Stocking up

Incredible edibles from Colorado make tasteful gifts

By John Lehndorff
News Dining Critic

It's the week before Christmas, and all through the state,

the shoppers are panicked, their gifts will be late!

What can they give that will be in good taste?

And somehow conceal their last-minute haste?

Well, don't get your Christmas stocking in a knot. There's a solution at hand, which explains why I never panic — well, at least I panic less — about holiday gift choices.

Everybody eats.

The way I figure it, everybody has a food or beverage vice. There's a jam Uncle Bob loves, a chocolate delight your friend Suzie sighs over but seldom affords, a fine cheese or Balsamic vinegar your brother Bill won't splurge on or a great bottle of wine you know your boss would enjoy.

When in doubt, give something edible because you won't have to guess what size the recipient wears. Plus, compared to jewelry, you can buy an impressive pile of chocolates for little diñero. It's the perfect last-minute gift. There's still time to buy, wrap and even ship them or, better yet, order them by e-mail or on the Web.

To make my food gifts a little more distinctive, I focus on packing candies, coffees, wines, ales, food books, and salsas made, brewed or bottled in Colorado. I give them because the state in recent years has begun producing world-class goodies. Plus, I love introducing out-of-staters to Colorado's best and listening to them gush, "I didn't know Colorado made such great ... . "

Where to find Colorado foods and beverages Many of the Colorado foods, beverages and books mentioned in this story are available at supermarkets and liquor stores. Whole Foods Market and Alfalfa's and Wild Oats markets stock many of the premium and natural-foods items. Here are some other useful sources: Made in Colorado Gift Shop 4840 W. 29th Ave. (800) 272-1046 www.madeincolorado.com Buffalo and other Colorado foods: Denver Buffalo Company 1109 Lincoln St. (303) 832-0880 www.newwestfoods.com Colorado food baskets: A La Carte Gifts and Baskets 910 16th St., Ste. 312 (303) 454-8844 CANDY: Hammond's Candies 4969 Colorado Blvd. (303) 333-5588 Enstrom Candies 201 University Blvd. (303) 322-1005 www.enstrom.com Order premium chocolate bars from Boulder-based Chocolove at www.chocolove.com BAKED GOODS: To order Denver-baked potica, thinly rolled sweet bread with a walnut filing, call Mrs. Mauro's Potica in Denver: (800) 359-2196. Fresh Colorado fruitcake from Slice O'Life Bakery, 105 W. Third St., Palisade; (970) 464-0577. CHEESES: La Fromagerie at the Cheese Importers Warehouse, 33 S. Pratt Pkwy., Longmont; (303) 443-4444. To order goat-cheese gift packs from Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy, go to www.haystackgoatcheese.com, or call (303) 581-9948. To order bleu cheese from Bingham Hill Cheese Company in Fort Collins, call (970) 472-0702, or go to www.binghamhill.com. Contact Sontheim Fine Cheeses of Powderhorn at (970) 641-6671. HOT SAUCES: Phamous Phloyds, 2998 S. Steele St., Denver; (303) 757-3285, or www.phloyds.com. The Peppercorn 1235 Pearl St. (Downtown Mall) Boulder (303) 449-5847 www.peppercorn.com

Whether you gather the items and wrap them or use a gift basket service, here are food gift ideas for various folks on your holiday shopping list. OR better yet, get inspired and put together your own delicious basketful of good taste from the Mile High City.

How do I love thee?

For true love, all you need, poet Omar Khayyam wrote, is "A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou." With that in mind compose a gift package with the hopelessly romantic in mind. Start with a great artisan loaf — in this case a round boule loaf baked at the Denver Bread Company. Add a bottle of Plum Creek 1999 Riesling "ice wine" — made from late-harvested frozen grapes — or other Colorado wines, and add a corkscrew. Throw in a chunk of Haystack Mountain chevre as a main dish or go directly to dessert, a 3.2-ounce bar of premium dark Belgium chocolate imbedded with bits of cocoa bean or candied ginger from Boulder-based Chocolove. There's a different classic love poem on each bar's wrapper.

