Basalt and Aspen residents shop for local produce at Farmers Market: Basalt and Aspen residents a have cornucopia of fruits and vegetables to chose from at local farmers market.BASALT, CO -“Good morning,” the woman said cheerfully as she walked past me, munching on a raw bunch of kale. It was a beautiful Sunday morning in Basalt (25 minutes down-valley from Aspen), and the local farmer’s market was in full swing.

My boyfriend and I bought a giant cinnamon roll and a tall glass of iced coffee and walked around the market, enjoying the variety of stands. In between bites of cinnamon roll, I crunched samples of carrots, cucumbers, and turnips. “Watch out, you’ll never go back!” one woman warned as I popped a juicy bite of heirloom tomato into my mouth.

Author Kathryn StockettASPEN, CO -“That brook is…so loud. I can’t hear myself read,” said a student, just a little loudly, during the poetry workshop at AWF’s Aspen Summer Words. That pesky brook, also known as the Roaring Fork River, was indeed babbling far below the terrace outside the Aspen Institute’s Doerr-Hosier Center, home to this year’s “Crossroads: A Literary Intersection of the American South.” Even more distracting may have been the perfect Mediterranean climate and the abundant summer hillsides; it was a cloudless week of blue skies and dry, light breezes, vastly different from climate and landscape of the American South.

Thursday, two young men from today’s New Orleans spoke on their lives, pre and post-Katrina, captivating the audience with first-person accounts of violence, devastation, upheaval and ultimately, renewal. “I think there’s no such thing as a bad writer,” said James Jones, aged 17; “ as long as you put your heart and soul into it, it’s gonna be good. My uncle taught me that I shouldn’t use downfalls in life as a crutch; I should use them to move ahead, and become even stronger. After Katrina, I got to talking a lot about souls.”

Advanced Brew Festing - BYOPretzels ASPEN, CO -“Honey, you’ve got crumbs all over your lap,” said the woman to her companion, who was wolfing down a late-night slice at Goodfellas in Snowmass.

“Don’t worry,” he replied, matter-of-factly, the last of the pizza crust on his shirt. “When I stand up, they’ll all go away!”

Hard to argue with such micro-brew infused logic after a gorgeous summer evening of spicy chili, zesty hops and live music on the mountain. It was one of those magical summer weekends in the Aspen area, with strong and steady sunshine tempered only by the occasional floating cloud; no afternoon thunderstorms in sight. The 7th Annual Snowmass Chili Pepper and Brewfest was the perfect reason to spend the better half of two days on Fanny Hill.

It’s still kicking. A somewhat dreary, sleet-filled weather week is breaking into a winter storm warning – our favorite Weather Channel alert here in Aspen – and we could see some fresh, fluffy slopes by morning and just in time for the official last weekend of Aspen’s ski season.