Riffs Urban Fare on Pearl Street.

Riffs Urban Fare
1115 Pearl Street
Boulder, CO 80304
(303) 440-6699
hours: daily 12pm – 11pm
cocktail hour: daily 2pm-6pm
email: info@riffsboulder.com

Proprietor Phil Shull has reinvented the iconic location of his former business, the Bookend Café and transformed it into Riffs Urban Fare. Combining the cozy charm of Bookends ambiance with a sleek and modern flair, Riffs feels both familiar and sophisticated. Head chef John Platt brings years of experience from his previous endeavor at Q’s restaurant, bringing along insightful dishes with an emphasis on organic ingredients and thoughtful pairings.

The physical contours of Riffs are narrow but uncrowded, warmly lit and trendy with a  relaxed local vibe. Staff are laid-back, friendly and knowledgeable. A centrally located bar is perfect for casual meet ups and happy hours. The lunch menu is varied and unpretentious with fresh, organic veggie dishes, smooth soups and balanced main dishes such as duck confit and cedar plank king salmon. Riffs’ wine list complements the sophisticated plates with a strong assortment of reds and whites while the beer and cocktail menu focuses on local microbreweries and sophisticated mixed drinks.

There’s good reason to believe Riffs will flourish in the often tough Boulder restaurant environment. Chef Platt’s passion for flavorful dishes brought to life in a classic local setting reflect the energy and style of Boulder: hip, easy-going and high quality.

Sculptor and gallery owner Hobart Brown started Kinetic Sculpture Racing in Ferndale, California in 1969, and it grew into an annual event involving a 42-mile course over various terrains. Ten years later, Boulder firefighter Rick Hartner witnessed this controlled madness and decided to reproduce it in Colorado. Kinetics hit the ground rolling on May 3, 1980.

There are several kinetics events held around the country, but Boulder’s has had the highest attendance. As many as 45,000 people have come for years to the Union Reservoir in Longmont, lured by live bands, rollicking spectators, and incredible mobile sculptures.

The Kineticists website has a wealth of information to help you build a vessel that will convey your body and your vision of creativity across water, prairie, mud, roads, and past spectators and reporters.

Your contraption will be judged on the following criteria:

1. Sculpture: The pieces of your vessel may start as thrift-store discards, yard-sale treasures, or strange things found in your garage, but are transformed into the most creative, perhaps wackiest, most theme-appropriate, highly attractive sculptures. These awards go to the team that uses this Kinetic opportunity to construct the most spectacular works of art possible that still function.
2. Engineering: The main frame is connected to the drive train. The drive train is connected to the paddlewheel. These awards go to the top two teams whose sculptures not only glide effortlessly across land and water, but which also contain innovative mechanical ideas that actually work.
3. Costumes: Halloween on water, Mardi Gras in August. This award goes to the team that comes up with the most unique, creative, and out-of-this-world costume theme.
4. Team Style: There’s something indescribable about a team that has it all together. They have the sculpture, the theme, and the costumes, but what separates them is the X-factor — that quality that makes men green with envy and that makes women swoon. You can think of it as the team with the top “performance art.”

There are several rules that must be followed in order to qualify for Kinetics. The main two are that sculptures must be no more than 8′ wide, 14′ high, and 35′ long, and that sculptures must be human-powered — although it is allowed to get assistance from the natural power of water, wind, sun, gravity, and friendly extraterrestrials.

When you register, you will be asked to share some fun facts about your team, your craft, your costumes, your sponsors, your team members, and how you came up with your theme. You will also be asked to explain how your Kinetic Conveyance is propelled.

Registration costs $40 per team plus $10 for each team member and camping is available at the reservoir on Friday, August 26. The gates to the reservoir will open on Saturday the 27^th at 6 a.m., judging will take place at 9 a.m., and the race will begin at 11 a.m.

For one day out of the year, you can dress like a wizard and prove to everyone that the contraption you built with your own two hands isn’t going to sink in the middle of the water. If this sounds more exciting than your day job, why not give Boulder Kinetics a shot?

[Photos courtesy of Kineticists.org]

Savor the myriad treats for the senses, from visual arts to tasty local food to the sounds of music in the air. Boulder’s favorite street performers make us laugh and add to the ambiance. It is truly a festive event.

[Photo courtesy of Dickens Store]

The possession, use, and distribution of marijuana remains illegal under Federal law. And although medical marijuana is legal in Colorado, its use is restricted on the CU campus. In fact, even freshmen who have been issued medical marijuana cards cannot possess or use marijuana in their dorms, so CU is now allowing those first-year students out of their housing contract in order to live off campus.

Although marijuana possession is technically illegal on campus, “Police presence during 4/20 is designed primarily to promote safety and provide for timely responses to emergency situations if needed,” said Molly Bosley, spokeswoman for CU`s police department.

Out of the 10,000 people present at last year’s 4/20 celebration, CU police ticketed 18 students, including 16 for narcotics, 1 for trespassing, and 1 for alcohol. As explained by CU-Boulder spokesman Bronson Hilliard, “We`re not going to wade into the crowd at 4:20 p.m. and start ticketing people. You have to be pretty flagrant and it’s at the officers discretion to ticket.”

