VAIL - summer and winter

People watching while sipping a drink at a sidewalk cafe is always fun. You just might see some famous people strolling by.

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Best Way To Get Around:

Vail has great free buses running down the car-less streets.

Chef/owner Paul Ferzacca cooks up a very delicious Panko Crusted Sea Bass with a Tomato Provencal Sauce. It tastes as good as it looks. Recipe is available on request. La Tour offers light contemporary Fresh cuisine prepared simply and elegantly.

The contemporary restaurant in Vail Village is located directly across from the west end of the Vail Village parking structure. Since Ferzacca and his wife, Lourdes, have taken over the restaurant, they have freshened up the interior with bright colors, added fresh flowers, and purchased new china and glassware. Artwork by local and nationally recognized artisans adorn the walls.

We enjoyed a very sweet ending-- a scrumptious chocolate fondue--after a fine meal. The fondue was served in the middle of the table where we could dip fruits into the rich hazelnut flavored chocolate sauce. I asked for the recipe. Here it is:

SWISS CHALET CHOCOLATE FONDUE
2 pounds hazelnut flavored chocolate or your favorite chocolate
2 pears
2 bananas
2 pints strawberries
4 kiwi fruit

Cut all the fruits in bite size pieces and arrange on a platter. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over boiling water. DO NOT MELT CHOCOLATE OVER DIRECT HEAT. Pour the chocolate in a pre-heated fondue pot or serving dish. Place fruits around it for dipping.

We had great German food on the patio at Alpen Rose Restaurant in Vail Village. Our lunch plates of sausage and sauerkraut were priced under $10. I also ordered a delicious cream of leek soup, which was the soup of the day. Dinners are more expensive.

As a bonus, we all enjoyed a free dessert with our entree by using a coupon we had secured and printed from a Vail website.

Pastry chef Pierre Osborne creates some delectable choices, which are displayed in a showcase throughout the day. It's also a great place to stop for a pastry and coffee.

One evening, we stopped by about 7 p.m. and enjoyed delicious pastries, coffee and hot chocolate served in individual silver pots on the patio. It was a touch of fine dining in a casual, outdoor atmosphere.

James Beard menu served at Vail’s Sweet Basil Restaurant

A bit of James Beard and New York came to Vail recently when Beard's menu from a celebration dinner at his New York restaurant was recreated by Sweet Basil's Chef Bruce Yim. The talented Vail chef recently hosted a dinner in New York as part of the "Great Regional Chefs of America" dinner. To celebrate the honor bestowed upon Chef Yim and Sweet Basil, the Vail restaurant served the same James Beard menu to guests at a special dinner party. From many fancy appetizers and salads to the grand finale of honey lavender cake with delectable cream/wine sauce, it was a grand evening of fine food served on elegant plate presentation and vintage wines poured with each course at a great restaurant.

I particularly applauded the warm lobster salad with fresh sweet corn blini, roast stuffed pheasant and Colorado lamb chops with a upright potato filled with rich cream sauce. All guests were given recipes from the gala dinner. Here’s one for the roast pheasant with a rice stuffing recipe from Yim’s grandmother.

ROAST STUFFED PHEASANT WITH WATERCRESS AND GREEN PEPPERCORN SAUCE
4 4-oz pheasant breasts
4 sheets spring roll wrappers
4 oz shitake mushroom, diced
1/2 diced yellow onion
6 strips bacon, diced
3 garlic cloves, chopped
3 T chopped fresh ginger
2 T chopped fresh cilantro
1/8 c. soy sauce
2 T oil
RICE FILLING
¼ c. jasmine, long grain rice
½ c. sweet short grain rice
1 ¾ c. water
Rinse rices together, add water and steam in rice cooker.

