From Ranch Foods Direct News Letter 7/06
Interview and photos by Candace Krebs
Music Man
Local musician Rick Stahl continues to sing and play acoustic guitar and harmonica on the Ranch Steakhouse patio Thursday and Friday evenings all summer long, and as you will learn from reading the following interview, Rick Stahl and the Ranch Steakhouse are a great fit, mostly because Rick is a true fan of good food. His warm, friendly, breezy personality was in evidence as we chatted recently, while he prepared to run through his list of classic favorites — James Taylor, Jim Croce, Jimmy Buffet, Elvis and The Beatles among them. His set also included a beautiful song about a Texas angel that he wrote himself. CDs of his music are available for sale, and tips are welcomed.
He invites you to learn more about him at his website, www.astralturfproductions.com. Enjoy Happy Hour drink specials and free appetizers during his 6-8 p.m. performances.
Interview:
Q: How did you end up appearing at the Ranch Steakhouse?
A: I’ve been performing in the area for quite a while, and I got my promotional things out to the management here and one of the managers, Randy Rodriguez, had the idea of doing the patio party out here on the terrace. Sounded like a good idea to everyone, and we’ve been having a good time.
Q: What do you like about this venue?
A: Well, one of the things is that I love playing outdoors. And at the end of the evening they give me dinner. If you were to ask me what was my favorite cut of beef, I really like the prime rib here at the Ranch.
Q: What are some of the other dishes you’ve tried?
A: Well, they do an incredible thing with spinach that I would never be able to do at home. I’ve had the ribs. Very good. I’ve had the halibut. Very good. Everything is very good off of that grill.
Q. Do you enjoy cooking?
A: I cook a lot at home but most of things I put together are pretty simple. I’ll put steaks on the grill, or burgers. I’ll put pork steaks on the grill, and then chicken, of course. I’ll cook just about everything on the grill at home. Lately, I’ve been trying to learn to cook more fish.
In fact, I went to a natural nutritionist who told me I should eat more fish. Almost any kind of fish but catfish was recommended. When I was in conversation with the owner here one night, he was very well aware of how things without chemicals in them are so much better for us. Of course, all the beef here at the Ranch is clear, clean beef, and the vegetables are locally grown. And so I feel pretty pleased that if I eat here I’m not going off of my diet.
This is a new juncture for me, and I’m feeling a lot better. Basically I’m in the process of cleaning all the toxins and bad things out of my system so I certainly don’t want to put anything more in. Even the water here at the Ranch is triple-filtered. No chlorine, no fluoride. So everything here is good for you.
Q: Sounds like you are really bought into the Ranch Steakhouse concept.
A: Well, I didn’t do that initially. It just sort of took me over. Since I started the natural food diet, I learned certain things. For example, when I went to the nutritionist, I thought, oh, she’s going to make me a vegetarian. Well, that’s not true. I’m Type O blood, and it turns out if we are Type O blood we need our protein so we do not make good vegetarians. And I told her about the Ranch Steakhouse, and she was also very interested in it. She was already familiar with the Ranch Foods Direct market. So, it’s coming along really nicely for me. I’m changing a lot of things and of course I had to give up certain things that I’d done for a long time. I gave up coffee. I replaced it with green tea. I gave up my diet sodas with aspartame — that’s just chemicals — and replaced them with iced green tea. I’m drinking a lot more water these days.
Q: It sounds like serendipity that you ended up playing here.
A: Well, it’s working out very well in a lot of different ways, yes. And we’ve been getting a lot of really great crowds out here on the patio, and having a lot of fun. Last Friday was phenomenal. We had people up dancing. The patio was packed.
Q: How would you describe the people you play for out here.
A: There’s a variety of people who come here. There’s the folks that have already tried the restaurant and come back for the food. Most of the people who come out on the patio — even though we have happy hour drinks and complementary appetizers — almost everybody’s ordering dinner. I’ve spoken with people out here who have eaten at the restaurant who have tried the food at the market before, and we get a lot of folks that are passing through town. We are on the main corridor with the biggest attraction in Colorado Springs at the end of it, Garden of the Gods.
Q: Do you have ties to production agriculture?
A: Well, it’s funny you should ask that. I’m from the Detroit area, and just outside the Detroit area there was a lot of farmland. I think it’s becoming all developed into subdivisions now. When I was growing up until I was 10 years old my grandparents had the farm and that was a magical place. For those first 10 years, every holiday, every summer, every weekend we’d go out to the farm. My grandfather had 40 acres. I draw from that quite a bit. And also being from Detroit I have kind of the blue collar background. Everybody around there is sort of close to the earth.
My grandparents gave the farm up when my grandfather was getting to the age of retirement and my grandmother ... it was a New Year’s Eve, she fell, she broke her hip, and she could no longer go up the stairs, so they ended up selling the farmhouse and moving into the city. Someplace that didn’t have stairs. By then, they were getting to be somewhat older, and grandpa was ready to retire from the farm. My dad was a builder, and the whole family was all from the Detroit area, but we decided to make the move to Colorado Springs originally in 1983. Everything looked clean and new, coming from the Detroit area. I love my home city dearly, but in the southern part of Detroit — the part of Detroit they call “down river,” where the steel mills are — in the wintertime you can see pink snow from the steel in the air. Steel residue that comes out of the chimneys. The smoke is black, but somehow when it gets stuck to the molecules of snowflakes coming down, it turns pink. It’s unique, but not sort of fairyland pretty that way. You want to see snow being pure and white, something we clearly have here in Colorado.
As you can tell by the gray hair here, I’m not a spring chicken anymore, and I’m really looking forward to spending the rest of my life with more of a healthy bent — feeling better, living longer, putting more life in the years I have.
