Day 87: Food trends (Eat what you want Day)

At first glance, you might think having a restaurant, deciding on the theme, picking deco, and making a menu plan is a one time thing. Let me tell you, it’s not!

In the past thirty years, we’ve tried our best to find tasteful solutions for our guests that were on some special diet, be it South Beach, low carb, high protein, vegan, lactose intolerant, gluten free, allergic to celery or nuts, and more! 

We have fielded some interesting questions as well along the way.  Are there nuts in your Pecan pie? What is rhubarb? Are there cowboys in your Cowboy Buffalo Stew?  Could you take the seed off my strawberries?

Thankfully most guests are in the game with us, looking for solutions that keep the flavor and banish the issues. We are always grateful when we get a recipe or substitution suggestion that really works.  Guess the good news is that since we make most all our food from scratch, we can often eliminate or replace troublesome items in our recipes. In doing so, we have systems in place to prevent cross-contamination as we best can.   In spite of our efforts, we are not a gluten free kitchen or strict certified Kosher kitchen as we do not have the space required for these strictest of culinary practices.

We do our very best to train and educate our entire staff as to our menu items and their makeup. As guests check in for our B&B we strive to always check for dietary restrictions. For several years we’ve had a dietary cheat sheet for our Dining Room Staff to us and give to dining guests who ask us about ingredients. We especially loved the ‘business card” idea a guest brought last year to alert us of her daughter’s challenges, just having that on the table throughout the meal was a super reminder to give extra consideration.  That idea spurred us to create our own table tent sign for these special guests.

So when you dine with us, as you have questions or concerns, we invite your inquiry of our ingredient details.  We truly want you to eat what you want every day!  

Written by Lois Smith 

Day 81: Cinco De Mayo (National Salad Month)

When you are known for your Soup & Salad Buffet, ya gotta talk about Salad and doubly so on Cinco de “Mayo” day!  

No “mayo” in this specialty salad, but one of our most requested salads is our Jicama Two Step with just the right southwest flavor kicks and unusual ingredients that our guests love. I always get a laugh hearing those not as familiar with jicama, trying to describe it to fellow diners or just pronounce it!  

I even had one sweet older lady, who thought it was our butter and suggested that we let it warm up more so that it would be easier to spread on her bread. (Jicama, sometimes known as the Mexican potato, is typically crunchy hard like a raw potato or radish, not really a spreadable option.)

One of our Texas cooks, Cori, brought the Jicama recipe to our attention, and although it is a bit timing consuming to prepare, it is worth the effort to enjoy this delicious and hearty salad. You can enjoy this salad at home as well, as it is included in our Collections of Baldpate cookbook!

Along with our fresh greens and bunches of toppings, perhaps you haven’t noticed the plan but we try with our specialty salads to feature a fruit salad, a vegetable salad and a sweet gelatin based salad. So we always looking for a new ingredient idea or flavor to incorporate. One of the newest is our Watermelon feta salad, wonderfully refreshing and delightfully simple to make!  

Not so easy, but one of the staff favorites is our Peachy Keen sweet salad.  Our refreshing peachy keen juice is a beverage enjoyed by our B&B guests during snack time each evening and so one of our creative staff members decided we needed to bring that flavor to the salad buffet.  A tricky combo of peaches, pudding and the famous keen mix, if you love the peachy goodness of this salad, you have “Doc Jeff” to thank!

Come enjoy our salad bar with a variety of specialty salads, or create your own delicious concoction! 

Written by Lois Smith

Day 70: Enchanted Autumn Gold

Autumn is such a gorgeous time at Baldpate, with the aspens sparkling and often cooler weather demanding that comfy bowl of soup and some warm muffins. 

Perfect time for a food focus, so for our Enchanted Autumn Gold celebration, we decided to go all out with three days of immersion for your favorite fall flavors: Pumpkin Passion, Corn Crazy and Awesome Apple Days!

Think Apple Soup, Apple Salad, Apple Muffins, and Apple Pie, or a day with Pumpkin Soup, Pumpkin muffins, Pumpkin Pie, or guest favorites of Corn chowder, Cornbread, okay no corn pie, but how about candy corn?

Naturally, our special recipe Hot Buttered Rum or some Minted Hot Chocolate are the perfect accompanying beverage for enjoying the views of this golden season or just taking the chill off as you relax by the lobby fire.

Come see us this fall!

Written by Lois Smith 

Day 69: New Recipes

Having an award-winning restaurant doesn’t mean you can just relax with your menu offerings. There are always new ideas being suggested either by guests, or food trends, or a popular new ingredient.

As the primary chef, I’ve tried hard to be unique and original. Being known as the “best of” is always fun, but it is especially nice to be “one of a kind” as well.  So when developing our menu items I’ve tried to not copy other places, especially in Estes Park, but to have our own branded items.