Preheat large sauté pan; add oil, mushrooms, bacon, onion, garlic and ginger. Sauté until golden brown, then set aside to cool. When rice is cooked, place in the mixing bowl and add shitake mixture. Add soy sauce, salt, and pepper to taste. Set aside to cool. Place a small amount of rice on a seasoned pheasant breast; wrap each breast with a spring roll wrapped that is brushed with a little beaten egg to seal the edge. Then brush each wrap with melted butter and place on a baking sheet. Bake in preheated 400-degree oven for 10-15 minutes. P 2 – Sweet Basil’s Beard dinner

SAUCE
2 T. green peppercorns
4 sliced shallots
2 c. brandy
1 c. condensed milk
3 c. veal demi sauce
In a 2 qt. saucepan, place green peppercorn, shallots and brandy over high heat. Reduce the brandy by ¾. Add condensed milk and reduce by ¼. Add demi sauce and reduce by ¼. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve and season. Please the pheasant on a bed of lightly sautéed watercress. Spoon the sauce around the pheasant.

I felt like a queen when my husband and I dined with our daughter, her husband and their three preschool children at the Kaltenberg Castle at the base of the Eagle Bahn Gondola in Lionshead.

When Prince Luitpold of Bavaria decided to expand his royal Kaltenberg beer brewing to America, he built this grand castle-like dining hall for his brewery restaurant. As we entered this Grand Hall dining room. I spotted the large copper brewing kettles and noticed the gorgeous terrace view of Vail Mountain.

The inside decor is like a European art gallery. Beautiful wall murals ornate woodwork, and free-standing columns were fashioned in Bavaria and shipped in crates to Vail where they were fastened to the walls of this enormous building (once housing a ski lift entrance).

Not only is the atmosphere royal-so is the Bavarian food prepared by their Austrian-trained executive chef, Helmut Kaschitz. I feasted on thick pieces of sauerbraten in rich brown sauce, spaetle with a delightful cheese accent, and sweet sour purple cabbage.

The restaurant, with its big wooden tables, high chairs, and concrete floors, is a great family place. The coloring menu and the delicious spaetle really made a hit with our grandchildren. My lunch was so hearty that I had no room for their luscious Bavarian desserts. For more information, visit www.kaltenberg.com.

We love to take in Vail's Octoberfest with our grandchildren. It's real family fun. The mountain resort turns German in late September with their annual Octoberfest. It's a fun time to enjoy the fall colors and listen to lively German polka bands playing in both the east end and west end of the village. Food booths offer brats and other German food.

Early day skiing equipment and artifacts from old Camp Hale are displayed at the Colorado Ski Museum at the top of the Transportation Center in Vail. When World War II was over, the veterans of the 10th Mountain Division exerted a powerful influence on the skiing industry in Colorado. A 10th Mountain Division skiing pioneer, Peter Siebert, was one of the founders of Vail and is a member of the Ski Hall of Fame located in the Colorado Ski Museum in Vail.

At the museum, visitors can see many skiing innovations that emerged from the training days at Camp Hale, such as white wooden skis painted for camouflage and manufactured by the famed Groswold Ski Factory of Denver. Also on display are leather lace-up boots of yesterday which didn’t offer much comfort or protection against the wet, frigid weather of the high country.

Admission is free to the Colorado Ski Museum and Ski Hall of Fame located at the top of the Vail Transportation Center. For more information, call 970/476-1876.

The museum contains the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame, exhibits tracing the history of skiing. and the role of the 10th Mountain Division. For more information, 970/476-1876.

It's only a short drive west on I-70 to Beaver Creek where we enjoyed strolling the streets, admiring the modern architecture, and looking at the artistic sculptures placed around the village.

Like Vail, Beaver Creek has lots of interesting sidewalk cafes, coffee houses, and restaurants.

Leaving Vail, we drove west to Minturn and then south to the old Camp Hale site. We imagined how remote the military installation would have been in the early 1940s when Vail was still an unknown. We reminisced back to the days when we stopped at Vail in the 1960s and saw only a few buildings and one ski lift. Fifty years ago the 10th Mountain Division probably never dreamed that a Colorado mountain village would be built near Camp Hale and become internationally famous for its skiing.

Nothing remains of Camp Hale now. Monuments have been erected that show pictures of the original camp, where old foundations and plumbing ruins are still visible. The military camp was located north of Leadville and south of what is now Vail on U.S. Highway 24. The site was chosen because of the railroad and highway access. A monument atop Tennessee Pass (a few miles south of Camp Hale) lists the names of the 992 men of the 10th Mountain Division who were killed in action.