MIXED TASTE DOOR PRIZE

You know you wanted to win this door prize at Mixed Taste. You knew it from the moment you saw this funny little radioactive green rabbit. You even had the perfect spot picked out, right between your copy of Catcher in the Rye and your Grandmother's silver teapots. Oh, the irony. And when the guy sitting next to you– you know, the guy who has never been to a Mixed Taste before, who probably doesn't even like rabbits – or bobble heads for that matter – won it and smashed it into his pocket without even thinking, snapping its delicate bobble head like a fresh carrot, you could feel the rage building up inside you like foam in a beer.

You'll have to come back next week, for a chance to win another door prize. Whatever will it be? Martian Heads? Inflatable pens? The always popular crudités? Who can know. But whatever it is, you want it.

ABOUT LAST NIGHT: TAMALES & LITERARY MEMOIRS

Here’s something we learned at last week’s Mixed Taste. As it turns out, you don’t have to have spent your childhood hiding under the bed from your step monster to write a best selling memoir, but it certainly seems to help. Speaking of monsters, now that you are grown, if you are looking for a treat to serve that not-so-special someone, you could do worse than Chicago’s mother-in-law sandwich, a perfect marriage of a pre-packaged tamale and traditional Chicago dog accoutrements, topped off with the radiation colored relish and fire hot pepper. Delicious? Sure, if you survive.

However, the tamales Chef Jorge de la Torre brought with him were delicious, all four flavors of them (including one for desert). Don’t serve those to your mother-in-law, keep them for yourself, and plot the whole thing out for your own memoir. (That's memoir, singular. The plural 's' is reserved for the truly famous. So sorry.) Here’s some photos.

MIXED TASTE IS COMING

The trees are green, the sun is warm, the birds have returned: this can only mean one thing. The Mixed Taste season is upon us. And with this year’s Mixed Taste topics promising to be 47% more obscure than ever before, how can you be expected to keep up? That’s why we are helping out with a brief Mixed Taste primer, starting with the Mixed Tastes in the month of June.

June 5: Silent Films & Counterfeit Currency:
with Jennifer Peterson & Stephen Mihm
Silent Films presents a history of the short non-fiction Silent Films that you can see in our exhibition Silent Films. Counterfeit Currency recounts those freewheeling, pre–Civil War days when the federal government not only did not print paper money but likewise did not bother to regulate those regional banks that did.

June 12: Soda Pop & the Extreme Death Rituals of Borneo
with Adrian Miller & Christina Kreps
Soda Pop is a history of soda pop culture, specifically regional soda like Orange Crush (which you may remember if you happened to grow up around here) followed by a soda tasting. And Extreme Death Rituals of Borneo talks about the unusual (and sometimes extreme) funeral rituals in the country of Borneo, a large island in the Indian Ocean.

June 19: Maya Astronomy & Stanley Kubrick
with Jim Downing & Thomas Delapa
Maya Astronomy is a look at the Maya calendar– an accurate system of calendars and almanacs used in the pre-Columbian Maya society (a system which incidentally predicts the end of the world on December 21, 2012). Stanley Kubrick was a film auteur who created masterworks including 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr. Strangelove and Spartacus.

June 26: Sun Ra & Southern Family Restaurants
with Jake Adam York & Joe York
Sun Ra and Southern Family Restaurants brings together Jake Adam York and his brother Joe York for another night of Two Yorks: One Great Taste. Sun Ra was an innovative jazz composer who abandoned his birth name and took the name Sun Ra, claiming he was descendant of the Sun God, and not from Earth at all, rather Saturn. Filmmaker Joe York comes to The Lab from Oxford, Mississippi, where he has spent time making films about the small family restaurants that contribute to the unique flavor (metaphor intended) of the South.

That's June. Buy your tickets here.

ENTER THE BEDROOM PAINTINGS

With just under a week to go before the exhibitions Silent Films and Bedroom Paintings open at The Lab at Belmar, there is a lot of work still to do. Today, artist Stephen Batura moved his four-panel series Floodplain into the space. This work will hang with others by local and national artists as part of the exhibition Bedroom Paintings.

Bedroom Paintings is an exhibition of recent abstract paintings, selected for their sensual qualities and luscious brushstrokes. In 1992, abstract painter David Reed admitted that his "ambition in life was to be a bedroom painter." This modest admission followed generations of artists who sought to find spiritual redemption and social transformation through their artworks. Reed's admission that his goal was to create decorations for the home suggested the dawn of a more relaxed attitude in the art world.

Bedroom Paintings is paired with an exhibition of early silent films, both of which open Thursday, May 22 at The Lab.

Artist Stephen Batura moves a panel from his work Floodplain into the freight elevator at The Lab.

SO LONG PHIL BENDER

If last night was any indication, Phil Bender certainly has a lot of friends. The Lab's galleries were packed with well wishers who came to say goodbye to Phil's exhibition Last Place. Denver artists and luminaries all came out to salute Phil, including Lawrence Argent, sculptor perhaps best known for creating I See What You Mean (a.k.a. the big blue bear at the convention center), Ron Henderson, former artistic director of the Denver Film Society and Mary Chandler, art and architecture critic at the Rocky Mountain News.

There were more than a few roasters in attendance as well, who lovingly teased and taunted Phil for his now legendary junk collecting, and his (slightly less prolific) wife collecting. A group petition was circulated to extend the show, but despite everyone's best efforts, this morning a bleary eyed Phil arrived and the disassemble began.