We have to admit as well, our menu gets a little too familiar to our staff by the end of the season (especially since we eat it twice a day every day).  We do get a laugh at the concoctions that diners and staff come up with, adding this to that from the Salad Bar or mixing soups or whatever!

Fall seems to be our most experimental season for new recipes.  We’ve had some huge winners, think Banana Butterscotch Muffins, and some long forgotten sincere losers, like Baseball Park Muffin with pickle relish and hot dogs.

You know how things sometimes just stick in your mind, well that pickle relish did, and so be on the lookout for our new 2017 Dill Pickle soup….. working on a name, but so far, family reviews are positive!

Wish I’d kept a diary of our new menu items as they were created! We started with just Beef Stew and Red Chili as our hearty soups, then my sister-in-law, Loretta, gave me the idea for our White Chili recipe. I must admit I hesitated trying it, but when we added it to our menu in 1991, customers greeted it with lots of odd looks and ridiculously silly comments, along with some rave reviews.

Being located in the mountains we often received requests for “wild game” so our Cowboy Buffalo Stew became our answer in 2005. The “wild west trail drive” flavors (simple ingredients you might find along the trail), made this an instant favorite.  Its name has a special double meaning too, as the year we perfected this recipe, several of our cooks were “Cowboys” students from Oklahoma State University.

Then there is our beloved Pumpkin Curry Soup, recipe yet unpublished, which is based on one that Jen sent me. She discovered it during her time stationed in Germany in the US military.  Several years after we added the recipe, as I was telling guests the recipe was originally from Germany, she told me the full story. The recipe wasn’t from one of our favorite little German pubs as I had thought, but she had actually found the idea on the side of a canned product she had purchased in the US Army commissary!  So much for my proud story of its German culinary ties. 

Although the “German” pumpkin one isn’t there, you can find many of our classic recipes in our famed cookbook, Collections of Baldpate. 

What have been your most favorite Baldpate recipes? Anything you’d like to see us add?

Written by Lois Smith

Day 58: Reservations About the Past

Some of us will recall the days of making reservations before the days of the internet. Oh, the hold music and hours spent stuck in the radius of your phone cord… 

But how did it work even before when phones were not as common, and certainly more expensive?   If you can believe it, hotel reservations were completed via US postal correspondence for many years. 

In 1959, for example, if you wished to stay at The Baldpate Inn, you could mail an inquiry letter (stamps were 3 cents), and enclose a self-addressed envelope, so they could mail you back information and rates.

Taking a look at this typewritten letter, it surprised us that there was no form letter or standard copy; each time, the rates and information would be typed out individually. We are quite impressed with the lack of correction fluid (invented in 1956), or typos! Perhaps Mr. Mace had enough practice to type them in his sleep?

By the time we bought the Inn in 1986, at least word processors and computers were on the scene.  My first correspondence was proudly produced on our new state of the art, Apple IIc!  No instant email mind you, but faster and more error proof than a typewriter for sure. 

In those days as well, our local Chamber of Commerce provided a list of interested travelers, and we dutifully mailed our brochure to each of them in hopes they would call or write to make a reservation. Bulk mail was a saver but I was adamant about some personalization, so I hand addressed every one, sometimes 500 or 600 a week! (Jen here: some kids have chores like taking out the trash or helping with dinner, I remember being assigned the weekly task of helping address brochures, taping them shut and then sorting by zipcode!)

Today inquiries and reservations most often come via internet, both for B&B Lodging but many Dining Reservations (after May 1st) as well. Our reservation book is no longer a big ledger with a line and page for each day and room, but a software miracle that can accept input from anywhere in the world (most often correctly!) 

Recalling those early days, we couldn’t resist sharing this phone instruction we discovered from The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company, instructing early phone users on phone operation and manners. We will all do well to remember that “Courtesy is the oil that lubricates the wheels of business; it smooths out difficulties and promotes the promptest possible connections.” Sage and timeless advice! 

Written by Lois Smith, Liz Rodgers & Jen Macakanja

Day 56: What it Means to Experience The Baldpate Inn (National Encourage a Young Writer Day)

Being a 100-year old inn, The Baldpate has many unique qualities! It may be unlike anything you’ve experienced before. While there are many modern conveniences at the Inn (such as wi-fi and cell phone service), a visit is reminiscent of a charming step back in time. 

There is simply too much to fit into one blog, and since it’s National Encourage a Young Writer Day, I challenge you youngsters and young-at-heart to write your own experiences of The Baldpate Inn, with all its unique attributes (and I’m sure I’ve missed a few!) and share them with us. Here’s a few prompts. Haven’t had a chance to visit us yet? Check out our video tour. 

World famous Key Collection and curiosities

Fresh and healthy Soup and Salad Buffet, enjoyed on beautiful handmade stoneware

Rustic lodging (My favorite description comes from an early brochure, “All rooms in the Inn are equipped with hot and cold water.  We believe in “roughing it” with a degree of comfort. The relative enjoyment of a bath is not necessarily a matter of geography.”)

