Jax Fish House in Denver closes New Year’s Day for a two-week remodel. But staffers such as star bartender Tim Harris, in photo, return. (File photo)

Jax Fish House in Denver is taking New Year’s Eve to heart, ringing out the old and ringing in the new with a two-week remodeling that will close the restaurant starting Jan. 1. Of course, they’ll still do their annual Dec. 31 blowout, complete with bubbly and noisemakers.

“This is just a matter of continuing to evolve,” says owner Dave Query, who opened Jax’s LoDo room in November 1996, refurbishing the old Terminal Bar memorialized in a Tom Waits song. “The bar will expand and it will have a new look and menu, but with the same staff, which is a team crucial to our success,” says Query, who has been an area restarateur for more than 20 years.

Jax, which opened its first restaurant in Boulder, is arguably responsible for bringing super-fresh seafood to Denver — at least in a way that stuck. More than a few Colorado residents had their first bites of Kumamoto and Fanny Bay oysters at the raw bar, thanks to Jax and air couriers.
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Grits at The Universal, Denver (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)

One of dining critic Bill Porter’s best dishes of 2012: Chef Seth Gray of The Universal says this recipe is a traditional version of Southern grits. “The secret to my grits is the time and attention we put into cooking them. Many derivatives can be created, such as jalapeño cheese grits, a personal favorite,” says Gray. Serves 8 to 10

Ingredients
2 quarts water
1 1/2 quarts milk
2 cups dry grits
2 sticks butter
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Combine milk and water in thick-bottomed pot. Bring to a boil; be careful not scorch. Whisk in grits, carefully yet vigorously. Make sure grits do not stick to bottom of pan.

Bring to a simmer, stirring frequently. Reduce to low heat, and continue to cook uncovered. Cook for four hours, stirring every 5-7 minutes, ensuring grits do not stick to bottom. Whisk in butter, emulsifying thoroughly.

Kale and Apple Salad from Oak at Fourteenth, Boulder

One of dining critic Bill Porter’s best dishes of 2012: Oak at Fourteenth chef/owner Steven Redzikowski says the key to this salad is to use a very sharp knife and cut the kale into thin ribbons. Contrary to rumor, he does NOT give the kale leaves a massage first.

Ingredients
3 tablespoons candied almonds
Granulated sugar
1 honey crisp apple, cut into thin rounds
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan
1 1/2 cups finely sliced kale
1 lemon, juiced
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon togarashi chile powder
Salt to taste

Directions
For candied almonds: In a small saucepan, cover almonds with water and bring to a simmer. Strain almonds and place on a baking sheet. Dust with sugar. Place on sheet tray in a 350-degree oven and bake until the sugar is hard and caramelized. Cool and chop in quarters with a knife.

For salad: Place all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

Jake Adam York (left) and Adrian Miller enjoy Bar-B-Que at Blest Bar-B-Que in Littleton (5654 Prince Street) as owner Louis Washington (standing) stops by their table. (Denver Post file photo, Nov. 15, 2002)

Denver’s “barbecue poet,” Jake Adam York, died Dec. 16, 2012. Read his obituary here.

“You don’t get tired of eating barbecue; it just isn’t done. I think if you look in the Colorado penal code, there is a law that enjoins you from getting tired of barbecue,” York told food writer Ellen Sweets in 2005.

We asked him to pen an ode to the craft. His love of words — and smoked meat — shines here. This essay was published on Oct. 26, 2005, in The Denver Post’s Food section:

By Jake Adam York, Special to The Denver Post

Some people think “barbecue” means “grill,” as in “Let’s throw some steaks on the barbecue.” Etymology supports them — almost.

When Columbus arrived, many Caribbean peoples were curing meat by hanging strips of meat or fish on a grille-work of green sticks over a low wood fire. The Tainos called this barbacoa. The Spanish took this word to signify a grille-work, and this is the root of the English sense of “barbecue” as “grill.”

But not everyone accepts this definition of “barbecue.”
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Poet Jake Adam York, associate professor of English at the University of Colorado at Denver, won a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in November shortly before his death.

By Claire Martin, The Denver Post

Jake Adam York, who died suddenly Dec. 16 in Denver at age 40, was a poet relentlessly dedicated to the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement, with occasional forays into celebrating the virtues of barbecue.

His poem “Grace” invoked both:

“The smoke from the grill
is the smell of my father coming home
from the furnace and the tang
of vinegar and char is the smell of Birmingham, the smell
of coming home, of history, redolent
as the salt of black-and-white film
when I unwrap the sandwich
from the wax-paper the wax-paper
crackling like the cold grass
along the Selma to Montgomery road,
like the foil that held Medgar’s last meal, a square of tin
that is just the ghost of that barbecue
I can imagine to my tongue
when I stand at the pit with my brother
and think of all the hands and mouths
and breaths of air that sharpened
this flavor and handed it down to us.”

