Subject: Top Chef (TV Show)

• Oceanaire A Cool Breeze

  October 8, 2007

• Oceanaire A Cool Breeze

  October 8, 2007

• Beard House Blues

  June 8, 2008

• Troy Guard: cottage cheese pimp, general of the TAG army

  August 15, 2008

• Note to Top Chef: Stop sucking

  It's been three weeks since I wrote a word about this season's Top Chef on Bravo.  Know why?  Because it has been so boring and so contrived and so stupid that the episodes themselves were painful to watch -- making me less than excited about the notion of then rehashing them here. There was the bogus "Thanksgiving" episode that was filmed right in my hometown of Rochester, New York, of all places. Should've given me all sorts of fodder for a blog, right?  Wrong.  I

  December 23, 2008

• In anticipation of the Top Chef finale

  I swore a few weeks ago that I wasn't going to write another word about Bravo's Top Chef until it stopped sucking. Until they stopped breaking the action every thirty seconds with completely inappropriate product placements (Diet Dr. Pepper cookoff!), until Fabio and Stefan stopped giving the mafia kiss of death to everyone, until everyone stopped cooking food that looked like failed menu tests from some terrible Midwestern fusion bistro (Chi Bistro, perhaps?), and until that sonofab

  February 25, 2009

• Colicchio goes a-whorin' for Diet Coke?

  On Oscar night, the entire food world was abuzz. Not because of anything that happened during the Academy Awards ceremony, but because of one of the (million and one) commercials that showed during the proceedings: namely, the Tom Colicchio Diet Coke spot that appeared to show the Top Chef judge and incredibly successful chef/owner of Craft in New York City just one step removed from shitting directly on chef Grant Achatz of Alinea in Chicago. Now, all questions of whether or not Colicchio is

  February 25, 2009

• Top Chef: Hosea Rosenberg

  Well, at least someone in the restaurant industry has some money now... You've all heard that Colorado's own Hosea Rosenberg (chef at Dave Query's Jax Fish House in Boulder, at least for now...) won this year's Top Chef prize.  He walked away with a slot at this year's Food Wine Festival in Aspen, a fat check for a hundred grand, magical underpants made out of Glad Bags (and other items from the "Glad family of products") and bragging rights forever.  As I said in my preview of the f

  February 26, 2009

• A few words with Top Chef Hosea Rosenberg

  Top Chef Hosea Rosenberg is officially a very busy man. We all saw Rosenberg, the chef of Jax in Boulder, come out on top on Top Chef last week, and he's been on the talk-show circuit ever since. I tried to get into the West End Tavern for the final-episode party, but it was jammed. So instead, I decided to interview Rosenberg later. I thought it would be easy, since he's been so accessible in Boulder. I was wrong. First, I asked the PR guy at Big Red F, the owner of Jax and West End, as well a

  March 3, 2009

• Another taste of this week's Cafe Society

  Denver Restaurant Week is over, but there are still plenty of good meals and deals out there. Jason Sheehan offers a rundown on the top seven spots to grab a bite to eat on Broadway in The List. A week after his win on Top Chef, Tyler Nemkov finally caught up with Hosea Rosenberg.  Fast food can upset more than your stomach. For a sickening trip down memory lane, read Teague Bohlen's run-down of the ten worst fast-food ad campaigns. Anthony Bourdain didn't get published in an altweekly

  March 7, 2009

• Centro dinner pairs Chilean wine

  The Big Red F restaurant group has been making some big noise in the past few weeks, what with Hosea Rosenberg of Jax winning Top Chef and the opening of Happy Noodle House. Now Centro Latin Kitchen, whose sous, Melissa Harrison, was also a Top Chef contestant, is hosting a Chilean wine dinner on Thursday, March 19. "The inspiration for the menu for the Veramonte  Wine dinner was the wine," chef Ian Clark explains. "After tasting each wine, I wrote a menu that was focused on what paired best a

  March 17, 2009

• Top Chef Hosea Rosenberg spreads the wealth

  A few weeks back, shortly after it was announced that Boulder chef Hosea Rosenberg had taken home the big prize and won this year's Top Chef prize on the Bravo reality show of the same name, Rosenberg mentioned in passing that he was already working with a local artisanal foods company, but wouldn't say exactly which company it was. Well, now we know.  It looks like the Top Chef has thrown in with Tellory, a Boulder-based company known for its pestos, dips, tapenades and spreads.

  March 26, 2009

• Ladies First

  CU-Boulder salutes women’s work.

  February 26, 2009

• Believe it or not, Ruby Tuesday has a good burger

  November 27, 2008

• Gone Fishin'

  Suddenly, Denver’s swimming in seafood restaurants.

