He offered craft cocktails and obscure Belgian Lambic beers to a neighborhood that would be fine with Coors Light. ...offering housemade charcuterie before there was such a thing in Denver. I snuck octopus into the Bouillabaisse...I stuffed rabbit loin and red mullet with artichokes I learned to prepare in France. But the octopus often came back pushed to the side of the plate. The servers made Bugs Bunny jokes about the rabbit, and only the dishwasher would eat the veal tongue, doused in hot sauce. It's 2004. We meet at an ugly suburban restaurant. ...the next day... ...I walk in the restaurant... The clientele are ancient...worn, thick green carpet; faux brass rails...posters advertising Pernod and Pastis; and moldy big band music coming out of the speakers. There is a smell of old plumbing... ...2008... Don't you know, I want to say, that you never open an independent restaurant in the suburbs? It's September 2023... Thanks to...a population full of well-traveled and affluent first-tier city transplants, Denver... ...is, unlike New Orleans or New York, a non-site specific metropolis... - Denverse Magazine/Summer 2024
Tuesday is the 1st. I'm headed to pick up my mail at the post office. This week I will be coming this way anyway, to swing by my sister's place. She needs her plants watered while she's on vacation. I'm coming down the sidewalk on my boulevard. I move into the parking lot of a strip mall and follow it. I spot the homeless purple wagon, on another side of which is printed "bear daddy". The homeless guy emerges from around a parked vehicle. He's pushing a broom, surely for a few dollars from one of the businesses. He has a bear cap on his head.
