I remember the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen before it was a classic. It was more of a social gathering. It was started by longtime local, Gary Plumley of Grape & Grain local fame, whom I didn’t know at the time because I was only two years past age 21 and still young enough that Carl’s Pharmacy met all my alcohol needs: Coors and Bud.
I noticed the event in 1985. My summer job was night auditor at The Gant. I thought it was perfect for me since I was in grad school learning about accounting and I also liked the idea of having my days free so I could ride my mountain bike, which was a brand-new sport few knew much about. There were no rules to govern where we could ride them, so we took them everywhere, but mostly up Summer Road on the face of Aspen Mountain. We lived, thankfully, and learned.
I thought I could adjust to the odd hours of coming in at 6 p.m. and shutting the office down at 2 a.m. after I got the daily numbers balanced on a flat sheet of ledger paper. The accounting part worked out, but I never got used to the odd sleep schedule.
But, I digress. The point is that a group of people stayed at The Gant and told me they were here for “food and wine.” Who isn’t? I thought. They described themselves as “foodies,” an expression I had never heard. All I knew is they liked wine, because they were constantly carrying bottles through the lobby.
I don’t know where they held their events. It wasn’t interesting enough for me to ask. All I knew was that they would leave sober mid-afternoon and come back drunk after midnight and head to the pool area to strip down and dip into the hot tub, which wasn’t ever an uncommon sight for the night auditor who did security checks of the grounds hourly after dark. I was supposed to kick them out, but figured they were doing no harm. At checkout they rewarded me with a leftover case of what was probably pretty good wine, which I invited a group of friends to join me in drinking from the bottle up on Smuggler around a raging campfire where the popular deck overlooking Aspen is today.
It is beyond amazing to me that this tiny event for a friend group of foodies turned into the Food & Wine Classic of today. For a brief time in between you could have considered it a community event that residents enjoyed along with visitors. From what I hear, there aren’t many locals attending anymore, which is strange. It now feels sort of like renting our house out to strangers for a wild spring break party while we’re upstairs in the bedroom trying to sleep. Whose bigger and better idea was this?
But, being gratefully alive and not afraid to steal from the Grateful Dead, “don’t tell me this town ain’t got no heart, you just have to poke around.” So, with magnifying glass and tweezers I will pull a few threads from the shrunken swath of frayed community fabric to be preserved for future viewing and reference.
We still have a few community events. There is the Aspen Hall of Fame dinner. It’s not a “locals only” event, but pretty much only locals attend. Why? Because it is all about locals appreciating locals. Visitors don’t care for it because to them it sounds like everyone there is speaking a secret language — because we are. Nobody says how long they have lived here, because everyone there already knows. It’s beautiful to get past that! No one is bragging and everyone is appreciating. There is no phony baloney on the appetizer trays. There is no one to impress. It is simply the best party in town every year.
Similar is St. Mary Church’s annual St. Patrick’s Day dinner. It’s been a tradition since Aspen was a mining town. Think about it. After a day of skiing the Dumps on Aspen Mountain in the middle of March, you can head down to St. Mary’s to partake in the same dinner as the silver miners who made those Dumps. It’s not fancy, just hearty. The service is almost as bad as it is in your own kitchen. The food is ordinarily wholesome and the desert table has its share of fresh fallen cakes. But everything else, including the conversations, are 100% organic and everyone leaves full of joy.
Finally, there are the Aspen Valley Hospital Health Fairs. Yes, it actually has come down to getting a needle stuck in our veins to find community spirit. They take your blood and give you a juice box and cookie. But, it turns out there is a lot more to it than that. When you are up at the hospital you will see hundreds of people you know, all of them just as human and concerned about their health as you are. And, there are no friendlier people than those who have fasted for 12 hours sitting over a stack of pancakes and bacon at the hospital cafeteria afterward.
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