"colorado" news and stories

• Seven soup recipes from seven new cookbooks help Denver residents stay warm this season.
• Seared scallops, salad and rib-eye are the way to go at the newly revamped Simms Steakhouse.
• The Colorado Beer Festival descends on Colorado Springs this Saturday, and offers more than 70 beers to sample, as well as a designated-driver program.
• The Wynkoop Brewery will hold its own Beers of the Year mini-festival on Saturday, also.
• Dublin-made cream liqueur Coole Swan, which gets its name from Yeats' poem "The Wild Swans of Coole," is finally for sale in Colorado, and one food writer -- who claims it's the finest cream liqueur he's ever tasted -- couldn't be happier.
• A "gastropub" opens in Cherry Creek, inspiring food critic Tucker Shaw to explore the etymology of the word.
• A knife-wielding blogger discovers the bounty of the duck.

Salmonella. Photo: AP

A California meat packer has recalled more than 825,000 pounds of ground beef that may be linked to salmonellosis, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said this week.

Beef Packers, Inc., of Fresno, Calif., recalled the ground beef products on Aug. 6, 2009. Meat included in the recall was produced between June 5, 2009, and June 23, 2009; contains the code "EST. 31913" on its labels and was distributed to 11 states.

Officials say the meats may be linked to an outbreak of salmonella in Colorado. The strain of that particular outbreak -- salmonella Newport -- is resistant to many commonly prescribed drugs.

A lot of states here in the U.S. have laws banning alcohol sales on Sunday's. I've never really understood why. People are still going to drink if they really want to, so there's no big moral reason. That's even less of a reason if the state allows restaurants that sell adult beverages to operate on Sunday. It would be more moral to let people buy alcohol and drink at home than to make them go out for it and drive home drunk. I suppose there's always the argument that you should plan ahead. I don't know how many times I've been shopping on Sunday, when I have time, and not been able to purchase wine for meal later in the week.

And that's part of the reason why the Colorado State Senate has taken up a bill that would allow Sunday sales of alcohol. On Friday it approved the bill, but it still has to pass another vote in the Senate and also be passed in the state's House of Representatives.


So it's not out of the woods yet, but the effort to have all week access to alcohol is looking better. Attitudes are changing. When the laws were originally passed, most stores were already closed on Sunday. Now, a lot of people do their grocery shopping on Sunday, and businesses are losing out on sales on Sunday, at least.

The government should work on teaching people how to be responsible, and maybe work on strategies to prevent the downsides of drinking. It should not, however, tell me when I can purchase alcohol. That's just un-American.

[Via Realbeer]

Earlier this week we reported that United Food Group had recalled 75,000 pounds of beef in Colorado. Now the company has expanded the recall to include New Mexico.

And it's not a little increase in the amount being recalled. To that 75,000 pounds you can now add another 370,000 pounds of ground beef that's being recalled. The details are a bit confusing. At first it sounds like only Colorado and New Mexico are affected, but the beef was actually distributed to 11 states, in over a dozen supermarket chains. Consumers are urged to either return or throw away any meat they might have in their refrigerators.

TechNewsWorld has the complete details at the link above, including the stores/brands affected and a phone number to call if you have any questions.

Update: Now it's 5.7 million pounds.

Yes, that's 75,000 pounds. The company has recalled the ground beef because of possible E. coli contamination, and the state of Colorado is urging consumers not to eat ground beef from the company and to throw it away.

The beef was distributed to several Albertson's stores in Colorado, and the store chain has removed all of the beef mentioned in the recall. Other products not mentioned in the recall are still on Albertson's shelves and are safe to eat.

Food Consumer.org has the full details on the recall, including a list of the products recalled and their dates and codes.