  October 11, 2007

• Oceanaire Martini

  Oceanaire Seafood Room

  July 26, 2007

• Win a dinner cooked by a Top Chef contender

  Melissa Harrison, a contender on last season's Top Chef, didn't win the big prize -- that went to Hosea Rosenberg, a fellow Big Red F chef -- but now you can win an eight-course dinner that Harrison will cook at your house.A Harrison-cooked meal is one of the auction items being offered at the April 18 benefit for Parenting Place, a Boulder non-profit celebrating its 25th anniversary. And how did Harrison get involved? The former Centro sous is now working at Happy Noodle House, and "I was appro

  April 16, 2009

• Talk Talk

  April 30, 2009

• Highlights and lowlights from the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen

  Lori MidsonTop Chef winner Hosea Rosenberg and knifed cheftestant Fabio Viviani By the time the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen ended yesterday afternoon, I'd already seen a whole posse of amateurs puke; another man suffer a seizure just after chef Michael Symor ended a fantastic cooking demo devoted to pork belly; Top Chef winner Hosea Rosenberg locking arms with knifed Top Chef contestant, air-kisser, fan favorite, flirt and fabulous dresser Fabio Viviani; Giada De Laurentiis, who weighs all of

  June 22, 2009

• What's Cooking?

  June 25, 2009

• Today: A celebrity cook-off, wine-tasting event and the kick-off to Telluride's wine festival

  Melissa Harrison Tonight, from 6 to 9 p.m., TrueChild, a national organization that works to abolish child stereotyping, is hosting a reception, silent auction and the "True Flavors Celebrity Cook-off" at Mise En Place, 1801 Wynkoop Street. The match-up features two culinary teams, one led by Top Chef's Melissa Harrison, who cooks at Boulder's Happy Noodle House, 835 Walnut Street, the other by Denver native, now Los Angeles-based chef Alex Eusebio, also a contestant on Top Chef Season 5, both o

  June 25, 2009

• Days later, still chewing on Aspen Food and Wine

  Lori MidsonThe pea soup heard 'round the world. A few days after my return from Aspen Food and Wine, I'm still digesting the experience. The worst part of the event was listening to everyone's opinion about everything there. Opinions on food (if I heard one more person opine about pork belly I was going to lose it). Opinions on celebrities (I love Mario Batali, I hate Mario Batali). I've always lived by the quote, "Opinions are like assholes, everybody's got them." And boy, were there a lot of

  June 26, 2009

• Boulder boy and Top Chef Hosea Rosenberg cooks tomorrow at Whole Foods SouthGlenn

  Lori MidsonJust in case you missed Hosea Rosenberg, the exec chef at Jax Fish House, Boulder (928 Pearl Street), drop his jaw in disbelief when he was crowned top cooker on the season 5 finale of Top Chef, or at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen last weekend, when he edged out Top Chef: Season 4 victor, Stephanie Izard in a spirited cook-off, you'll have another opportunity to snap his mug on Saturday, June 27, at the brand spanking new SouthGlenn Whole Foods at Arapahoe Road and University B

  June 26, 2009

• Tonight: Frasca chef competes on Top Chef: Masters

  Lachlan Mackinnon Patterson If you've been following Top Chef: Masters, the Top Chef spinoff that airs every Wednesday night on Bravo, then you know that Lachlan MacKinnon-Patterson, exec chef at Boulder's Frasca Food & Wine (1738 Pearl Street), is a contestant on the show, wielding knives alongside fellow kitchen wizards Rick Bayless, Hubert Keller and Wylie Dufresne. And tonight, you can join other like-minded fans at a Frasca viewing party, to see how Mackinnon-Patterson stacks up against f

  July 15, 2009

• The Westword.com blog shortcut, July 15 edition

  Danielle Ate the Sandwich -- and then punched it, hard. Put up your dukes. Today in Backbeat Online: • Danielle Ate the Sandwich: Better than a bag of poop on fire! • Last Night: Paul Sprawl at the Laughing Goat in Boulder. • Hearsay bits: City Hall, Speakeasy Tiger, Torch the Wagon, Patrick Porter, Magic Cyclops. • The Mars Volta and Yeah Yeah Yeahs to headline Monolith. • When DJ Dragon wins, everybody wins! Today in Cafe Society: • Tonight: Frasca chef competes on Top Chef: Mas

  July 15, 2009

• Sober and not-so-sober observations from the Taste of the Nation

  Lori MidsonStaff from Vesta Dipping Grill and Steuben'sYesterday afternoon, Denver's best chefs rolled out the culinary red carpet and rubbed tongs with smitten admirers and other do-gooders who showed up in droves at Share Our Strength's Taste of the Nation, a charity event that benefits anti-hunger organizations in Colorado and across the nation. The celebration was chef-chaired by Steuben's and Vesta Dipping Grill kitchen magician Matt Selby, who, with a lot of help from a lot of friends, pul