With boxes in tow, Phil began to pack up the works (at least those that haven't yet sold) that have been gracing The Lab's white walls since late January. It's a shame to see them go, but rest assured loyal Phil fans, he still has a few tricks up his sleeve for his next exhibition at Pirate Gallery, opening Friday, June 13 from 6-10PM.

For the next couple of weeks, we will snap some photos of galleries as we take down Last Place and install Bedroom Paintings, which opens May 22. Stay tuned.

TASTE TEST: RANDOM EXPERIMENTS IN THE HISTORY AND SCIENCE OF FOOD

If it seems like The Lab has been talking a lot about food lately, you're right. That's because we are three weeks into our new series investigating the history and science of the foods you eat everyday. We have brought in chefs, scientists, anthropologists and farmers, all talking about epic food topics. For the first season we featured Bacon, Salt, Mushrooms and Honey. It has been a great opportunity to learn more about food, to taste some delicious food, and to meet some of Denver's most passionate food connoisseurs.

Every event has featured two speakers each speaking on a single food topic. Following the lectures, a guest chef has served a delicious meal with the topic of the lectures being featured as the "secret ingredient." (We admit, we watch a lot of Iron Chef around here.)

The series has been so successful we sold out all four programs just a week after the series began. And the events have not disappointed. There has been so much to learn about food, and so many great foods to try. In fact, so much that we have decided to run this series again (with all new topics) next year. Mmm. Delicious.

ABOUT LAST WEEK: SALT

Here is some useful information we picked up about salt at last week's Taste Test at The Lab at Belmar. Salt, as it turns out, has a fascinating history. We don't think about it much, if at all, when we pick up a carton of Morton's Iodized at the grocery store (iodized, as it turns out, to prevent goiter, a condition common in landlocked areas before the trace nutrient was added to our table salt).

Salt gets a bad rap, what with the high blood pressure and all. But without salt, the body enters a life threatening state called Hyponatremia, meaning "a deficit of sodium in the blood."

Not to fear, we absorb all the salt we need through the foods we eat. Most, however, comes from processed food. In fact, the most salty meal you are likely to encounter is one you might not expect: Pizza Hut pizza. If you want to enjoy salt (and who doesn't) avoid processed meals and salt your home cooking with abandon. Don't wait until you are done cooking either, salt throughout the process and you'll use less overall and your food will taste more flavorful.

And no, the picture above is not the meal for the evening. That was a tasty meal of tuna and raw vegetable sauces made by Chef Biju of Swimclub 32, all prepared without salt. The plate above contains seven regional salt varietals (courtesy of our friends at Savory Spice Shop) which allowed everyone to taste how different salts taste on food. They taste delicious.

ABOUT LAST NIGHT: BACON

There is something magical about the crack and sizzle of bacon. The Lab at Belmar has had a few friends (and employees) who claimed to be vegetarians, except for bacon. Last night, for the launch of our new series exploring the history, science and anthropology of food, bacon night drew a whole new crowd of hungry admirers.

Every seat in the house was filled. Chef Jorge de la Torre, dean of culinary education at Johnson and Wales University and Pete Marczyk, owner of Marczyk Fine Foods, teamed up to talk about where bacon comes from, how different cultures prepare pork, and why it tastes so good. Guests, staff and volunteers crowded the kitchen, packed the halls, and dove in to the tasty bacon dinner prepared by the staff of Marczyk Fine Foods. Afterwards, people flocked to the front of the house to buy tickets to other programs in the series, selling out the Salt and Mushroom events.

While there are still a few seats left for Honey, if you missed out on this year’s Taste Test series, not to worry. Taste Test will be back again in the fall of 2009, with all new experiments being conducted on a whole new series of food.

This photograph was snapped a few minutes before the start of the event, as the crowds started to collect. Our friend Charles added some footage of the evening to his video blog. Check it out here.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

From time to time we make a suggestion about a book we think you might enjoy. Sometimes we choose a book a speaker or visiting artist has written. In this case, we have chosen a cookbook. The Lab at Belmar launches our newest series about the history of the foods you eat on Thursday. For our first run, we chose epic foods. We wanted interesting topics, things people would enjoy learning about, but also enjoy tasting. And so that was how we came to be launching the series with a history of bacon.

Of course, the whole event sold out in three minutes. But we have some thoughts about bacon for those who weren't among the lucky few to be here and see the whole thing in person. One of them is this book, 'Pork & Sons.' You can buy it at Composition, down the street from The Lab. Or you can check it out here.

BEYOND BELMAR: THE BOTTESINI PROJECT

Creative Music Works is a local non-profit organization that provides a home for some of Denver’s most creative music innovators. Recently, CMW launched CMW Records, an record label that will give musicians the same uninhibited stage to express themselves as their live shows.

The first album produced by CMW Records comes from the celebrated Bottesini Project, an improvisational ensemble composed of some of Denver’s greatest musicians and songwriters. They’ve been working on the album for months, and released it to great acclaim a couple of weeks ago with a Who’s Who of Denver party at the Oriental Theatre.

You can check out some of the tracks at CMW’s MySpace link, and pick up a copy on link from the link below. Come by The Lab at Belmar on April 25 to hear Creative Music Works perform on the Poop Deck.

http://www.myspace.com/creativemusicworks
http://cdbaby.com/cd/bottesiniproject