe Avenue Boulder, CO and can be reached at (303) 440-0233

I smile as I take in a glass of wine at the community table at The Kitchen Next Door.  Somehow the wine has captured those nuances of flavor that arise from Colorado’s unique terroir.

The wine I am savoring is a Riesling from the Jack Rabbit Hill Winery located in western Colorado’s North Fork Valley.  With each sip I find the natural residual sweetness and the crisp, refreshing acidity that should be present in a wine from a winery that is just around the corner from a Jonathan Apple Orchard.

As I finish off my glass, I peer once again at the wall of Colorado wines and beers on tap at The Kitchen Next Door and wonder where else in town I would be able to taste Colorado’s diverse terroir in a glass. The Kitchen Next Door provides its customers with a real tasting of the the spectacular wines and beers of Colorado communities, each one capturing a different piece of Colorado’s terroir.

The Kitchen Next Door is located at 1035 Pearl St. Boulder, CO and can be reached at (720) 542-8159.

The Kitchen takes the meaning of a bistro that is community oriented to a whole new level.  Each day, The Kitchen creates community through food.  Their community hour, a kind of happy hour, along with their family dinners served family style at the community table offer opportunities for community to be formed over excellent food and conversation.  In addition, profits from the family dinners go towards helping to plant gardens.

The Kitchen also helps to build community by choosing to use local food producers including farmers, ranchers, and purveyors for the sustainable enjoyment of the whole community.  This also translates to fresher, more clean, nutritious, and ultimately delicious food.

As I munch upon kale chips that just came roasted out of the oven, and my brother devours a slow roasted pork sandwich, we both look at each other and decide that helping the community never tasted so good.

The Kitchen has locations in Denver and Boulder:

The Kitchen Denver: 1530 16th Street (Entrance on Wazee Street) Denver, CO, and can be reached at (303) 623-3127.

The Kitchen Boulder: 1039 Pearl St., Boulder, CO, and can be reached at (303) 544-5973.

Beginning with an afternoon tea that includes a meadow herbal infusion with lavender simple syrup, Fee Brothers Grapefruit, and Bitters.  If you want something cold, you can choose from Oak’s house made Ginger Beer, Root Beer, and their own Passion fruit and lemongrass house made soda.  This will surely pick up your afternoon spirits and carry you to the early evening, where you can gradually ease into drinks with some alcoholic kick to them.

In the stylish setting of Oak at Fourteenth, you can feel like royalty as you sip upon the drink named “The Queen” filled with the flavors of grapefruit and elderflower.  If you are looking for a more humble drink, try “The Monk’s Garden,” infused with basil and tarragon vodka, cucumber, lavender, and lime.

Of course, Oak offers local and foreign beers and wines from Europe and the New World.  Oak strives to offer drinks from every corner of the world that will satisfy every palate.

OAK at fourteenth is located at 1400 Pearl Street, Boulder, CO and can be reached at (303) 444-3622.

Okay so last weekend, you enjoyed the last bits of official summertime by grilling hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill.  This coming weekend, you can still enjoy the delicious, irreplaceable oven-grilled taste by taking a trip to the restaurant “Oak at 14th” located in Boulder.

“Oak at 14th” successfully captures the Colorado rustic style in its cuisine that is centered upon their own oak-fired oven and grill.  Oak also fits nicely into Boulder’s forward thinking, hip dining scene with its local and seasonal menu.  So you can enjoy the fruits of Colorado’s labor from dishes that feature locally grown vegetables and locally produced meats.  This means that you can sit down and savor wood-oven roasted beef marrow, wood-grilled Colorado lamb T-bones, and/or locally foraged porcini mushrooms that are fresher, tastier, and also support your local producers.  Oak has small or large plates in order to suite every type of appetite.  So when your appetite returns this weekend, give your own grill a rest and consider taking a trip to “Oak at 14th.”

OAK at fourteenth is located at 1400 Pearl Street, Boulder, CO and can be reached at (303) 444-3622.

Whatever mood you are looking to set, the restaurant Colterra in Boulder will surely have the drink to do the trick. With a wide selection of creatively named and carefully created cocktails, along with a balanced menu of wines by the glass and bottle, you will be able to find that drink that seems to be calling your name when the 5 o’clock bell rings your freedom.

We all have had a hard day before where a drink named “Death in the Afternoon” may not be such a bad idea, perhaps a way to ease into a relaxing evening after a stressful day. According to the menu at Colterra in Boulder, this is a stiff drink that was invented by Ernest Hemingway. If you are not in the mood for that, perhaps a more romantically named “Honeymoon Cocktail” a.k.a. “Brown Derby” will satisfy. This cocktail comprised of dancing pines spiced rum, lime juice, and maple syrup will surely put you in a more alluring mood.

Colterra also has a wide selection of beers from Colorado and abroad. They even offer a gluten-free beer for those who are going the gluten-free route but still yearn for a beer every now and then. Their wine menu is balanced with white, red, and white sparkling from California, Colorado, Argentina, Spain, Oregon, and France among others. They have the global wine world set out for you to try!

Happy hour is filled to the brim with succulent house marinated olives and roasted marcona almonds sprinkled with coarse sea salt that makes your mouth water for an accompanying wine. For those who did not have time to eat a proper lunch and arrive with more of an appetite, the happy hour menu offers a petite pasture-raised sirloin steak sandwich and a duck confit and hazel dell mushroom ragu among other savory dishes. And those who are seeking a sweet way to spend their afternoon, won’t be disappointed by the “Colterra Bite” which is their petite sweet dessert treat that is oh so rich.

So regardless of what your body and mind is seeking after work this week, rest assured that you will find something to satisfy the senses and the hunger you will be feeling when that five o’clock bell dings.

Happy drinking! Salute-to your health!

SALT the Bistro at the corner of 11^th and Pearl in Boulder is a delectable spot to indulge in out-of-the-box cocktails to ease the heat this week.  Let’s face it:  Its 100 degrees in the shade, but liquid libations sometimes make it feel a bit more bearable and Salt has you covered on all bases.

The mix masters at SALT have designed a unique approach to “build your own” cocktail by constructing a menu that allows you to choose your own poison, flavor and style.   You select from tequila, vodka, rum, gin, bourbon or scotch in the first column of the menu and then tell them what size you would like, a single or a double.  From there, move to the flavors selection in the second column.  Pair your tequila with strawberry and basil, chipotle or cilantro.  Mix your rum with lychee, peach or mango or your bourbon with peach, cherry or mint.  Your last mind evoking chore will be to choose your style.  In the third column of the heavily animated menu illustrates rickeys, fizzes, sangrias, sours, boilermakers and Collins, to name a few.

If the fool proof guidance of the menu still leaves you at a loss, or you just don’t feel like working for your liquid lunch, ask the in house mixologist for a custom creation.  They will be sure to oblige and with their skill set and all of the fresh, local ingredients at their fingertips, they are sure to create something you will order time and time again.  Currently, the mixologist’s feature is the Chupacabra; a refreshing summer mix of Imperial Oak Aged Gin, Luxardo Cherry Liquor, Sweet Vermouth and orange juice served shaken and strained in a cocktail glass.

Stop into SALT this week for happy hour from three to five pm daily.  SALT is located on the  corner of 11^th and Pearl in Boulder.