Steamboat Pilot & Today

Show of sketches

Curator R.C. Dieckhoff was about to smile his cheeks right off his face. He was glowing with pride as art lovers filed into the Depot Art Center for the show of sketches by Diego Rivera.

Although the Rivera show didn't draw the numbers I expected, I saw a few new faces milling about among the usual art cronies.

I was especially surprised, considering the effort to include more than 200 students into an art-education project, that I didn't see more young faces.

That aside, those who were at the show, truly appreciated what they were given.

Drum circles

I'm going to write my Ph.D. thesis about what I will call the "Drum Circle at Parties" phenomenon.

Opening up a drum circle is the fastest way to segregate a party into hippy and not-so-hippy. As soon as the djembes and dumbeks appeared in the living room, there were those who gathered round and those who suddenly splintered to parties in other rooms and out in the driveway.

Best new cookbook

The "Steamboat Seasons" cookbook is full of delicious recipes, written by people who understand that food is simply a vessel for cheese. It's full of foodie factoids such as how shrimp is measured and how to sound intelligent when ordering it at the seafood counter.

And although I didn't quite appreciate it at the time I interviewed Strings Guild members about their creation, I understand now that every cookbook should be bound in such a way that the pages always lay flat, no matter where you are in the book.

To the point, it appears that I'm not the only one to be enjoying the new cookbook. "Steamboat Seasons" recently finished as a finalist for the USA Book News' Best Books 2005 Cookbook Award.

Super soup supper

This year's Steamboat Clay Artisans Soup Bowl Supper raised $5,751 for the Animal Assistance League of Northwest Colorado. During four years of hosting the event, SCA has raised $24,893 for local nonprofit organizations.

-- Autumn Phillips