June 29, 2014 Shopping in Santa Fe 2nd Street Brewery and Harry’s Roadhouse

June 29, 2014  Shopping in Santa Fe    2nd Street Brewery and Harry’s Roadhouse

We had lax and bagels for breakfast and then drove to Santa Fe.  We stopped at the Flea but did not find anything usable for the house.

Then we stopped at Stephens Consignment.  Suzette and I both agreed upon six art glasses for $120.00 that we thought matched four that Suzette had bought long ago.  Then as we were paying I saw a picture on the wall that looked like an early Erin Currier.  I looked more closely and found that it was in fact an early Erin Currier (it had the original Parks Gallery label showing it was made in 2002) on the back of the picture and was priced at $575.00, which is a pretty good price, so I asked what the least they would take for the picture and the lady checked the computer and said, “$525.00”.  I bought it for $567.00 with tax.  We love her early work because there is usually much more intricate and creative collage on it than Erin’s more contemporary pieces that have much larger painted areas and the iconography is often Southeast Asian religious motifs that she collected in her early trips.  This 2002 work is no exception.  We have always liked Erin Currier's work and had purchased an early collage of a Reclining Buddha around 2002 at The Parks Gallery, which was the first piece we both instantly liked and purchased together that confirmed our shared similar love of art. 

 

After we loaded our new treasures into the car, we drove toward the consignment shop Suzette wanted to visit but on the way decided that the lax and bagel was not sitting well with us and we needed a beer, so at around 12:45 we drove to the 2nd Street Brewery.  I ordered a wine glass of fresh apple cider for $7.50, which I thought was a bit much, but there was a special on the brewery's Rail Runner pale ale, which Suzette wanted, for $3.50.  We also wanted to try their pulled pork so we ordered a sandwich with a side of onion rings and split it.

The pulled pork sandwich was delicious and contained not only a layer of pulled pork but also a layer of spicy jalapeno coleslaw in a halved Fano bun.  l loved the onion rings but was happy that we split an order of them because they do not love me as much as I love them.  Fat, salt and spice; all the things that go well with lots of beer.

We then drove to the White Swan building consignment shop where Suzette found an interesting white fiberglass wall decoration that had a high relief sculpture of a choir of angels that looked like an image from Ghiberti’s doors for the Duomo of Santa Maria de Fiore in Florence, Italy, which she bought for the door of the Education Building at the Center for Ageless Living..

We than drove to the Fine Arts Museum to see the Judy Chicago Retrospective and the travelling exhibit of early Santa Fe Artists.  I especially liked a large landscape from a private collection in Tennessee by B.J.O. Norfeldt with dark sheets of rain and we were surprised to find and enjoy a free concert in St. Francis Hall by the Santa Fe Wind Ensemble.

Around 4:30, after checking out the Donald Woodman photos and an exhibit of pinhole camera images at the New Mexico History Museum across the street from the Fine Arts Museum, we drove to Linda and T.R.’s house on Old Pecos Trail.  We were impressed by their wonderful house, much of which T.R. constructed and their extensive collection of mostly Moroccan architectural elements, rugs and pots that T.R. has collected over the last forty years.  After wonderful cocktails of fresh watermelon juice and Tito's Handmade Vodka and appetizers on their patio, we drove to Harry’s Roadhouse for dinner.  When we arrived, the Roadhouse was packed and we had to wait on the sunny front patio; but soon we were called and shown to a table on the shaded back patio.  

Harry's Roadhouse's menu was extensive but Suzette and I were not hungry for a big meal, so we decided to split a pizza and a salad.  I have been missing good mushrooms lately so I ordered the mushroom pizza with its slices of large portabella, oyster and white mushrooms and Suzette agreed to order the Hippie salad with butter lettuce, garbanzo beans, fried onion rings, beets and cucumbers with a Green Goddess Dressing.

Linda ordered pulled pork tacos and T.R. ordered a Hamburger.  The pizza and salad combination was pleasant, although the bottom of the pizza was a little scorched and blackened.  After dinner we returned to T.R. and Linda’s house for a Heineken beer before starting down the hill to Albuquerque at around 8:30.  

Harry’s Roadhouse is a favorite among Santa Feans because it is informal, inexpensive and offers moderately interesting food, prepared well.  Most of the dishes we ordered were in the $10.00 range and our entire meal with three drinks was $60.00 before tip.      

When we returned home, we got out Suzette’s art glass glasses and put her four old glasses beside the six new glasses.  The three short shot glasses are different but the three tall new cocktail glasses were indistinguishable from her other four glasses and we were forced to conclude that they were made by the same person, especially since the signatures on the bases of each seemed to match.   What an interesting day of purchases in which the new met the old in so many ways.

Bon Appétit