I grew up in Telluride, Colorado, a remote little mountain town that alternates between being a stoner town (pop. 2,000) and a flashy ski resort that makes people’s eyes go starry. Above is the view from the house I grew up in. Imagine a woodpile across the bottom and some deer and that’s the view from my bedroom, too.
Oprah Winfrey used to have a house under lift 10 and I remember waving to her when she was on her porch. She waived back. One weekend I saw my snowboard instructor (ski P.E. was required for all students on Thursdays and Fridays during the season) giving a lesson and went over to say hi. He was teaching Mel Gibson, who chatted with me about the snow conditions. Tom Cruise has a house there and my sister sold Katie Holmes sunglasses. I came into the store looking for my sister, and I was totally oblivious to Katie and that little baby whats-its-face. It’s the kind of town where nobody cares if you’re famous, and everybody likes it that way.
One thing that is gushed about, though, is Honga’s Lotus Petal Restaurant. In high school my snowboarder friends and I used to go there and gorge on sushi, throw edamame at each other, and try to hustle mojitos. My very favorite entree was and is still the Honga’s Blackened Tofu, which comes out crispy and dark and unlike any tofu I’ve ever had. One day I tried to find the recipe, and lo, she has a cookbook, and lo, someone from the New York Social Diary (fitting, no?) put the recipe online. It’s at the bottom. Make it.
Though I hightailed it out of there at 18, I still check in on the daily paper, and the local radio station (that’s one, one single station you can get reception on) still puts my birthday on their site.
Unfortunately, The Telluride Daily Planet has undergone the worst website redesign I’ve ever seen (it’s my hometown, I take it personally). This is a place so small the daily quote is usually by someone you know (for example, trashy jealous mothers shit talking the homecoming queen my senior year). But the best news in the paper is the Cop Shop, a recount of the drunken antics that come across the police scanner. In a town where we knew all the cops on a first name basis, I had my fair share of cop shop run-ins. More on that later.
Here’s some highlights from this past month on Cop Shop:
- Jan. 6 A CHRISTMAS VISIT FROM THE COPS: A boy in the Fall Creek area accidentally pushed the 911 button on the phone while calling his grandmother. The young man apologized for the mistaken call and showed the deputy some of his Christmas presents. He also shared some of his fudge with the deputy.
- Jan. 8 COVER MURDER: Three girls climbed a fence into a hot tub and watched a buddy slice off the hot tub cover with a knife. He denied doing the $2700 damage — blamed it on a phantom “football player from Arizona.” In the interview room, weirdly, he wrote out a statement saying he’d seen the Arizona football player cut the cover. Then he tore that statement up and tried to hide it in his pockets, and wrote a new statement saying the Arizona football player had done it before he arrived. Arrested and charged.
- Jan. 11 AND I WASN’T INVITED: A group of Peruvians partied.
- DUI: Did you know if you drive on drugs with children in the car it’s child abuse? It is. This woman went to jail for both reasons. Then, she gave the cops her sister’s name instead of her own. You stay classy, lady.
And on and on. The best one in recent years involved less than $5 in change left on a bench with a sandwich. The police took both to the station, and a man later claimed both by identifying the type of sandwich. Breaking news, wooeee.
My little sister is living there again, she better not be part of that hot tub incident. Because dude, I’ll tell you where the hot tubs are where you won’t get caught.
Honga’s Blackened Tofu
½ cup cornstarch
1 tbsp black pepper
14 ounces tofu, well drained, patted dry and cut into ¾-inch cubes
¼ cup canola oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp minced ginger
¼ cup soy sauce
3 tbsp honey
1 carrot, peeled and sliced
1 cup broccoli florets
½ cup diced bell peppers
½ cup sliced zucchini
½ cup snow peas
1/8 cup sliced celery
2 cups packed raw spinach
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Mix the cornstarch and black pepper together in a medium-size bowl. Dredge the tofu in the cornstarch mixture.
Preheat a wok or cast-iron skillet over high heat until it just begins to smoke. Drizzle the oil down the sides of the wok and allow a minute or two for it to get hot.
Shake the excess cornstarch from the tofu and place tofu into the hot oil. Sauté until the exterior of the tofu is hardened and crispy, and you hear the tofu “clink” against the sides f the wok when stirring (approximately 2 minutes).
Add the garlic, ginger, and 1/8 cup soy sauce to tofu and stir. It will begin to steam.
Add the remaining soy sauce, honey, carrot, broccoli, bell peppers, zucchini, snow peas, and celery. Allow the vegetables to caramelize before stirring. When steam rises, stir the vegetables for approximately 2 more minutes.
Serve over a bed of raw spinach with rice.
Makes 2 servings.
Tags: ideas about food
Thanks for the shout out, dude.
My favorite cop shop was when the cops were listening in to girls snorting coke in the bathroom and heard this line: “Meth is so disgusting.” (snort) “Coke is so much better for you than meth” (snort snort)
Or the guy who was found passed out, and when the cops tested his BAC and found he had a .435 or something, he said “Hold on, let me go back to the bar. I know I can break 500.”
Reilly Capps