The 12 Seasons of The Boulder Country Dinner

Local can be good.  Organic is better.  Natural is, natural.  Seasonal is best...  These are the mantras that we chefs use today.  The end result of our cooking is our efforts at sourcing of good, wholesome, pure and wonderful food from the garden, the sea and the land.  Cook with the seasons and the resultant taste and flavor just has to be good.  Try not to get in the way and muck it up.  The food is the star, not the cook.  June is a different growth and harvest season than July.  August is different than September.  February and March we depend on what we put up from the spring, summer and fall bounty... Thus, there are 12 Seasons.  I took the name for my business in 2006 (when I changed from The French Manner) from a book by Alfred Portale of The Gotham Bar and Grille in NYC.  I have never looked back from that change, although I do still cook a la francaise.

As March practices to become April my thoughts turn to the Farmer's Market.  At the Boulder County Farmer's Market all vendors are required to sell only those products which they grow themselves.  Not so with other markets in Colorado.  Our guys and gals sell the food they have toiled over for the past weeks and months.  In Boulder County we know that it is good to know where your food comes from and who has tilled the soil and sown the seeds of your fruits and vegetables. 

I have recently come into a partnership with Mike Munson of Munson Farms.  Munson Farms began in the mid-seventies in Boulder and I will be proudly cooking with Mike's produce and fruit as it becomes available on a seasonal basis from his acreage.  Look for Munson Farms at the Boulder County Farmer's Market in April and at his family's farmstand located at 75th and Valmont, just east of Boulder!

The first Boulder Country Dinner of 2012 is scheduled for May 12th.  The month of May provides us with wonderful produce and fruits.  So, I will be applying my knowledge and creativity (with the help of students from Johnson & Wales University, I might add) to create original, seasonal dishes utilizing as much organic product as I can get my hands on (vegetable, protein, dairy, etc.).  I will post the menu once I get notice from Mike what he will have available during the second to third weeks in May.  This is culinary utopia.  When the farmers are tending the land and the cooks are cooking what is ready to be eaten....  The way is has been for eons and the way it has been and will continue to be for me and 12Seasons. 

So, come to dinner in the country!  The information for the 2012 Boulder Country Dinner schedule and registration is in a previous blog from a few weeks ago.  Check it out!!!  See you in May.

Peace.