Wild Boar Coffee: My coffee shop, mine!

I spend most days doing work in my apartment, as I've been able to set up a study in my second bedroom. But there are only so many hours you can spend holed up in one place, and it's then that I move myself over to Wild Boar Coffee.

Not only is it close to my apartment, but as a converted house it manages to be both cozy and spacious. There are usually tables available, many with good light, and plenty of outlets to plug in laptops. A pile of board games in the main parlor, too.

The tea selection is a little weak (does anyone else hate Republic of Tea? Their little tea bags are so flavorless), but their coffee is good, and I believe they just started serving alcohol for those looking to curl up with a glass of wine while reading a book. And the food? Tasty and also inexpensive! If I'm spending an entire day in Wild Boar, I don't mind that I have to eat one or two meals there. Here's a rundown of some of the items I've tried:

Pulled pork sliders, which I requested come with a salad instead of chips for maybe fifty cents more (I think). Both the salad and dressing were good and fresh, and though the pulled pork was a little too sweet—almost like Chinese rou soong—it was altogether satisfying.

Tomato bisque was on the salty side (my most frequent complaint about most non-homemade soups), but the flavor was good and the butter-topped roll that came with it soft and toasty.

Bacon quesadilla with a side salad. The quesadilla is pretty plain—just melted cheddar and several strips of bacon, with salsa and sour cream on the side—but you can't really go wrong with that combination.

Egg and potato "breakfast burrito," smothered in pork green chili and topped with melted cheddar for fifty cents or a dollar more (I can't remember). In some parts the tortilla seemed a little tough (over-microwaved at the end?) but it wasn't bad—definitely a filling bang-for-the-buck.

Finally, a giant peanut butter cookie. Could have had more peanut butter flavor and was a little too crisp for my tastes—I lean towards chewy cookies—but decent nonetheless.

From what I understand Wild Boar Coffee opened up sometime last spring and so is a relative newcomer to the town. It seems like they're still experimenting with some things (newly emphasizing that they are a restaurant, for instance, though they seem solidly like a coffee shop to me), so there will probably be more to report later on. In the meanwhile, I'll be there with my laptop and manuscripts as long as they've got a table for me.

O'Tasty pork buns: One for the frozen food files

Still on the quest for good bao. Despite the machine-made crimping, this looks much better than the last one, dunnit? These are O'Tasty Foods brand, priced at six bucks for a pack of eight, which I found in the frozen section of Cabana Asian Market—another funny shop that is a combination of salon, spa, and grocery.

After I microwaved one the dough was moist and soft, and the roast pork filling had good flavor that wasn't too sweet, though it could have been a bit less mushy. They're small, so they're pricier than NYC Chinatown for sure, but the taste was close enough so that I didn't mind.

What I did with kale

The bundle of Tuscan/lacinato kale I bought at the farmer's market, paired with caramelized onions and braised. Next time, I'll let the kale cook a little longer; I was impatient and didn't let it get soft enough. In terms of flavor, though, the caramelized onions were a nice match. There was a bit of tang from lemon juice, too—not sure if this was essential, but it worked.

With the regular kale, I braised it with garlic, onions, and chopped tomatoes.

It went surprisingly well with some cheese ravioli!

Enter the giveaway!

Striving for tortilla de patatas

Tortilla de patatas—Spanish potato omelette—is one of those things I try to make all the time but never get exactly right. Oh, I come up with something good enough to satisfy myself (and occasionally others), but it's never anything like the comforting wedges of rich, soft-textured omelette that I remember eating in Barcelona and Valencia. Not as good as the ones made by my brother's co-worker for their office parties, either.

Nonetheless, when I have the ingredients on hand I give it a shot. I dutifully slice the potatoes and onions, saute them in olive oil until they're cooked through and not brown, and then pour the beaten egg, seasoned with some salt, over the onion and potatoes in the pan. I let the combination sit until the bottom is firm. I cover the pan with a large plate, invert the pan so the omelette falls onto the plate, and then slide the uncooked side back into the bottom of the pan. I let the new side cook. Then I tip the omelette out, let it cool, and cut myself a wedge.