Less than a month ago, York, an associate professor of English at the University of Colorado Denver, was named a 2013 Literature Fellow of the National Endowment For The Arts. His was one of 40 applications chosen from a field of more than 1,100.
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Nice taps. Boulder will get lots of of ‘em – more than 30 – at Under the Sun, a pub scheduled to open in January from the people behind the Mountain Sun pubs. (Mountain Sun)

If a Grateful Dead tour could be reincarnated as a bunch of brewpubs, then the tour – say, Fall ’72 – would live in Boulder and Denver, and be named Mountain Sun, Southern Sun, and Vine Street Pub. And here comes another joint, Under the Sun, set to open in Boulder in January. At its best, the Dead was welcoming, improvisational, informal, inspirational. In their own way, I think the Sun pubs capture the same vibe.

Before I delve into Under the Sun, let me rattle on a bit about the Suns (and the Vine).

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Dancing Pines Distillery makes liqueurs, gin, rum, bourbon and brandy in Loveland, CO (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)

A longer version of this story by Douglas Brown will appear in Wednesday’s (Dec. 19) Food section. But if you have a liquor aficionado on your holiday shopping list, here’s a guide:

Just a few years ago, American whiskey choices did not veer far from stuff made in Kentucky and Tennessee. But the microdistillery revolution changed all that; distilleries across the nation are pumping out floral gins, brandies redolent of fruit and persuading sippers to go find a fireplace, rums that evoke Martinique, and much more.

And lots of these little jewels call Colorado home; the state has issued licenses for 36 distilleries (not all of them are up and running yet), said Kristian Naslund, the owner of Dancing Pines Distillery in Loveland and a leader at the Colorado Distillers Guild.

“People from around the country are looking to Colorado to see what we are doing,” said Naslund. “People have been paying attention to microbrews for so long, it made sense with microdistilling. We have great water, and great creativity.”
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Update: This event raised $3,200 for the Community Food Bank of New Jersey.

Vesper fundraiser

This just in from my favorite Jersey girl, Wendy Aiello, who writes an excellent press release:

Because of strong New Jersey roots that made the sting of Hurricane Sandy hit close to home, Denver restaurateur Frank Bonanno and a group of his New Jersey transplanted friends are opening the doors to the new Vesper Lounge on Tuesday, December 18 at 5:00 to raise money for the Westfield Rotary Club in New Jersey that will go to support the Community Food Bank of New Jersey.

Frank Bonanno was born and raised in New Jersey before moving to Denver and becoming a community fixture. Same for Wendy Aiello, Phil Cortese, Sean Duffy, Ken Fellman, Carmine Iadorola, Michael Kearns, Sean Kenyon and Gene Sobczak. The group has banded together to invite fellow Coloradoans, those with and without ties to New Jersey, to come check out Denver’s coolest new neighborhood bar, and help.

Thanks to Bonanno’s generosity, 100 percent of all the door, food and liquor sales will go to helping New Jersey recover from the devastation Hurricane Sandy delivered in late October. For a cost of just $20 at the door, guests can enjoy Bonanno’s award-winning cuisine and some New Jersey-style camaraderie while providing much needed aid to New Jersey.

WHEN: Tuesday, December 18, 2012, 5:00 p.m.-11:00 p.m.
WHERE: Vesper Lounge, 233 East 7th Ave Denver, CO 80203 (click here for map)
WHO: Wendy Aiello, Frank Bonanno, Phil Cortese, Sean Duffy, Ken Fellman, Carmine Iadorola, Michael Kearns, Sean Kenyon, Gene Sobczak

Handy Mill pepper grinder

Lemme give you a hand with that seasoning.

The Handy Mill pepper grinder from HomeToolz makes meal time (or work time, if you open the package at the office) way more fun. Just imagine the messages you can send with the moveable fingers. (Every person who saw it had the same instinct.)

Available in right and left hands (salt and pepper!), the mill has a smooth-operating ceramic grinding mechanism.

Find the Handy Mill, $66, at the Peppercorn , 1235 Pearl St. in Boulder, 303-449-5847, and $60 at Amazon.

Already have a pair of hands? We have more gift ideas from Colorado retailers in this week’s Food section.

Italian-Americans have long had a beef with Hollywood’s seeming obsession with the Mafia, from Oscar-winning epics such as “The Godfather” to dese-and-dose stereotyping of low-level thugs. (Need a heavy? Find a guy with a heavy Brooklyn accent and have him threaten the hero with a pair of cement overshoes. Presto. Cut and print.)

It’s a legitimate complaint, despite the equally legitimate fact that it’s a universal truth that we tend to find villains more fascinating than the good guys. Why else did Milton make Satan, the angel cast out of heaven, the central figure of “Paradise Lost”?

Still, the fact that some Italian-American restaurants use Mob lore as a drawing card is off-putting. You don’t find Chinese restaurants putting up photos of Tong members or Mexican restaurants putting up pictures of drug-cartel honchos, even if a few bad apples in those cultures do engage in organized crime.

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