Three-course breakfast! (Do the cinnamon rolls need their own composition? Probably!) And if you’re not a Bed & Breakfast guest, don’t despair! Just make reservations for a special celebration of Breakfast at Baldpate!

Evening snacks and Peachy-Keen (Are you noticing a food theme? It is a Love Language, right?)

Views from the front deck and the porch swing

Library and movie time

Sun deck parties

Aspen autumn glory

KeyThedral Theater Productions

Photo and art collections (Stay tuned for more on our photo collection!)

Gift shop

Hand hewn log furniture

Fireplaces: the warmth, sight, smell, and sounds of wood crackling ablaze

Hummingbirds, wildlife and bears

Your own memories! 

While The Baldpate Inn means something different to each guest who visits, at the heart of it all is a desire to serve all with excellent hospitality. Your experience is certain to be a memory you will cherish especially if you write it down.

Written by Liz Rodgers

Day 31: Baldpate China

Nearly anywhere you look in The Baldpate Inn, you can find history that makes you wonder about the past.  The story of our Baldpate china is no exception.

When we first bought the Inn, we found several pieces of the Inn’s oldest Mayer white & green signature china, but certainly not enough to use. I just love the shapes of some of the old pieces we have found in boxes over time. I mean, who uses “bone” plates anymore?!

Back then, we had been told there was a set of brown Baldpate “Key” Syracuse china (circa 1933) that we could purchase, but at the time, we could not afford it. Eventually we received it as a gift, and have since used it for special events when we can.

Fortunately, I received a small inheritance from my mom’s sister, and so with that we bought our silverware and the basic white china which we used for many years.  Several years down the road, when we needed more china, we decided to try to track down the original company, Syracuse, to see if they could reproduce our original Baldpate china. The sad news came back that a fire at the factory had destroyed all the custom records, so it was no longer an option.

Don’t know about you, but I have always loved my coffee in a mug, so we found a source for custom mugs, and many of you will remember the tall Baldpate mugs we used and sold for years. We even did a special blue & gold one for to commemorate our 75^th birthday in 1992.

You may wonder, even today, why we have three colors. We did it to simplify service for our waitstaff, a code for what you are drinking!  Tan (now blue) mugs for regular coffee, green for decaf and burgundy for tea. 

Now what you probably don’t know, is that I seem to have an uncanny ability to choose whatever is going to be discontinued. So in the past 30 years, our china, silverware, mugs, sheets, towels, robes, staff shirts…you name it, were all at one time or another taken off the market!! 

Deneen Pottery saved the day when they stepped in to custom-make our beloved new Baldpate china. What a delightful family-operated company to work with!   

And so we are especially pleased to announce our newest 100^th birthday celebration mug for 2017!  It’s going to be spectacular and available online in our gift shop or at the Inn when we open on May 26^th!

 Written by Lois Smith

Day 30: The Baldpate Dining Room

It’s fun to try to imagine the early days for our Baldpate Dining Room.  For many years we have been honored with rave reviews about our homemade food and quality of service from locals and well as from travelers from afar. 

Even in our earliest days, Baldpate was winning the prestigious Duncan Hines recommendations, along with recipe features in his travel and cookbooks.  Hot tuna casserole anyone?

Baldpate Inn Main Dining Room

What we do notice from our old photos is that when you count the posts and look at the layout, originally our Main Dining Room was at one time actually larger than it is now. 

We assume that when bathrooms were added to the main floor, this room became smaller, since we discovered a window from the lobby front desk into the men’s room! (Feel safe, it’s been firmly covered with a solid wall, so no peeping option!)

 

Old photos also indicated that our current Sun Porch was just a sitting area, and not a part of the original dining room operations. 

Sun Porch as sitting room

Charles, Ethel, Gordon & Gloria in Dining Room

This 1950s photo of Charles, Ethel, Gordon & Gloria, which I used to think was the Sun Porch, is not! (The French doors in the background have always opened into the Sun Porch)

Of course as primary cook, I do applaud the old advertising that notes the “Best cook in captivity! This matter of meals receives our special attention, consequently our chef is the most important individual on the place and in accordance with the prevailing custom of the day, meals are served three times a day.”

Baldpate Sun Porch Dining Room View

Today our Sun Porch dining room is most popular for its panoramic views and hummingbird watching.  Guests often comment it’s like eating in a treehouse. (Hopefully that is reflective of the view not the food!)

Often I am asked if we serve any of the original recipes that we were so famous for, such as fried chicken and trout, but alas, since I am not a formally-schooled chef, (only school of hard knocks) we have chosen a simpler, fresher menu with our Soup, Salads and Breads buffet.  

Always a point for comment, our Dining Room bathtub was here when we arrived, and continues to prompt most to smile at its eccentric presentation. 

What is your favorite Dining Room feature? 

Written by Lois Smith