Category: food writing

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Postcard Foods

Rocky Mountain Stop: Postcard Foods in Dumont

Enjoy Postcard Foods’ New American fare for now and later.

There’s a new reason to pull off on Exit 234 on your way to the slopes this weekend. As of January, Postcard Foods is open for business in Dumont and here to cure your mountainside munchies.

Postcard Foods isn’t a restaurant or a food truck, but a food trailer that owners Jim Abraham and Bridget Bagel use to serve hot and frozen meals prepared from a commissary kitchen in Genesee Park. Based in Denver, the two originally hail from New Jersey, where they were surrounded by diverse Peruvian, Turkish, and Italian neighborhoods and cuisine.

Bridget and Jim didn’t meet in New Jersey though. They met in Black Rock Desert, Nevada (home of Burning Man) more than two years ago while making ice cream with liquid nitrogen. They were long distance for awhile so when Bridget visited Denver, she would make freezer-friendly meals for Jim so they could eat them during FaceTime dates together.

Last year, after Bridget graduated from Boston University with a degree in gastronomy, Jim left his longtime job of selling medical parts in Denver, and the couple traveled the world and began researching new flavors for Postcard Foods. They explored countries such as Morocco and Vietnam and then traveled to 18 more states throughout the US.

The two recognized a need for convenient high country fare after noticing long wait times at restaurant ski towns and Airbnbs not having user-friendly kitchens. In addition to Postcard’s ready-to-eat menu (with options such as the zesty Philadelphia Roast Pork sandwich and the super melty Verona Chicken Pesto Panini), the takeaway frozen meals have been its best-selling order so far.

The menu will change seasonally but will always have a gluten-free, vegan, and kid-friendly option. Right now you can grab a Marrakesh Chicken Tagine (made with chicken thighs, chickpeas, olives, quinoa, and seasoned with Moroccan spices and lemon zest) or a super-filling Shepard’s Pie (Bridget’s favorite as “mashed potatoes are the ultimate comfort food”), which can be popped in the oven and enjoyed by the entire family. Best of all, they’re aware that meal kit packaging can be pretty wasteful so all their meals are packaged in a plant compostable fiber that’s microwave- and oven-safe. 

This summer, Postcard plans to be open five days a week instead of three to better serve the hungry summer crowds. In addition to the convenient gas station right next door, there is also a Pure Harvest dispensary and possible liquor store in the works, making Postcard Foods your ideal mountain pitstop. As for future plans, Bridget says, “It would be a dream to have a brick-and-mortar as a commissary kitchen to give to ski towns. We could have different trucks [to distribute meals in] in Breckenridge and other towns.”

Grab a bite to eat for now (and later) from Postcard Foods before your next mountain adventure today.

Address: 1041 County Road 308, Dumont-Downieville-Lawson 
Phone Number: 303-900-3201
Hours: Friday-Sunday 7 a.m.-7 p.m.
postcardfoods.com

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Colorado’s Freshest Milk

Have one glass of Longmont Dairy Farm’s ultra creamy and delicious milk, and you’ll know why 25,000 customers on the Front Range remain loyal to this longtime institution. 

The Family Business

Longmont Dairy Farm (LDF) is more than half a century old and three generations in. Founded by Reese Boatman, Karl Obluda and Jim Boyd, LDF has been delivering fresh Colorado milk to their customers’ doorsteps since 1965. In 1988, Boyd’s son and daughter-in-law, David and Susan, took over the business. Then in 2015, their children, Dan Boyd and Katie Herrmann, became the new owners. 

Boyd is in charge of the mechanical side, including the processing plant, trucks and milk routes, while Herrmann oversees customer service, sales, marketing, IT and human resources. Since they took over, the two continue their grandfather’s legacy of running a sustainable and local dairy farm.

“We have big shoes to fill,” Herrmann says. “We want to keep our legacy alive. There’s a pressure to keep business going since my grandfather passed it on to my parents and now me and my brother. We have a sense of pride to keep this in the family. The Longmont Dairy Farm family has [served Coloradan] families as stewards of God, and we want to carry that forward.”

From Farm to Table

Herrmann says it takes a little over 48 hours for milk to travel from the Loveland dairy farm to a customer’s front door. The milk comes from Colorado born-and-raised Holstein cows, fed on a local diet of grain, hay and corn silage. Milk is stored in a tank until a truck transports it to the processing plant on Coffman Street. 

At the processing plant, the milk is homogenized, pasteurized and bottled in recycled glass bottles. Crates of chilled milk bottles wait until nightfall when an armada of 35 delivery trucks head out at 11 p.m. and make deliveries into the wee morning hours, Sunday through Thursday. Herrmann says the company delivers about 4,000 gallons of milk daily between Loveland and Highlands Ranch. 

A Convenient Coincidence

Ninety-nine percent of LDF’s business is from single-home deliveries but apartment-dwellers, fear not — milk is available for purchase at Your Butcher Frank and Longmont’s Whole Foods.

