Audio By Carbonatix
Right this minute, the future of ten of America’s great food cities is being decided.
By readers of the Huffington Post.
No, seriously. This isn’t a joke. As you are reading this, the highest-rated, single-most popular story at HuffPo is a poll for the ten best food cities. Denver is on that list. And we are currently getting our asses kicked.
By Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Also by New Orleans, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Minneapolis and Chapel Hill, North Carolina (though not in that order). The only city we are currently beating in the poll? Washington, D.C. And that is not acceptable to me.
I mean, okay. San Francisco? Yes, it’s a better local food town than Denver. Same with New Orleans. I’ve heard great things about Seattle, and as I mentioned a few days ago, I am giving serious consideration to pulling up stakes and moving to Portland myself just for the grub.
But I still think Denver can make the top five, at the very least. We love
our local-this and local-that here, congratulate those houses that grow
tomatoes on their roofs and cure their own bresaola, sometimes elevate
chefs far beyond their due simply because they have committed
themselves to using what’s here and spurning what’s not, starting their
own farms and growing microgreens in their underwear drawers.
And
while I am not the hugest fan of this sudden mania for all things local
and organic (a chef should cook what’s good, period — absent
all discussions of politics and sustainability), if it were all to
suddenly go away? Jesus, all these sudden, knee-jerk locavores would
have nothing to talk about on their message boards, chefs would have to
go back to discussing the merits of Lyonnaise snails and Italian
salami, and Michael Pollan would have to write his next book about
something that actually matters. Like cheeseburgers or the inevitable
zombie apocalypse.
So anyway, rise my minions! Get out there and vote Denver up that list!
Show a little pride in the 303 and the guys who daily labor to make
sure your pork belly and melon balls are as good (and as local) as they
can possibly be.
And in the meantime, I will go back to looking at Portland real estate…and wondering if our reputation will improve once Denver gets its very own edition of the HuffPo, to be edited by Ethan Axelrod, the 22-year-old son of Obama advisor David Axelrod.
