Travel

The Michelin Keys are to hotels what Michelin Stars are to restaurants. The Michelin Guide isn’t done with Colorado. Late last month, the venerated reviewer announced its inaugural list of Michelin Key hotel winners. (The designation is similar to what Michelin Stars are for restaurants.) In the United States, 124 outstanding hotels across the country were honored—including eight in the Centennial State, spread across Denver, Aspen, and Vail. Colorado’s winners all received one Michelin Key, denoting a “very special stay.” (Two keys represent an “exceptional stay,” and three keys signify an “extraordinary stay.”) Clayton Hotel & Members Club (Denver) Four Seasons Hotel Denver The Crawford Hotel (Denver) Hotel Jerome (Aspen) The Little Nell (Aspen) Mollie Aspen Four Seasons Vail Sonnenalp Hotel (Vail)

NAVAJO JEWELRY MAKING TECHNIQUES - INGOT From Perry Null Trading Company JEWELRY MAKING TECHNIQUES - INGOT In-got /ˈiNGɡət/ (noun) – a block of steel, gold, silver, or other metal, typically oblong in shape. When the Navajo first learned how to make silver jewelry, they had to be very innovated. The luxury of modern tools or a supply store where they could purchase silver was still decades away. Instead they would collect silver coins until they had enough to make a piece of jewelry. How they turned that silver into a piece of jewelry involved a couple of different techniques. One of these techniques was using an ingot. Today’s silversmiths pride themselves on knowing how to use this technique because it is what the first smiths used. Plus, it is a labor-intensive process that requires a number of steps, almost like the artist becomes more invested in the work.   I try and imagine the setting in which those early smiths made their jewelry. Maybe they constructed an additional hogan next to their family hogan to work silver, or they just created a space inside the family hogan. The workspace would be a dirt floor with a limited number of tools. Then they would have to figure out a way to heat the silver to over 1700 degrees so it could melt. This heating the silver would happen several times during the course of making the piece. These early pieces would be thick and would have a simple design. Also, they wouldn’t have any turquoise. It was a new craft where the craftsman was proud to have acquired the skill and it would become the mission of Navajo silversmiths to perfect this craft. A number of

Tea is not as popular as espresso at our dinner parties, but I enjoy it at breakfast.  While Ireland and England are known for their breakfast teas, I prefer the rich depth of choices in Chinese teas.  There is an infamous list of the ten most famous Chinese teas, which varies depending on who you ask.  Having spent some time in the tea cafes of Hong Kong, it is simply something not to be missed and these teas we try to enjoy, along with some of the lessor known teas, on a daily basis, when not partaking in espresso or cafe au lait.  More on Chinese tea pots in a subsequent post. 1) Junshan Yinzhen Tea Of all the famous Chinese Teas, this tea has received a lot of attention lately due to its health benefits. The Silver Needle Tea is Junshan Yinzhen. It comes from Yueyang in Hunan Province. This white tea is among the rarest and it is my personal favorite. 2) Qi Men Red Tea This Chinese name for this tea is Qimen Hong Cha from Qimen County in Anhui Province. It is the only red tea of the 10 famous Chinese teas and my second favorite to Silver Needle Tea. 3) Tieguanyin Tea The English name for Tieguanyin is Iron Goddess Tea. This Oolong tea hails from Anxi in Fujian Province. It has a complex fermented taste. 4) Huangshan Mao Feng Tea The literal English translation for Huangshan Mao Feng is Yellow Mountain Fur Peak Tea, from the area surrounding Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) in Anhui Province. This green tea gets its name from the small hairs that cover the leaves and the shape of the leaves which resemble a mountain peak.