The Boulder Community is in a world of sadness this week with the tragic death of Kelsey Skokan last Friday evening. The Skokan Family has been a major pillar of our food family in Boulder County for three-plus decades, starting back when Eric and Jill were running Alice’s Restaurant at The Gold Lake Resort. I have written many times in this newsletter and other publications about the nature of how the Skokans approach business and life — which for them has been a tight hand-hold since the beginning. The Skokans are farmers. Board members. Chefs. Restaurateurs. Cookbook authors. Entrepreneurs. But […]

When I opened Zolo 26 years ago, many of my chef heroes at the time were entrenched in Southwest cooking. Brendan Walsh of Arizona 206 in NYC, Michael McCarty of Michael’s in Santa Monica, and our own “local- Detroit transplant” Jimmy Schmidt at The Rattlesnake Club in Denver. The food was bold, centered, and exciting. When I had Chef Mark Miller from The Coyote Cafe cooking in my Zolo kitchen a few years after we opened, it was like Christmas, Easter, my birthday, and 4th of July mornings all in one moment for me. I love this food and the history […]

Douglass D. Query, my dad, was one of those dads that every friend of mine wished they had as their own. He was funny. Really funny. Interesting, smart, current, and would play Going to California on the radio and look back with his 30th daily cigarette lip dangling and say “that’s the big LZ”. He engaged in conversation with us, and that was never something I experienced with most of my friends’ fathers, as they mostly seemed more serious and aloof when I was younger. He’d sit and talk and ask random questions and hilariously probe—fact-finding to an almost gossipy level probe—which […]

Greetings – Another sunny day, another opportunity to breathe deep, exhale, and then possibly drink too much. I keep waking up wanting to say, “WOW, Dana wake up, let me tell you about this absurd dream I had last night. The restaurants were all closed, there was a global pandemic, all kinds of businesses and industries were just getting wrecked, and over 100,000 people in the US died from something called Covid.” Except in reality, she is always up before me and sees me bleary eyed and says, “mornin’, want some coffee?” and it sinks in again that the only thing remotely groundhog dazey about any […]

Good Day Good Friends. I must say this sunny and warm weather does have a way of making all things seem somewhat better. It’s still rainy and cold and dark back in parts to the East. ‘Nother week, ‘nother set of rules, expectations, measurements, and variable facts. But we are certainly inching closer to something than further away from it… READ MORE → Click HERE to view the PDF of the newsletter. Sign-up for the Big Red F Newsletter below in our website footer to stay up to date.