It's never as good as I want it to be: the potatoes are either not soft and creamy enough or the textures aren't melded. I assume either wrong potato variety or improper technique, usually; here, I've clearly not sliced the tubers fine enough. Yet it never tastes bad, because eggs and potatoes and onions are a magical combination. When placed between two halves of a lightly toasted roll, even my botched omelette is close enough so that I'm reminded of how the bocadillos tasted in Spain. One day, I'll get it right.

Enter the giveaway!

India's Rice 'n' Spice

Around my parents' way there are a ton of Indian grocery stores, and where I lived in Astoria, Queens there were several small markets around too. In Fort Collins, it seems there's only one—it's a good thing I happened to bike past it.

India's Rice 'n' Spice is a pretty good size, and if it carried fresh produce and sold homemade samosas at the register it would be pretty much exactly what I'm used to. I came home with two packets of frozen paratha, a bag of potato/gram flour snack mix, a roll of "nutty" cookies, and a roll of pistachio-cardamom cookies.

I pan-fried one of the paratha that night; it was flecked with mint (pudina) and was good as a midnight snack.

The next day, I cracked an egg over the paratha after the first side was toasted, and then rolled it up into a makeshift kati roll. I didn't have anything else to throw in there but some sriracha hot sauce, so it ended up being something like an Indian-flavored Chinese egg pancake. Mmm.

Halloween + cupcake = party

The fabulously moist and flavorful pumpkin cupcake with cream cheese frosting that WP whipped up for KS and WP's combination birthday/housewarming/halloween/new puppy party; I was tempted to have more than one. I'll try to get the recipe—the sprinkles of candied ginger on top made for an extra-special touch.

I could argue that the multiple jeweled rings and dark red polish on my fingers made for an extra-special touch on my lame "witch doctor" costume that night (think pointy hat + stethoscope), but that would just be pushing it.

Prepping pepitas for pigging out

Behold: my creation from KH's pumpkin carving party. A bunch of us gathered in her living room a few weeks before Halloween armed with knives, scoops, and paint, ready to turn innocent pumpkins into wicked-faced lanterns. I, for one, opted to go for something more cheerful—but let's not discuss how a cute little baby pumpkin face can become a sunken maw of horror when you neglect to throw it out, because that might make me cry. Let's just stick to talking about guts instead. And seeds. And pepitas.


At the party RBM and I took it upon ourselves to rescue the load of seeds hidden inside the enormous mound of discarded pulp on the carving table. As I obsessed over picking out every last one, RBM took charge as Head Pepita Chef, washing the slime and pulp away from each seed and spreading them out over a baking sheet to dry. After coating them with olive oil and salt, they went into the oven at 350 degrees to roast.

While we waited, we drank beer—pumpkin beer, of course.

Um, we also set off the smoke detector.
Sorry, KH.

No matter! By then the pepitas were charred and RBM proclaimed the pumpkin seeds roasted. So we turned off the oven, rescued them from the pan, and chowed down.

Excellent: there was plenty for everyone. Including these fellas.

This sh*t is bananas: Rasta Pasta

What makes a pasta Caribbean? From the looks of Rasta Pasta's menu, it's names like Spaghetti Trench Town, The Natural Mystic, and Dreadlock Ravioli, as well as ingredients like pineapples, jerk chicken, and bananas. Throw in some reggae music and it's definitely time to pass the doobie.

I joined MC and her pal for dinner at the Fort Collins location one night (there's also one in Breckenridge). Each dish came with a fresh side salad, accompanied by house-made sundried tomato vinaigrette, and a piece of toasty garlic bread. And the servers were accommodating about our request for a dish of simply pasta with butter, which MC's pal happily scarfed down as her entree.

Of course, I'm never one to go for simple when I can order "Chicken Montego Bay," penne in a light cream sauce with pineapple chunks, pieces of jerk chicken, and an assortment of fresh vegetables like cauliflower, tomatoes, broccoli, and carrots. I didn't taste much jerk on the chicken, but it hardly mattered—the dish was delicious. Huge, too; I only ate about a third before packing the rest up to take home. Next time I get the munchies I'll check out the "Tortellini Jamaica Mon," with its bananas, pineapples, grapes, and "secret spices"….