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Best Cool Appliances

Big Chill Fridge

Big Chill Fridge, the brainchild of Boulderite Thom Vernon and his nephew Orion Creamer, produces the centerpiece of the mid-century-modern kitchen: a retro-styled refrigerator with spacious, streamlined, frost-free innards and exteriors of Cherry Red, Beach Blue and Jadite Green. In fact, it's really more a "Chevy Bel-Air without the fins" than a refrigerator, according to Vernon. One that you can park in your home.

Best Spices East of the Platte

Colorado Mountain Spice

Spice lovers Cal Smith and David Citizen practice a kind of alchemy in the tiny back room of their Golden Triangle shop, Colorado Mountain Spiceshop. That's where they create their exclusive blends, as well as decant and bottle small batches of fresh teas and spices. Try the 5280 Grind, a peppery mixture good for dipping oils and marinades, or the Maple Pepper, or the Chocolate Mountain Chai, or, if you're adventurous, Citizen's aromatic lavender sugar. If you're timid about exotic flavors, let them persuade you on First Fridays, when they offer culinary works of art.

Best Spices West of the Platte

Savory Spice Shop

Cute betrothed couple Mike Johnston and Janet Chambers decided to spice up their lives by opening the Savory Spice Shop in the nascent 15th Street business district just west of the Platte River. The flavorful store boasts 300 different herbs and spices, including a slew of international flavors such as dried curry and Kaffir lime leaves favored in southeast Asian and Indonesian cuisines. Patron favorites include infused vanilla-bean sugar and freshly ground Vietnamese cassia cinnamon, an addictive seasoning that reveals the seasoning's very essence in a single sniff. And if a pinch is all you need, that's all you'll have to buy.

Best One-Click Meals

Relish!

Staring down the refrigerator again? Want to have a sit-down family meal but have no idea what to cook? Let Relish! make all the decisions for you. Evergreen moms Ann Bender and Karen Hutchinson have devised an online service that offers subscribers weekly menus for fast, healthy meals. They also provide detailed recipes and shopping lists, so getting dinner on the table is easy as pie.

Best Grassroots Groceries

Tres Rios Agricultural Cooperative

A cooperative of thirteen farms in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, Tres Rios distributes wholesale produce, grains, honey and meats to stores and restaurants out of its Denargo Market warehouse in Denver year-round. But the grassroots organization is also happy to cater to home chefs. Each week it offers boxes of fresh, organic produce and meat to individual consumers, basing the delivered fare on what's in season. Each box runs $25, and Tres Rios certainly doesn't skimp. Foodies, unite.

Best Off-Season Farmers' Market

Goodness to Go

For those addicted to the charms of the farmers' market, winter comes as a horrible shock. But thanks to Bonnie Smith, such guilty pleasures live on during the gloomy season at Goodness to Go, a tiny store fronting her backroom bakery at Quiche Factory Catering. In snow or sleet, addicts can buy such favorite summer-market treats as Big Mike's barbecue sauces, Loredana's Pestos, Oro Blanco goat cheese and Minnie Beasley's almond-lace cookies. A taste of spring in a bleak, bleak world.

Best New Destination for Candy Addicts

Enstrom's Almond Toffee

Enstrom's Almond Toffee, arguably Grand Junction's greatest gift to the planet, has had a shop in Cherry Creek North for years. But the company recently moved to a larger space a few doors down. There's now a full-fledged coffee bar, an adjacent Internet-cafe area, and a much broader selection of ice cream, chocolates and other sinful snacks. Yet the store also retains all of the features that have kept fans coming back, including a sample tray of almond toffee that's always temptingly in view. Your waistline may expand just by looking at it, but what a way to grow.

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