Among the other selling points for Playboy’s party-gauging editors was that Boulder is a “beer drinker’s paradise” and the campus is close to “dozens of world-class ski resorts.” The ranking, which was announced online a week ago, comes eight years after CU topped a similar party-school list compiled by Princeton Review.

[Photos courtesy of the author's freshman year of college]

A local treasure, this is one of the best farmers’ markets around. Almost everything can be found here, from freshly roasted green chilies, to gourmet spreads and dips, to cheeses and wines, to flowers and plants. Much of the food is organic, and all of it is locally grown by the people selling it.

The Market also has a food court with delicious prepared foods, picnic tables, and live music. The food court is the perfect place to grab some breakfast or lunch and take it over to Central Park to sit in the grass and do some serious people-watching.

The Market hosts thousands of Boulderites and visitors every week, some who are there to see the sights and take in the smells, and others who are just there to do their weekly grocery shopping. Saturdays, though, are generally more crowded and more slow-paced, with people chatting with friends while pursuing the booths. (After around 10 a.m. or so, the Saturday Market can get really crowded, so go early if you want to be able to walk at your own pace.)

The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art is right next to the Farmers’ Market and offers free admission during both the Saturday and Wednesday Markets. The Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse — which was given to Boulder by our sister city of Dushanbe, Tajikistan — is essentially surrounded by the Farmers’ Market. Its hand-carved and hand-painted ceilings, columns, and ceramic panels are worth just stopping in for a look, but the Teahouse also serves delicious international cuisine in addition to their enormous selection of teas.

[Photos courtesy of Boulder Farmers' Market and The Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse]

Attendees can attend panels, plenaries, and performances on nearly limitless topics over the course of the week of the CWA. All events are free and open to the public and nearly all of them are held on the CU Campus (with a few being held at Boulder High School so that younger students can attend). During the five days of last year’s conference, attendance was 92,176 at nearly 200 sessions.

The theme of the 63rd annual conference is “What Matters.”  CWA Director Jim Palmer explains, “Given the distractions of modern life and the tsunami of information we’re bombarded with daily, it is easy to forget to ask the fundamental questions, the questions of value.  That is why our theme ‘What Matters’ matters.”

Some of this year’s panel titles include: India, China and U.S., Partners and Competitors; Why Jazz Matters; Why Marriage Equality Matters; Beyond Natural Selection: Designing Our Descendants; Celebrating Poetry: An Adult’s Garden of Verses; and Peace by Peaceful Means. The full schedule of panels is available online.

Most panels run about an hour and twenty minutes, with three or four panelists taking turns to speak and then respond to each other, after which the floor is open to audience questions. Some panels will undoubtedly be very popular — such as Graham Nash and David Crosby’s closing plenary entitled Life Matters — so plan to arrive early to topics that are particularly timely.

In my opinion, the Conference on World Affairs is one of the best parts about Boulder and one of the best things Boulder has to offer visitors, so be sure not to miss this momentous event!

[Photo courtesy of Conference on World Affairs]

Black Cat is a bistro tucked just off the Pearl Street Mall in downtown Boulder that serves creative modern French and American cuisine. Unlike any other restaurant in town, Black Cat has actually created an organic farm to supply the restaurant with just-picked produce.

The mission of Boulder County AIDS Project is to provide support, advocacy, and education to those in the Boulder community infected with or affected by HIV, and to serve as an information center to prevent further transmission of HIV and AIDS. Dining Out Days allows you to support this laudable organization while enjoying delicious, locally sourced cuisine, so make your dinner reservation today for April 7th at Black Cat. Oh, and call ahead to reserve the private booth in the back of the dining room — it feels like a fortune teller’s table.

[Photo courtesy of Black Cat]

The Hotel Boulderado is featuring live Irish music by The Green Party beginning at 5:30 p.m. and Irish step dancing by the McTeggert Dancers starting at 6:30 p.m. Q’s Restaurant, located inside the Boulderado, will feature menu items such as traditional corned beef with boiled cabbage and Bailey’s Irish Cream cheesecake.

The West End Tavern will be featuring Irish drink specials  including car bomb slushies, $4 Irish beer specials, $8 “lucky leprechaun cocktails” and “Erin Go Bragh cocktails,”Jameson specials, $5 car bombs, and Irish whiskey flights. Their food specials include 3 different Reubens, corned beef & cabbage, bangers & mash, shepherd’s pie, and whiskey mussels, and Irish dancers will be enhancing the revelry of the evening.

Even if you’re not Irish, with all of these drink and food specials around Boulder, you can at least enjoy the luck of the Irish this Thursday! And if you want a St. Patty’s encore on Monday, The Saw Doctors will perform at the Boulder Theater. This renowned Irish rock band boasts18 top-30 hits in Ireland and was honored with a lifetime achievement award.

[Photos courtesy of Blyzz/Flickr and Army.mil]

Their appetizers are equally amazing, and the fried yuca with guasa is not to be missed. Yuca is a tuberous root from the potato family that is native to South America and guasa is the Venezuelan version of guacamole. For dessert, the vegan arroz con leche is a real treat, as are the figs in syrup.

Certain types of ethnic restaurants, such as Indian and Thai, lend themselves more readily to vegetarian dishes, but Zudaka is a real treat for vegetarians or health-conscious eaters wanting some authentic Latin flavor.

[Photos courtesy of Zudaka Restaurant]