Speaking of love poems, romance never suffers when you read poetry to each other, and when you listen to cooing ballads, like those on Denver chanteuse Lannie Garrett's new CD, "Slick Chick on the Mellow Side." Finish the package with a beautiful card advising the giftee where, when and with whom the contents might be consumed.

Ale to the chef

To savvy ale aficionados across the nation, we live in the promised land, beer-wise. This is where The Beer Man lives as well as the world's largest brewery. Denver is home to the nation's top brewing competition and tasting event, the Great American Beer Festival. Plus, a wealth of award-winning craft breweries and brewpubs call Colorado home.

Putting together an impressive beer lover's gift package is mainly an effort in narrowing down too many fine choices. Start out with individual bottles of seasonal Colorado-brewed beers such as Avery's Jubilation Ale, Breckenridge's Christmas Ale, Great Divide's Hibernation Ale, or New Belgium Frambozen (made with raspberries). Consider Lefthand Brewery's XXX Mas Ale, an intense ale flavored with real orange, ginger, cloves and nutmeg and sweetened with honey and the perennial favorite, Rockies's spiced Igloo Ale.

Pack it with Denver Buffalo Co. buffalo salami, Boulder Potato Chips, and buffalo sticks (from Fort Lupton's House of Smoke), Brewski Herb Spice Snacks, a brewpub gift certificate and a copy of the entertaining Colorado: A Liquid History and Tavern Guide to the Highest State (Fulcrum) by Tom Noel.

Sipping Western vintage

You can also include a corkscrew, a restaurant wine dinner gift certificate, and a guide to Colorado's wineries, free when you go to www.coloradowine.com or call (720) 304-3406. For the neophyte oenophile, register them in wine tasting for beginners (Jan. 19 and 26) taught by Denver's International Wine Guild. (Call (303) 308-9300.) Or sign them up for "Discover Colorado Wines." Taught by Alta and Brad Smith — authors of The Guide to Colorado Wineries at Denver Free University, the classes Jan. 13 and March 10 include sampling some of the state's better bottlings.

Winning goodies for kids

Whoopie-tie-ya-yay for cowboy cuisine

Next, challenge their taste buds to a duel with Farmers Fixins Garlic From Hell, Phamous Phloyds Phrightfully Hot Hot Sauce (and Bloody Mary Mix), and Joy's Raspberry Chipotle Sauce.

For reading on the range, tuck in a bestselling classic, the Junior League of Denver's Colorado Cache or The Fort Cookbook by Sam Arnold (Ten Speed Press).

For a finishing touch, crown it with a CD of cowboy songs from the likes of Michael Martin Murphey, Ian Tyson or Chris LaDoux and a Western restaurant gift certificate from the Brewery Bar and the Buckhorn Exchange in Denver or Bruce's Bar in Severence. The latter eatery specializes in Rocky Mountain Oysters.

Here are some other Colorado-flavored gift ideas (NOT PICTURED):

Colorado caliente

Spicy food was cooking in Colorado long before the cowboys got here. For the person on your list who likes it hot, pack some Fernandez Chile Rojo ground red Colorado chile ($1.69, 4 ounces) and a jar of La Estrellita Vegetarian Green Chile ($3.29, 16-ounce jar) from the local Mexican family eateries. For intriguing reading, be sure to include a copy of the well-written La Comida: The Foods, Cooking and Traditions of the Upper Rio Grande (Pruett) by Frederick Muller.

Time out for tea

If you have a friend who truly loves the flavors and rituals of tea-drinking consider yourself lucky; you'll never be at a loss for gift ideas. To built a tea-oriented gift package, start with a ceramic tea pot and cup. Add a box of Boulder-manufactured Celestial Seasonings Sugar Plum Spice Tea and a 11/2 pound jar of exquisite Niwot Honey ($4.79 at Alfalfa's Market) or Madhava Honey, produced in Lyons.

Enclose a gift certificate for afternoon tea at the Brown Palace or the Boulder Dushanbe Tea House. You could also take them on the free tour at the Celestial Seasonings which includes sampling teas, viewing original tea box art, watching tea bags being packed and clearing the sinuses in the peppermint room.

Top of your tea package with a few fine scones from a local bakery with bottled Devonshire Cream or creme fraiche.

