This is a sweet potato shepherd's pie.

Come autumn, my thoughts turn to Shepherd’s Pie, that classic Celtic farmhouse recipe that’s the best way I know to use up leftover meat and potatoes, and the dregs from those bags of frozen peas and carrots that have been haunting your freezer since summertime.

Here’s a twist: Instead of beef, or beef and lamb, and instead of potatoes, try this: Sweet Potato Shepherd’s Pie with Sausage and Lamb. I made one last weekend, then scarfed half of it down while watching a three-fer of Boris Karloff movies on TCM. (In my defense, I’m old, and I also had a cold.)

There was a lot left over. Which is a good thing because, like so many other rustic dishes, leftovers taste better than the first round.
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This negroni is waiting for its twist.

There are few cocktails in the rapidly-expanding cocktail canon that I enjoy more than a carefully-stirred negroni.

The drink is an easy one to make: Equal parts gin, Campari and sweet vermouth, more or less. And, it always makes me think of summertime. You know the kind of summer I mean: Langorous afternoons overlooking a beach somewhere in Puglia…

As if. Here we are in Denver under 8 fresh inches of snow (so far). But I’m fighting back with a negroni.

Negroni
Makes 1.
Ingredients
1 ounce gin (choose one with a relatively unaggressive flavor)
1 ounce Campari
1 ounce sweet vermouth
Directions
Stir together ingredients over ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a lemon twist.
Note: Some people prefer their negroni over ice. No skin off my drink; if you want ice, serve yours over ice.

Bread crumbs, tossed with melted butter and toasted.

The coming of cold, wet weather prompts a flaring up of my chronic obsession with breadcrumbs, which are woefully underused in contemporary home kitchens.

Consider: They add to just about every supper, from fish stew to meatloaf to pasta with tomato sauce. Put a bowl of toasted breadcrumbs on the table, and sprinkle them over the top of whatever’s on your plate, and you’ve just added an extra, irresistible layer of flavor and texture to your meal. People will cheer.

Plain breadcrumbs, tossed with melted butter and toasted for just a few minutes on a sheet pan, are perfect. Or, you can doctor them up with chopped herbs (parsley, thyme, oregano, you name it), or if you’re feeling extra crafty, use garlic-infused olive oil instead of melted butter.
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This is a giant pattypan squash.

The other day, a generous friend gave me a giant pattypan squash.

But, after two solid weeks of eating pumpkins, butternuts, buttercups, delicatas, acorns and kabochas, I just wasn’t up for roasting it, mashing it, or pureeing it into a soup. I’d OD’d on squash.

Being at sixes and sevens, I started googling, and came across a recipe for chocolate pattypan quickbread.

It sounded like a good idea. So, I made it. Oops.

Here’s a link to the recipe, which I altered slightly for altitude (decreasing the baking powder by half). I’m sure it’s a very good recipe, and that I just executed it poorly. Happens.

All was saved, however, after I whipped a half-pint of cream, chopped up the bread into little cubes, and stirred it all together with crumbled bits of almond cookies into a bastardized, chocolatized version of Eton Mess. Under dimmed lights and with a nice glass of sauternes, the cake took on a whole new life. It’s something you can do with any cake mistake, really.

This is a chocolate pattypan bread. It needs help.

Cafe/Bar has a sign out front.

Here’s an idea for a week-ending drink: Grab a stool at the newly-opened Café/Bar for a glass of wine and a dish of whiskey-cheddar meatballs.

Café/Bar, the latest addition to the white-hot stretch of Alameda between Logan(ish) and Washington(ish), is a sleek, slick restaurant with a seasonal roster of food (some of it very good, some of it… promising) and what might be the best-looking floor staff in the city.

Don’t believe me on that last point? Make a visit soon and see for yourself. It’s like a rerun of “Models, Inc.” in there.

Nothing wrong with that.

295 S. Pennsylvania St. (at Alameda)
303-362-0227
Cafebarcolorado.com

This is kale.

OK, so they aren’t Fritos. But kale chips are really good, too. Even people who hate kale will eat them. That’s because they crunch, and because they have a little salt on them.

The benefits are real: According to the USDA, kale is loaded with vitamins, minerals, fiber, and all kinds of other stuff.

One thing that kale chips do have in common with Fritos is that they make good happy-hour snacks. They also look great floating on top of a bowl of potato soup (hot or cold). And they take seasoning like a champ: This basic recipe calls for salt, but a little chili powder, a dash of celery seed, and, believe it or not, a pinch or two of sugar are nice too. (If you’re using sugar, add it after the kale has cooked but before it has cooled.)
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Great, pumpkin.

This is a pumpkin. A sugar pumpkin. They are spilling out of the grocery stores these days. What to do with it?

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The healing power of lunch.

Time marches on, but one thing remains the same: All-V’s still puts forth one of my favorite no-tell lunches in Denver: The bacon, avocado and Swiss cheese sub, which I have with a side of screaming-hot french fries and a Coke.

A few years ago, after my friend Jennifer strong-armed her way through several days of labor to produce her her first son at Rose Medical Center a block away from All-V’s, her first words to me on the telephone were “Bacon avocado and Swiss.” I swept in shortly thereafter, greasy to-go bag under my arm, congratulations on my lips.

“Whatever,” she said. “Sandwich.” She handed me her newborn and tore the sandwich from my hands. “Even trade,” she said.

All-V’s
4326 East 8th Avenue
Denver, CO 80220-3707
(303) 377-0401

Tucker Shaw

A cookbook that delivers on its promise.

I’ve never been in doubt that the best cookbook of all time is “French Cooking in Ten Minutes” by Edouard de Pomiane. It was first published in 1930.

Pomiane was a renaissance man. A Polish expatriate living in Paris, he held several careers: Scientist, radio personality — and only later in life, a professional cooking pundit. Because he was immersed in so many disparate facets of contemporary culture, his cooking is neither wonky nor precious: It is practical and efficient, and therefore good.

This book, remarkably, delivers on its promise. Subtitled “Adapting to the Rhythm of Modern Life,” it was written primarily for bachelors who wanted something decent to eat, quickly.

Here is one of the book’s finest recipes.
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Like a beacon at the end of the week.

My weekly ritual after work on Friday: An icy gin martini and a pile of unadulterated potato chips. I’ve tried a million times to deviate, but a million times I’ve failed: Nothing else works. Not a vodka martini, not a margarita, not a bowl of nuts, not bagel chips (blech), not a stack of crudite — no matter how fine the vegetables.

Gin martini and plain, grocery-store potato chips, that’s it.

Top tip: Don’t fill your cocktail glass to the rim. You’ll spill it, and worse, by the time you finish the drink it’ll be tepid. Far better to mix a second cocktail than to nurse a lukewarm one.

Colorado has a few worthwhile gins on the market , but when it comes to martinis, my heart belongs to Plymouth.

My Favorite Martini
Ingredients
2 ounces gin (I prefer Plymouth)
1/2 ounce vermouth (I prefer Dolin, but Noilly Prat will do)
A twist of lemon
Directions
Stir gin and vermouth gently over ice for 1 minute. Let it sit. Meanwhile, rub rim of chilled cocktail glass with lemon twist, then drop twist into glass. Strain martini over the top. Serve with potato chips.

(If you’re reading this on a Saturday, say, or a Tuesday, just pretend it’s Friday and start mixing.)