February 3, 2012 Shopping at Pro’s Ranch Market and Lunch of Ham sandwich

February 3, 2012 Shopping at Pro’s Ranch Market and Lunch of Ham sandwich

I had to go to Pro’s Ranch Market to refill the larder.  After having been in Taos four days last week and not shopping for food, there was not enough food to even make my lunch. 

I bought eggs, 10 ripe avocados (4 for $1.00), limes, an octopus ($2.99/lb.), Bafar Mexican ham ($2.19/lb.), red delicious apples ($.50/lb), large slicing tomatoes (.69/lb), broccoli ($.99/lb), three cucumbers (5 for $1.00), four warm bolillos for $1.00 in Pro’s panaderia section of the store, and 2 dozen warm flour tortillas for $2.99 in the tortilleria section of the store.  I went home and made a great ham sandwich with slices of tomato and ham and cheese on the mayonnaise smeared warm bolillo with dill pickle spears and a pickled garlic scape and some organic lettuce and a few corn chips.  After that wonderful lunch, I quartered and halved three cucumbers into eight spears each and stuffed them into the large bottle of fermenting pickles and scapes and added some salt and coriander seeds and apple cider vinegar to revive the pickling process and put the bottle back into the fridge.

At around 5:30 p.m. I fetched the 10 new avocados, the Cholula red sauce, and some garlic and the half onion and the old guacamole from the fridge.  I filled the steel bowl in which the old guacamole was stored with nine ripe avocados and about ½ cup of finely chopped onion and squeezed in one large clove of garlic and threw in a dash of salt and about four dashes of Cholula.  By 6:00 p.m when Suzette was ready to go out I had a bowl full of guacamole.  We grabbed a bag of corn chips and the guacamole and went down the street to a new gallery at 9^th and Park Ave. SW that is an overflow gallery from the Craft Gallery at 8^th and Park where we found out that the opening at 516 Gallery was Saturday night and not Friday evening, so we went by DSG and joined the large crowd of people attending the memorial service for Janusz Kozikowski.  We saw and said hi to many folks in the Albuquerque art scene, liked Jim Moore, past Director of the Albuquerque Museum and many who others who knew Janusz, like Margaret Wood from Santa Fe, who had woven for Janusz years ago and who I met thirty years ago when she was David Barbero’s partner and who previously was Georgia O’Keefe’s cook and wrote A Painter's Kitchen-Revised Edition: Recipes from the Kitchen of Georgia O'Keeffe:.   A lovely video presentation was presented by Janusz’ son, who then sang a couple of songs written by Janusz with his sister.  We said hi to Nancy Kozikowski and John Cacciatore and invited them to dinner on next Tuesday evening. 

The main room of the gallery was hung with Janusz’ art and after wandering through the gallery, we went around the corner to 1516 Escalante for the Neighborhood cocktail party at Eric and Melissa Frankel’s newly remodeled home at 7:15 p.m..  The Frankels created another charming make over of one of the homes in our Huning Castle Neighborhood.  The most impressive element of the make over was opening up about one-third of the house into a large, mostly open area, consisting of the living room, dining room and a bar and entertainment area.  The cocktail party was attended by the largest gathering of neighbors at any cocktail party in the last five years.  We met lots of new neighbors as well as saw many of our old friends who have lived in the neighborhood for over the last twenty years, whose children grew up together.  We enjoyed talking and drank wine and ate pot luck appetizers brought by neighbors.  When we left at 10:15 p.m., most of my bowl of guacamole was eaten.    

A fun Friday evening.