Boulder's craving for a cheese shop will finally be satisfied on Saturday, Aug. 20, with the opening of Cured at 19th and Pearl streets.

"Riding along the Cevennes mountain road, you can hear the gurgling boiling of Laguiole vegetables,” penned French cyclist Paul Fournel on the promise of enjoying a meal of local produce after a bike ride. “Around Beauzac, where the road goes above the Valley of the Loire, you can already smell the green lentils of Puy, done in Tournaire style.” While Fournel refers to the European countryside, local cyclists will have an opportunity to mirror his experiences closer to home, through the upcoming Tour de Farms rides.

Chatting with Alfalfa’s Christina Thompson, one imagines that coffee runs through her veins: freshly brewed fair trade, single-origin, micro-roasted coffee, the kind that infuses her work and life with boundless enthusiasm. Thompson has decided to marry her lifelong passion (she had six to 12 espresso shots daily in high school) and her 10 years of professional coffee experience with Alfalfa’s values-driven culture.

Soon to be situated among the various granola and protein-rich bars already on the shelves at the Boulder Whole Foods locations will be a new bar with a mission: To help end the malnutrition of thousands of children in Africa. The newest addition is from Two Degrees, a company based out of San Francisco that launched in January and has promised a one-for-one business philosophy with its sales.

Even surrounded by all the activity inside the CW2 studio early on a Monday morning, Dessert Diva Danette Randall finds peace doing what she loves: baking. With the morning news segment taping live, Randall works in a darkened corner of the studio on a rolling kitchen preparation table separating her ingredients for her 8:35 a.m. segment. After a five-minute warning, her table is rolled to her segment space and she checks her lipstick one last time.

Every Monday at 8:30 a.m., Shannon Aten hits the streets with a food truck chock full of cupcakes, cookies, cinnamon rolls and croissants to sell to hungry customers.

In many ways, Rosh Rocheleau’s life evokes a Kerouac sense of wander. While touring as a musician in Iceland, Rocheleau literally stumbled into a darkened café and found himself enlightened. “The waiters were blind, and they sent me in with a cane just by myself,” Rocheleau says. “I had to find my way in the pitch dark. "

Pearl Street’s restaurant scene is well-known for its farm-to-table mentality, which centers on produce brought to restaurants from nearby farms to ensure freshness, while supporting the local farming community. Many independently owned restaurants around the Boulder area — including Black Cat, SALT and The Kitchen — share this philosophy and pride themselves on not being involved with large distributing companies.

Fire up the barbecue and pull out your mother’s famous potato salad recipe, because the Fourth of July is right around the corner. But as you plan out your menu for the Fourth, Hosea Rosenberg, chef and owner of Bacon, Inc., a catering and consulting service, says to keep things simple.

Herz says the future may look bright for small breweries in the U.S., but their respective regional markets will determine their success. In Boulder's case, the market is thriving, and some breweries are experiencing the fastest periods of growth they have seen to date.