  July 20, 2009

• Steamboat's wine festival kicks off today with appearances by Tyler Wiard, Goose Sorensen and Hosea Rosenberg

  ​Today marks the first day of the Wine Festival at Steamboat, a four-day food-and-wine event that includes cooking demonstrations, food and wine seminars, grand tastings, fly-fishing and mountain biking, food and wine day trips, and the uncorking of more than 800 domestic and international bottles of vino. Headlining Colorado's culinary elite is Top Chef: New York victor and Jax-Boulder exec chef Hosea Rosenberg; Tyler Wiard, chef at Elway's in Cherry Creek; and Solera Restaurant & Wine Ba

  July 30, 2009

• Chef and Tell: John Broening

  John Broening​"We'll have head cheese at Olivéa on Friday -- I expect to see you there," summoned the e-mail. The note - short and to the point -- was from John Broening, the executive chef at Duo and Olivéa: the former a restaurant in Highland with a field-to-plate, seasonal approach to food; the latter a three-month-old restaurant in Uptown that embraces the same elemental philosophies, but pushes the culinary envelope by serving, among other things, head cheese, a gelatinous loaf comp

  August 12, 2009

• A conversation with John Broening, of Duo and Olivea

  August 13, 2009

• Chef and Tell: Jamey Fader of Lola and Big Red F

  Jamey Fader​I've kept company at the bar with Jamey Fader more times than I can count, laughing as he tells me stories about the hippies camped out in their caravans just outside Lola during the DNC, simultaneously shaking and nodding my head while he divulges his latest - and usually crazy - chef shenanigans, listening intently as he explains his stance on celebrity chefs, namely that he couldn't care less. Fader once auditioned for Top Chef, the Bravo TV reality show that produced a Bou

  August 19, 2009

• Lola's Jamey Fader tells all

  August 20, 2009

• Hosea Rosenberg hosts Colorado harvest dinner at Jax Boulder

  ​Jax Boulder exec chef and Top Chef New York winner Hosea Rosenberg isn't hanging out a whole lot in the People's Republic of Boulder these days. His Facebook page says he's "heading into San Fran to find the city's best Bloody Mary," but presumably he'll accomplish that goal before 6:30 p.m. tonight, because that's the first seating (a second is scheduled for 8 p.m.) of the Colorado harvest dinner at Jax, which Rosenberg is hosting. The five-course menu features local harvest from a c

  September 16, 2009

• Let's get real: Who are Denver's top ten reality TV stars?

  October 15, 2009

• Bitter Bar's James Lee places fourth

  ​ Hosea Rosenberg may have won last season's Top Chef, but his luck didn't hold for Big Red F colleague James Lee, the Boulder mixologist who placed fourth at this weekend's Iron Bar Chef contest at the annual Santé Restaurant Symposium in New York. Which means Lee didn't get the $1,000 prize, or the chance to move on to the 2009 Shake It Out competition. But he's not bitter -- despite the fact that you can usually find him shaking things up at the Bitter Bar, the very hot bar within Hap

  October 20, 2009

• Bravo is getting its Just Desserts, but Keegan Gerhard won't be the icing on the cake

  Lori Midson​Life is about to get a whole lot sweeter for sugar fiends. That's because Bravo, the network that airs Top Chef and Top Chef Masters (which got the green light for a second season), has just added the icing on the cake: a new show titled Top Chef: Just Desserts, which will pit confectionists and pastry chefs against one another to see who spins the last sugar standing. Like the Top Chef contestants, all the boys and girls will live together in a fancy compound during filming as

  October 27, 2009

• Today's hit of Hosea Rosenberg hilarity

  Lori MidsonTop Chef winner Hosea Rosenberg with fellow contestant Fabio Viviani​Okay, so Jax-Boulder superchef Hosea Rosenberg wins Top Chef: New York and, along with the top title, gets $100,000 to blow on opening a new restaurant. Except he hasn't opened a new restaurant. In fact, as I reported in this space last month, Rosenberg is taking a sabbatical from Jax, 928 Pearl Street in Boulder, so that he can "travel all over the United States and to South America," where he'll be "attendi

  October 27, 2009

• Silver and Gold

  October 29, 2009

• Top Model's Nicole can win this thing, bitches!

  Nicole is seen merging Japanese and Malagasy with fierceness.​Early on, Louisville's Nicole Fox seemed too quirky to have a real shot at taking the America's Next Top Model cycle thirteen crown. But over the past few weeks, she's become a force as unstoppable as her flame-colored hair, and her chances of becoming the first major reality-show champ from Colorado since Top Chef's Hosea Rosenberg grow with each episode -- even one as weird and frequently uncomfortable as last night's. Clue o

  October 29, 2009