The Sink is a local Boulder restaurant that has been around in one form or another for over 80 years. It’s situated on “the hill” near CU and is a popular place for college kids. It’s a pretty interesting place that is a bit sunken down into the ground, hence it’s name, with low exposed ceilings and very eclectic artwork decorating the walls.

We recently ate at the Sink with Stephanie’s parents when they were in town visiting us. We decided to take them to a local non-chain place that they hadn’t eaten at before to try something new. I’ve known the food is good from the few times I’ve eaten there over the last several years. It’s a pretty typical college restaurant that specializes in pizza and burgers and is mostly a bar at night. I’m sure there’s a place similar within a block of most major colleges in every college town. Of course they might not have the legend that Robert Redford was supposedly a janitor there when he went to CU.

The interesting part of our meal is that they now offer Lasater grass fed beef burgers. This is the meat we purchased when we moved to grass fed beef. They even advertise it within the main menu and on a full page with the specials and drinks they gave to each table. Steph and I both ordered the original sink burger with a grass fed patty, seriously we couldn’t resist, and it was delicious. The bad new is that they charged an extra $2.60  per burger to “upgrade” to the grass fed beef. It makes you wonder what the purpose is of offering the grass fed selection. In our experience buying grass fed beef at the farmers market or direct from the farm doesn’t cost that much more, if any more, than buying regular beef. I know for a fact it’s definitely not $5.20 (assuming burgers were a half pound each) more expensive per pound than regular beef. I’m all for a healthy profit, but it would be much better for the community and ultimately their image as a local green restaurant if they kept the same or slightly increased the margins that they get on regular beef for the grass fed to convince consumers to shift to the more sustainable and tasty alternative.

Did you know can grow lettuce in containers on your porch?  We were at the farmer’s market a few weeks ago and saw several people selling lettuce growing in containers of various shapes and sizes. It was about the same time that we had given up on our lettuce seedlings sprouting because we thought they had dried out from lack of water.  In our attempt to recover some lettuce we planted some seeds in a small container we have for flowers and set it on our back porch. We used normal potting mix and just made it a bit moist with a pitcher of water. We lightly scattered the seeds across the top of the moist soil and then took a handful of dry potting soil and scattered it thinly and loosely across the “planted” seeds.

It appears this the perfect setup & location as the lettuce just loves the container.  It is in a partially shaded area and the sprouts have come up like crazy.   Our townhouse has a sprinkler system and it is getting some water from that.  Now the lettuce at our garden plot is flourishing and we also have lettuce at home that should be ready a week or two after the lettuce at our garden.  We may be having lots of salads in the next month!

If you want to try it this year it might be too hot to start planting lettuce for the early season, but if you wait until the hot weather passes you can plant again and have lettuce in the cool weather in the fall. In Colorado the time to plant the 2nd wave of lettuce is in early August.