The January issue of Cooking Light features Denver, “once left off the culinary map for its admittedly tired take on cowboy cuisine,” the magazine advises, but “catching up to food trends fast.” For proof, it name-checks chef Alex Seidel of Fruition, who recently purchased a farm to supply the kind…

On the Latest Word, we’ve been counting down some of Denver’s best moments over the past decade. But this city did not start 2000 with a bang. In fact, while the rest of the world threw a huge party to welcome the millennium, Denver officials — with visions of Y2K…

Yesterday I visited Phil’s Place, the great dive at 35th and Larimer — which suddenly boasts a fancy new back bar. From the photo, several readers thought I was at Don’s Mixed Drinks — which has also undergone an unexpected upscaling that did not stop at the bathrooms, as promised…

Visit Denver spent $50,000 creating a city-boosting window for New York City’s Times Square last Christmas season. It was unveiled on Good Morning America by holiday-sweater Mayor John Hickenlooper, who cut the ribbon and subsequently cut up with the GMA team. The display — already a historic relic, since it…

Think the lines at the airport are long? They’re nothing compared to the lines at the Denver Treasurer’s office, where would-be dispensary operators are lining up to get their sales-tax licenses before any city ordinance might put limits on dispensaries. But the dispensaries will definitely keep coming. Although on Friday…

What’s growing faster than the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in Colorado? The number of proposals to regulate them. But while it now looks like competing concepts will collide at the Colorado Statehouse when it convenes the second week in January, Denver’s keeping its steady pace toward regulation, with the…

How do you know it’s December? Not just by the holiday lights popping up all over town. No, you know the end of the year is near because as you exit your favorite Mexican restaurant — El Tejado, Rosa Linda’s Mexican Cafe, Mexico City Lounge — you get a calendar,…

Give North High School extra credit for its graduation rate, which increased 12.1 percent in 2009 — compared to the overall Denver Public Schools increase of 3.2 percent, up to a sad 52.7 percent of high school students graduating on time this past year. I came down hard on Ed…

Twenty-seven businesses entered the first annual LoDo Aglow: Scenes of the Season window-decorating contest, lighting up for the holidays (and through the Stock Show, like the Denver City and County Building). And the winners, announced this week by the LoDo District, provide a very delicious reason for a trip to…

Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown has spent the last three months thinking about medical marijuana — perhaps this city’s only real growth industry — and it showed yesterday, when council’s safety committee approved his proposal for regulating dispensaries in Denver. The proposed ordinance will go to the full council on…

“People unfamiliar with the Asian culture are often unable to comprehend how much the joy of the Asian peoples revolves around the preparation, sharing and discussion of food.” That’s from the website of India House, the upscale Indian restaurant that replaced Delhi Darbar at 1514 Blake Street. And this week,…

Cowboy-hatted Charlie Brown looked right at home in Teddy’s, the bar in the north Denver Holiday Inn, where the decor is Western (complete with a Willie Matthews print) and the Broncos game was playing on Sunday. But he marched resolutely past the TV and into the Cannabis Holiday Health Fair…