Great cheese, great crackers

Best of all may be a gift certificate from La Fromagerie at the Cheese Importers Warehouse in Longmont. The refrigerated warehouse holds the single largest selection of cheeses in Colorado, 500 or more.

Finish off your cheese-lovers fantasy with crisp organic Colorado apples, Denver-baked Bremner Sesame Crackers ($2.89) and a cheese knife. If they are the crafts type, get them a 30-minute mozzarella-making kit ($19.95) from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Co.: (413) 628-3808 or www.cheesemaking.com.

Mountain coffee break

Now you need something good to eat with the brewed blessing. You can add an assortment of fabulous goodies from local bakeries including Holiday Stollen — a dense, fruit-packed cake covered in confectioners' sugar or almonds — baked in Boulder ($15, Alfalfa's). Or search out some fine mail order treats.

Mrs. Mauro's Potica — a delicate walnut-stuffed sweet bread — is baked in Denver and shipped nationally. Slice O' Life Bakery in Palisade produces a legendary fresh Colorado fruitcake made with Western Slope fruit.

Sweet relief

For the true sugar-craver, only the best Colorado candies will do. Start with a box of the internationally famous almond toffee ($6.75) from Enstrom's Candy. Include some cinnamon-flavored ribbon candy or traditional candy straws from Denver's equally legendary Hammond's Candies. Mix in a package of — what else? — melt-in-your-mouth Denver Mints from Stephany's Chocolates. Fill it out with a pound of the excellent dark cherry cordials from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate factory.

If you are in a humorous mood, tuck in a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste and some floss.

Heart to heart

For some friends and family members, the best gift you can give them is less. A robotic electric lawn mower is not your best choice for socially conscious and environmentally aware family members and friends. They will be happier if your present has some greater meaning than simply materialistic acquisition.

Start by filling a (recycled) basket with Toni's Ten-Bean Soup or Firehouse Chili or any of the other dry soup mixes from the Women's Bean Project in Denver. Add one of the many local benefit cookbooks such as Shalom on the Range by Carol Singer which collects recipes from Colorado's Jewish community. Proceeds from the book go to Shalom Park, a care facility for the eldery.

Enclose a card noting that a donation made in your name to Food Bank of the Rockies, Community Food Share in Boulder or another worthy organization.

Naturally gifted

The Front Range's place at the epicenter of the natural foods industry means the choices are numerous in assembling a gift. There are organic teas from Celestial Seasonings and Big B's Organic Apple Juice, grown and squeezed by B. Heideman and Co. in Hotchkiss. Pack Allegro organic decaf coffee with Longmont-based Horizon Dairy Half & Half or White Wave Silk soymilk or crank them up naturally with Jivin' Java cold-filtered organic coffee concentrate. Grace it with a gift certificate for a gentle meal at Sunflower, Water Course Foods, Rudi's or one of the other local natural foods/vegetarian restaurants.

Season's readings

Some folks live to cook. For them there's no such thing as too many cookbooks, especially when they are from Colorado. Give them a copy of the Best of the Historic West cookbook (Pantry Press), recipes collected by Javana and David Richardson from Colorado inns, hotels, ranches and bed and breakfasts. Contributors range from the San Sophia in Telluride (Breakfast Strudel with Blood Orange Hollandaise) and the Black Bear Inn in Vail (Cocoa-Mocha Cream Puffs) to C Lazy U Ranch in Granby (Citrus-crusted Pork Tenderloin) and the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park (Blueberry Crumb Cake). Match that with the Best of the Best from Colorado (Quail Ridge Press), a collection of recipes from Colorado cookbooks, and Colorado Collage' from the Junior League of Denver.

For some, nothing makes them happier than traveling around Colorado searching out great meals, roadside attractions and undiscovered bakeries. For these adventurous souls, we recommend wrapping copies of Colorado Restaurants: Off the Beaten Path (Small Town Publications), the Zagat Guide 2000 Rocky Mountain Top Restaurants and the new 2001 edition of The Gabby Gourmet Restaurant Guide with a gift certificate from a great Colorado restaurant.

December 17, 2000