Good Colorado Sunday, friends.
I hope your weekend is going well and that you’re able to poke around a bit outdoors now that the temperatures have dipped closer to “seasonally appropriate.”
Over here, the sizzling heat that defined the start of this month wreaked havoc in my garden. It’s been too hot for the tomatoes to set fruit and for the first time in a long time, my garlic sent up no scapes and only a few cloves planted last fall bulbed up as they were supposed to. Garlic is highly reliable in Colorado, so the thought of going into fall with only a handful of weird super cloves and a few sadly small bulbs is disappointing.
This week’s cover story by Nancy Lofholm made me feel a bit better about my crop failure. The Palisade farmers she joined for their big summer dig face similar challenges, but still are entranced by the vast variety of flavor and fragrance their half-acre garlic garden produces.
Senior Editor
The Cover Story
Yes, Palisade is peachy, but garlic also has deep roots here
Palisade is one of those places that instantly conjures pastoral images of peach trees, lavender fields and vineyards. So, I was a little surprised late last summer when a friend asked, during one of our Sunday morning visits to the farmers market, “Do you have time to visit the garlic farm?”
Garlic farm? It turns out that I had ridden my bike past the small Green Acres U-Pick farm dozens of times but had never associated it with one of my favorite seasonings.
It didn’t take long amid the boxes and bags of allium sativum on Bob and Elaine Korvers’ small front patio — their garlic showroom — to realize that there was a story there. I had thought garlic was garlic. Toss it in pasta. Chop it in pico de gallo. Slather it on bread. My garlic knowledge didn’t extend beyond my nose and my taste buds.
I learned that day it’s possible to take a savory and olfactory world tour with the Korvers’ garlic bulbs.
So, this summer, when Bob started digging up bulbs with enticing names like Nootka rose and Asian tempest, I was there tromping along and trying to decipher the charts needed to track what’s what and what’s where in the garlic patch.
The Korvers not only grow between 40 and 50 varieties of garlic from all over the world. They also give you a little geography, history and taste lesson with each fat bulb — not a surprise from a former teacher and a retired librarian.
So, tromp along with me to the garlic farm. I promise not to make a single nose-for-news joke.
READ THIS WEEK’S COLORADO SUNDAY FEATURE
Nancy Lofholm | Reporter
The Colorado Lens
From the highs of the Rocky Mountains to the lows of the metro areas, Colorado offers a diverse set of people and places. Here are the recent images from the Sun as we swing through July.
Hugh Carey | Photographer
Flavor of the Week
The little engine that probably won’t show up anytime soon
In March, the governor and transit leaders hopped a train to Longmont to demonstrate an alternative to the madness on Interstate 25. Once rail service returns, that is.
No need to buy a ticket just yet.
Coloradans have been paying for imaginary trains for nearly two decades as part of the FasTracks ballot initiative passed in 2004. Now our elected trainspotters are looking for half a billion more dollars to fire up the engines from Pueblo to FoCo.
This time it’s going to happen. No, really. Just a few more details to clean up.
SEE THE PREDICTIONS FOR WHEN FRONT RANGE RAIL WILL RETURN
Peter Moore | Illustrator
SunLit: Sneak Peek
“Blood Betrayal” sends readers on a twisting tale along a racial divide
EXCERPT: Two police shootings in one Colorado night set the stage for Ausma Zehanat Khan’s Colorado Book Award-winning mystery that turns its lens on race relations and how these incidents are perceived across the board. This slice of the book’s beginning focuses on a white cop who kills a Black man during a street chase. Khan’s protagonist, detective Inaya Rahman, a practicing Muslim, adds another twist to the genre.
THE SUNLIT INTERVIEW: Khan explains that she selected this particular excerpt in part because it tests readers’ assumptions about the kind of incident that happens repeatedly in America. And she notes it has particular resonance for Colorado, given its history of police shootings. Here’s a portion of her Q&A:
SunLit: Place this excerpt in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole? Why did you select it?
Khan: I selected it for impact and because it encapsulates the novel’s central themes. A white police officer mistakenly shoots and kills a young Black man whom he assumes is a criminal. Scenarios like this have become routine in the United States in recent years. And it was important to me to reflect on that knowing that the state of Colorado ranks fifth in the nation in terms of officer-involved shootings.
READ THE INTERVIEW WITH AUSMA ZEHANAT KHAN
Kevin Simpson | Writer
Sunday Reading List
A curated list of what you may have missed from The Colorado Sun this week.
🌞 Attainable housing is a top economic issue in Colorado. Lately, Brian Eason reports, policymakers are directing funding to building projects affordable to middle-income families who make as much as $170,000 a year.
🌞 The Republican presidential nominating convention wrapped in Milwaukee with all 37 of Colorado’s delegates casting their votes for Donald Trump. And now we turn our attention to the Democratic convention where the buzz out in the world suggests that voters are somewhat less aligned behind the reelection of President Joe Biden. Jesse Paul and Sandra Fish surveyed the delegates to the DNC in Chicago and they seemed more certain.
🌞 In other political news, state Rep. Jennifer Parenti, a Democrat, has dropped her reelection bid in the 19th House district. The last-minute move has watchers worried Dems won’t maintain their supermajority in the House next year. Eighth Congressional District candidate Gabe Evans, a Republican, is paying himself a salary from his campaign account, just like incumbent U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo did when she ran in the district the first time. A two-week trial challenging Colorado’s voter-approved campaign contribution limits started last week. Now that Democrat Adam Frisch doesn’t have an extreme candidate to run against in the 3rd Congressional District, he’s trying to run on the issue of protecting access to abortion. It’s a risky move. State GOP Chairman Dave Williams sent a $60,000 check to the party. He says it is not to reimburse the party for using its mailing permit.
🌞 Many of us wondered what was next for Carrie Hauser when she left her post leading Colorado Mountain College. Now we know: She’s the new boss of the 32-office Trust for Public Land. Jason Blevins spent a lot of time talking to her. You can listen in on the conversation: PODCAST.
🌞 At least two big gravel race organizers in Colorado are adding rules of the road to the documents participants must sign before they ride. Tracy Ross reports on a conflict during Ned Gravel that illustrates why organizers think this is a necessary move.
🌞 Colorado could be better at recycling. Part of the problem is that many of us don’t believe what we toss is getting reused. Tamara Chuang looked a bit more deeply into the trash and found a bunch of interesting Colorado companies that are making new markets for your old stuff.
🌞 The Summer Olympics start this week. John Ingold has data on Colorado’s athlete roster in a series of charts that started when we realized our state has the second largest number of competitors — at least on a per capita basis.
Dana Coffield | Senior Editor
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— Dana & the whole staff of The Sun
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