We tasted the best that Colorado has to offer Friday night in Aurora, three feet from a rattle snake. It was delicious. Dinner, not the snake.
About 50 other people and I were lucky enough to take part in the Plains Conservation Center’s first farm-to-table dinner on the center’s Aurora compound. We were treated to four courses of bison-based creations by chefs from some of the region’s top restaurants, including Root Down, Linger, Cafe Bar and Panzano.
Like the Plains Center, the event was unique. If you’ve never been there, you’ve missed one of the region’s most amazing assets. Nothing says cool like several thousand acres of weeds. No, really.
That’s what lots of people think when they hear about the Plains Center. Weeds. Prairie Dogs. Wind. The center has been around in some form since the end of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl at the end of the 1930s. The land was set aside by the state as a sort of laboratory to heal the calamity humans created by using lousy farming techniques during the turn of the century, which set off the Dust Bowl. It was arguably the country’s worst environmental disaster. Eventually, rehabilitation efforts and agricultural research made the center’s mission unnecessary. So the program became more of historical and wildlife preservation program as development and technology marched along.
Now, the center is a preserve of not only days gone by, but an entire ecological era. It offers innovative programs revealing what life was like for homesteaders toward the end of the 1800s, when European settlers mingled with the last of Native American tribes in the region. More importantly, the center is a preserve of animal and plant life in the Front Range. Yeah, I know, I laughed, too. about 20 years ago when Aurora got serious about moving east. I’m from Rocky Ford in southeast Colorado and grew up in the prairie northeast of Arvada. Open space was a challenge, not a goal.
Now, despite thousands of square miles of prairie to Aurora’s east, only small patches of real Colorado exist here in the metro area. There are lots of people who have no idea they live in a green desert. They think the hare bells, sunflowers, bee balm and prairie zinnia nestled among the big bluestem, sideoats grama and alkali sacaaton grasses are just weeds. Much of Denver is unaware that asphalt and concrete are not native ground covers, and that when Europeans moved into the area almost 200 years ago, there were fewer native trees along the Front Range grasslands than there were native people.
The region was settled with Europeans and Midwesterners who worked hard to recreate their original green and wooded homes, but Front Range residents have slowly come around to the idea that the big grassy yards and lush English gardens aren’t good for us nor the environment. Moreover, the incredible prairie grasses and flowers that preceded our infestation of the area, are stunningly beautiful and practical.
The Plains Center is a place where you can discover that, and appreciate it. It’s a place that lets you see up close the wide range of animals our ancestors lived with. Not far from where your Labrador retriever sips from his bowl on a Kentucky Bluegrass oasis, pronghorn still prance. Skunks root and prairie dogs dig. The only thing more amazing than the fauna on the Colorado plains is the variety of wildlife in the region. Foxes, coyotes, bison and dozens of species of birds and raptors eked out a living here long before we did. They still do. A trip to the Plains Center for a full-moon walk or evening stroll among the trails or date-night raptor watches can show you how they still live on the nearby plains despite us.
It’s that close connection to Colorado’s real ecology and environment that made a farm-to-table dinner a natural alliance. The Plains Center does not strive to peel back time. The center works to integrate who we are and what we do with what’s compatible with real Colorado. Likewise, the push from a growing number of prominent metro-area restaurants is to focus on foods that aren’t necessarily just native, but foods that can be produced here without recreating a drastically different ecosystem. This community has taken the farm-to-table philosophy even further, in that the table is closer than ever to the farm, often right int the back yard of the restaurant or the home of the cook.
That was the case Friday, when some of most creative minds in local cuisine impressed diners with creations made from bison raised at a new Prairie Center annex east of Strasburg. A bison ragu with local basil, carrots and pine nuts — shazam. Colorado lamb and bison meatballs, leaning toward sweet with pickled Colorado roots and sunflowers. My favorite were the bison short ribs that fell from the bone, nestled in Colorado quinoa and grilled Palisade peaches. Colorado’s Balistreri Vineyards supplied their roussanne, malbec and tempranillo varietals. All the grapes are from Colorado’s Western Slope. The malbec glowed. The dinner was as impressive and unique as the center itself.
There’s much more to come as the center, now under the direction of Jeff Su, PhD., muscles into the regional science museum and cultural scene. As for Friday, neither threatening rains nor even a nosy rattler in a glass cage behind our table could stifle the momentum. Despite the grasslands having been here for millennia, after all these years, the Plains Center seems to have arrived.
Reach editor Dave Perry at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.com.
Excellent. That’s a great place!
It was very flavorful and the aroma TERRIFIC. Many flavors of wine and great getting to see volunteers in era dated attire.