In the past, LDF has offered orange juice, eggs and butter. Since its 2018 plant expansion, LDF now delivers loaves of bread from Castle Rock’s Bread in the Box, cold brew coffee and fresh iced tea sourced by Boulder’s Silver Canyon Coffee and, more recently, Denver’s Prefare chicken and pizza meal kits.

Modern technology has made it more convenient for grocery delivery services. It’s expected the U.S. online grocery market will experience multi-billion dollar growth over the next few years. Regardless of market trends, LDF has proven its value to Front Range families for generations.

Sign up at longmontdairyfarm.com. 

Courtesy Longmont Dairy Farms

When you sign up for milk delivery service, Longmont Dairy Farm gives you a complimentary cooler. But, if you want to take the nostalgia up a notch, LDF also offers stainless steel and wooden milk boxes. Customers can then enjoy their breakfast with a glass of milk, free of antibiotics and rBST growth hormones. 

Once you’re finished with your bottle, don’t toss it in the recycle bin. Instead, leave it in the cooler (or milk box) so the delivery driver can take it back to the plant to be washed, sanitized and used again.

Community Service 

Since LDF launched the Milk Caps for Mooola program in 2012, it has collected 7 million milk caps and donated $350,000 to 350 participating elementary schools along the Front Range. Herrmann says with that money, students are able to access new technology, music programs and field trips.

https://www.boulderweekly.com/special-editions/colorados-freshest-milk/

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A Weekend in Florence

Five years ago…

I raised my hand to block the May sun’s glaring rays. Across the street from the train station, I saw a church, decorated in contrasting black stripes and rectangles, a remnant of the past that survived the Italian Renaissance.

Was I dreaming? Did I really make it?

There was a million mistakes I made on that trip that I swore not to repeat. This time, I would have lighter luggage. Working Internet. Close-toed shoes. Enough Italian words to get me by. Enough euros to get me by.

After I left Italy, despite how frustrating it had been at some times (or like, the entire time), I began to think about it daily. I was obsessed with the old country. I daydreamed about strolling down cobblestones through narrow alleyways. The church bell ringing at the strike of noon. The chocolate, metallic aroma of espresso, and the clink of a spoon as I stirred in my sugar. I missed it. I wanted it. And I promised myself I’d be back again.

Coming out of Switzerland, the snow began to dissipate as we entered northern Italy. Wintery Swiss wonderland transitioned into a fairytale mountain paradise. There were waterfalls, there were palm trees, there were mountains that reached high above the clouds. We switched trains in Milan, and then to Florence, my home away from home, we went.

Italy is a country that’s stuck in time.

The Roman Empire and its gods forever captured in stone.

Roman Catholic power still towering over everything and everyone.

Hundreds-of-years-old castles and estates in the Tuscan distance.

Farmers making the same movements (but with improvements) that their ancestors did, producing meat and cheese and wine from the land and undergoing whatever means necessary that ensure that it’s perfect every. single. time.

Who needs a time machine when you can have Italy?

There’s a million reasons why this country’s special to me, but I think the two main reasons are it’s 1. where I found my appetite and 2. realized there was power in my words. I used to think I wasn’t a good writer, even though I’ve been writing stories since I was seven years old. I remember the first time I read my words out loud to my teacher and my classmates, feeling the weight lift off my shoulders as I spoke my truth. I remember biting into a piece of prosciutto and melon, the sweet and saltiness mingling in my mouth, and thinking, “Damn. This is actually really good” and not feel the self-loathing as I ate another then another. I ate and drank and wrote freely during my time there despite my demons. It was only right to return to the place I found my yellow brick road. Italy was the first place that I finally felt like I was in control.

The Boboli Gardens

The Uffizi Gallery

And last, but not least:

Il Cibo

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Where To Find Denver’s Best Pizza

Clockwise from top left: Blue Pan Pizza’s Brooklyn Bridge; Enzo’s End Pizzeria’s Spinaci; Pizzeria Lui’s Lawn Boy; a seasonal pie from Brava! Pizzeria & Cafe. Photo by Aaron Colussi

Denver may not be known for America’s favorite food, but as it turns out, there are myriad excellent versions around town (we should know; we ate them all). No matter how you slice it, there’s never been a better time to be a pizza lover in Colorado.

A written collaboration with 5280 Magazine. Read the full article here.

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ChowSun

Filipino cuisine has been gaining traction nationally for a few years, and Denverites in the know go to Aurora’s Filipino-Thai joint ChowSun to get their fix. Housed in a nondescript strip mall, the four-year-old fast-casual eatery serves a full Thai menu, but we go for the bold, pork-centric Filipino fare, which marries Spanish and southeastern Asian influences. Our ideal meal starts with “lumpia” (crispy Filipino-style egg rolls) dipped into sweet chile sauce. Next, a savory-and-sour bowl of pork adobo or indulgent “lechon kawali” (fried cubes of juicy pork belly) served with a Filipino staple: fluffy steamed white rice. For dessert, order the halo halo sundae, a layered shaved-ice treat made with “ube” (purple yam) ice cream, sweetened condensed milk, red coconut jelly, jackfruit, and coconut slivers. 830 S. Buckley Road, Aurora, 720-410-2135

Written for 5280 Magazine‘s “Where We’re Eating in November”