The food: eating Aspen-style, with a bonus stop in Minneapolis
The story:
In June, I attended the Aspen Summer Words Writers’ Retreat in scenic Aspen, Colorado, a town filled with Victorian era architecture of types both cottagey and stately, mountain vistas, and pretty, well-groomed flower beds:
Also, cowboy boots and hats, worn unironically:
With each morning devoted to an intense Novel Editing workshop with a group of fine fellow writers, and each afternoon spent reading the works of my classmates (150 pages for each!) and preparing critiques for the next day, I had little time to search for good food. I was underwhelmed by the Aspen restaurant fare, aside from some perfectly acceptable but unexceptional sushi from Matsuhisa, where I learned that the correct term for takeout food in Aspen is “to go.” As in, “Here’s your to go.”
The best food I ate all week was the surprisingly good and varied artisanal cuisine served at the lovely Aspen Meadows resort, where the conference was held, including the fish tacos and salads shown at the top of the post, and sweet little desserts like these beignet-style donuts served with raspberry and lemon sauces at the faculty-student dinner:
I was also delighted to find tasty gourmet fare at Surdyk’s Flights , a wine market and bar in the mall at the Minneapolis Airport, of all places, where I had a stopover on the way home. I’m not a wine drinker, but my Minneapple Panini, a sandwich made with Applegate Farms roast turkey, brie, apples and lingonberry sauce, was a welcome, freshly-prepared treat in the middle of a long travel day.
