The FOOD is served.

I am obsessed with FOOD. I love food. I love eating, cooking, buying, growing (even thought at this I am a failure) but especially, nowadays, knowing where my food comes from. Since the latter is kind of a new thing for me, when I heard about the new exhibition at the History Colorado Museum named FOOD, I thought, “this is calling my name.”

The exhibit has a small extra charge, which is a bummer, but since it is a traveling exhibition it is worthy of the extra fee. Located on the 4th floor, as soon as the elevator opens, a path of tomatoes, chilies, lemons and carrots will lead your being to a magic, informative and definitely tasty world. 

In this world, visitors will find how small corn used to be. You will learn how the juicy, sweet, refreshing watermelon was everything but at its beginning, or which cultures shape square this beloved fruit for storage purposes. Moreover, you will swim through smells like chocolate, lavender, oregano, and I hope you like garlic. At the same time, you will realize what happens when you can not smell your food.

Movies play throughout the exhibit taking you on a trip to different cultures, flavors, colors and traditions around the planet. Showing the importance and differences in the relationship between humans and food.

FOOD takes you on a journey of products, from the moment they are strewed to the moment they are placed on your table. Helping to recognize the changes food has gone through, from size, color, taste, forms of production, ways of trade or acquisition, and the ways humans have changed their eating habits.

Initially, the exhibition might seem a little too academic, because there is a serious amount of reading. However, as soon as you are out of that curve, all of your senses are called to be part of this magnificent experience.

While navigating this exhibit you can:

• Learn how to make hollandaise sauce or tamales on a virtual kitchen
• Challenge your chopsticks abilities
• Taste the product of the day in the kitchen
• Discover the diets of Gandhi, Phelps and others.

Guess whose breakfast this is

At the end of the day, what I liked the most about FOOD was that in a very entertaining way, it educates goers about the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. 

I left the exhibition questioning myself about waste, abuse, eating habits and food shortages. Moreover, I left thinking of ways to help solve these problems. Simple solutions as Urban farming, food sustainability and the consumption of Earth’s resources.

I firmly believe in the saying “we are what we eat”. However,  in the process of feeding ourselves better food, we have to consider that food and humans are part of a larger ecosystem, that has to be healthy in order to provide us with a better life. 

TAKE CARE OF YOUR FOOD, LOVE THE PLANET.

Bring your kids for special Global Kitchen Family Days.

History Colorado Museum

Museum Hours: Monday - Saturday 10am to 5pm, Sunday Noon to 5pm

FOOD exhibit: Extra charge $5

Bring a receipt from any Whole Foods Market for $2 off.

By Loren Escandon

BLACK ARTS FESTIVAL

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I am very excited about this festival. I have the feeling this is my chance since I moved to the States to reconnect with my roots. Because I am, what it is called now, Afro Colombian. My dearest friends in Colombia called me Negrita, which means “Little Black”, that was my nickname and it made me happy. Like me, there are Afro descendants everywhere and their culture is palpable even when it doesn't seem obvious. Music, sense of style and food, when influenced by Afro predominance is very particular, full of colors, flavors, fun. It is a poesy dedicated to life. It is the perfect combination between melancholy and happiness. It is tragic and passion story that a grandma tells you before going to bed. All those are the reasons I can’t wait to enjoy the Colorado Black Arts Festival. This is the 27th Annual festival and those 3 days will feature the best of Black music, dance, painting, performers, visual arts, photography, theater and film.

A UNIQUE DATE NIGHT

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The idea of the perfect date varies from person to person, and from relationship to relationship. Sometimes we run out of ideas to make our loved one feel special. The movie-dinner combo gets old, the nightclub is too loud, and the cooking at home can become a total romance killer if you are not the chef the counterpart expects you to be.

However, the date I am about to describe is as good of a first date as it is for a 20th year anniversary.

Imagine a picnic bag/basket full of your favorites goodies, that you don’t need to cook because this city has plenty of options for takeout, like The Chicken-curry sandwich at Vert Kitchen Denver, a bottle of bubbly cold Champagne, wine, beer or Ice tea if that is what you like; the most beautiful gardens surrounding you,  the jazzy sounds of Swing Je T’aime throughout the evening and a free swing dance one hour lesson, this is just in case you want to learn, but it is optional.

PRIDE PARADE 2013

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I am not sure about you but in my opinion no one knows how to throw a party better than my gay, transgender and bisexual friends. They just know exactly what people expect in a party, from the beginning to the end. The best music to dance, the food is usually impeccable, the champagne does not ever run out and the host or hostess are not afraid to use their best finery to impress their audience. 

If you have never been in a celebration of love, equality, and heritage where the community gets together to simply have FUN, the Denver PrideFest 2013 is your opportunity to catch up with the fun you have missed out on. 

WATER FOR THE WORLD

I know the average human body is around 50% to 65% water. I know life as it is wouldn’t exist without water. Moreover, I know billions, yes, billions of people have no access to water or get contaminated water, some have to walk miles under the sun to get the vital liquid or have to pay ridiculous amounts of money to be able to drink potable water, and when I take showers until my fingers are wrinkle like  grandma hands or when I open the faucet and let the water run while washing the dishes I feel guilty taking for grated such a precious treasure, however I still do it. How is that possible?

For all these reasons and because I want to change my approach to this problem I can't wait to enjoy the FESTIVAL FOR THE WATER.

This amazing WATER celebration and awareness festival presented by Water for the People and the AWWA (American Water Works Association) will not just bring tons of fantastic music but will help all of us to find a way to be conscious about the water crisis and how to take action to help the planet to surpass this difficult situation.

On June 9th the Civic Center Park will become a Nationwide focal point on this issue. Local bands The Motet and Broken Tongues, as well as New Orleans Brass Funk Rock band Bonerama will be performing while some of the most recognizable Food Trucks in town will delight everyone with their delicacies donating 10% of all sales to the cause.

MICHELANGELO IS IN TOWN.

 

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If all you know about Michelangelo is that he was the most important Italian renaissance painter and sculptor of all times; with an impressive list of creations from the naked, vulnerable David to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which by the way took 4 years to be painted in very uncomfortable positions for any human body... then you are not doing to bad.

What you might not know is that his success in sculpting human figures with so much muscular precision and sublime beauty came from the studies he made on cadavers with a special permit he got from the Catholic Church. Or that he was a very accomplished poet, yes poet, with more than 300 poems and sonnets, most of them written to a pious widow he was apparently in love with. If you don’t know that he was one of the few artists of his time that had the chance of living to enjoy his fame and wealth and see the publication of two biographies about his life... if you did not know all of that then you need to go to this exhibition Michelangelo at Denver Pavilions.