Fridays are for celebrating Stance Friends and Fans. I encourage you to follow, friend or fan them and tell Stance about your experience.

..
Kendra Anderson is Swirl Girl Denver, a professional chef, advanced sommelier and creator/author of Swirl Girl, Denver Westword’s weekly wine and lifestyle column.
_
Here is Kendra’s story.
–
Her very first job at the age of 16 was working the graveyard shift at Denny’s. She was absolutely fascinated by the sheer vastness of that menu, full of everything you could want to eat at any time of the day. From there she began what has become more than a 20 year-long love affair with this industry, including stints throughout college at over a dozen restaurants in Denver at restaurants like Sfuzzi, Trinity Grille, and the Z’Tejas Grill.
_
In 1999, four years after taking her first job in corporate America she found herself applying for a job to wait tables part-time. Even though her management career paid well and allowed her to spend weekends with friends, she just couldn’t stop thinking about food and wine. By that time she had also become passionate about entertaining, hosting friends and family for any event she could think of an excuse to cook for. So in 2001, she conceived of and established her original Flavor Catering & Wine event planning concept after catering a close friend’s engagement party. Their words of encouragement, as well as her family’s belief in her talent, inspired her to combine her restaurant service background with her love of home cooking and entertaining and turn it into a business.

She graduated from the professional program at the Cook Street School of Fine Cooking in 2003 and went on to earn an Advanced Sommelier Certification from the International Wine Guild in 2006. Over the past eight years she has completed a culinary stage with Adega Food + Wine, learned the wholesale and retail wine business through positions with Baroness Wines and Marczyk Fine Wines, worked as the original sommelier at the Black Pearl restaurant, and served in a volunteer capacity for two years as the Chair of Colorado’s chapter of the American Institute of Wine & Food (AIWF).

In 2006 she created and authored “Stylish Living with Kendra Anderson”, a monthly food, wine, and entertaining column for Colorado Homes & Lifestyle magazine. Her next opportunity to spread the gospel of food and wine came in January 2010, when she penned her very first Swirl Girl column for the Denver Westword. In 2012, the Swirl Girl brand continues to evolve, and includes a private wine event management business, featuring a bi-monthly wine tasting series in partnership with Row 14 Bistro & Wine Bar and the SPIRE building.

Can you see why we celebrate Kendra Anderson? Clink and cheers to her.

If you would like to talk wine and food, follow Kendra on Twitter and read her weekly column in the Denver Westword. You can also find her on Facebook.

______________________________________________________________________________

If you have had an experience with Kendra Anderson, please share it here. If not, visit her today. I look forward to hearing about it and sharing your experience with other Stance Friends and Fans.