Susie and Dana Finley took me to Mr. Powdrell’s BBQ for a business lunch. I ordered ¼ smoked chicken with collard
greens and beans and corn bread ($6.75).
I loved the fresh smoked chicken and doused it with BBQ sauce from a
glass syrup dispenser with one of those sliding metal flanges that you opened
by pushing down on a small lever on the top that sat on the table. The flat quartered round of cornbread
reminded me of the Johnny cakes we used to get with the business man’s lunches
when I lived in Fort Worth, Texas as a young lawyer. In the early 70’s many restaurants featured a
business man’s lunch that included a salad, a meat, two vegetables, bread and a
dessert for $1.39. My Dad told me that
when he worked downtown in the 40’s he used to eat a bowl of chili was $.25 for
lunch. Everything has been kept old
fashioned at Mr. Powdrell’s, even though he has now passed. I loved my lunch and even though it was a lot
of food I ate every bit of it. Dana and
Susie had plates with a sandwich and two sides.
I am a member of the High Country Shell Club, whose leader
is Tom Eichhorst. We had a meeting this evening
at 7:00 at Tom and Donnie’s house. I called
at 4:00 to see what the menu was and Donnie said they were cooking filet
Mignon. Suzette and I had tentatively
decided to take a cucumber and onion salad with fresh cucumbers from the garden. I decided to take some of the fresh corn from
Sprouts that I had bought yesterday and Donnie said that if we had some fresh
tomatoes from the garden to bring them. So at 5:30 when I finished working I
went to the garden and picked two cucumbers and one yellow tomato. When Suzette arrived home around 6:00 and we
started to prepare our dishes. It was
simple. Suzette peeled and cubed the two
cucumbers and I diced about ¼ cup of red onion.
She then put the cucumber cubes into a bowl and we added the onion and we
made a dressing with white balsamic vinegar, red vermouth, sugar and salt and aji
mirin and we poured that over the salad to begin to ferment. I then bagged the two yellow and one red
tomato from our garden with a bag of basil leaves I found in the fridge and we
drove to the meeting.
The High Country Shell Club is the only shell club in New
Mexico and one of the longest existing in the U.S. The meeting was held on the 22nd
because Bruce Neville was visiting from Texas A&M where he is the science
library head librarian. He used to be at
UNM, but moved a few years ago. Bruce
and Tom are among the best shell identifiers in the country, so it is always
fun to meet and learn about shells and shelling adventures. Tom is also the editor of American Conchologist,
“American Conchologist is the
official publication of the Conchologists of America. It is a well-illustrated
quarterly journal of conchology, containing scientific articles, first-hand
accounts of collecting spots, books reviews, advertisements, shell club news,
COA Trophy winners, shell show schedules, convention news and a wealth of
information about mollusks--land, marine, freshwater and fossil.”
Tom had just returned from the Conchologists of America’s Annual
meeting (COA), which is usually the largest gathering of shell collectors,
shells, and shell dealers in the world.
Next year the COA meeting is in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. and we may go to
fil in my cowrie collection a bit. It is
always fun and informative, if a bit pricey, due to the cost associated with purchases
of shells.
After examining all the new shells Tom had bought at COA and
looking at a drawer of shells Pat (who brought of vegetable platter with Ranch
dressing) had given to Tom, we started cooking.
Tom grilled the filets in the rain, which merited battle duty pay, I
told him. Tom’s career was spent flying
refueling tanker planes for the Air Force all over the world.
Mike Sanchez, who is on the education staff of the New
Mexico Museum of Natural History arrived with a casserole filled with twice baked
mashed potatoes, Donnie and Suzette shucked and boiled the corn and I sliced
the basil leaves and the three fresh tomatoes and garnished the tomatoes with
the thin slices of fresh basil and then doused the tomatoes with white wine
vinegar and olive oil. Then Laura and
Bill Krausman (Bill works as mapping director for the Regional Office of the U.S.
Forest Service) arrived with a large bowl of salad and two bottles of red wine from
her sister’s wine club that markets wines produced by small production wineries
in California. The Club offered three
levels of wine, silver, gold and platinum.
The two bottles Laura brought were platinum. Tom also bought a 2011 Chateau Rochecolombe Cotes du Rhone at Costco that was very smooth and drinkable. Also he had
 |
| Laura's two platinums |
 |
| Tom's Cotes du Rhone with Miss Suzette in the background |
Soon we were ready to eat and we sat at a long table set up
in the den area of Tom and Donnie’s house between the mynah bird cage and the
large salt water fish take with lots of different types of cichlids. The conversation at Shell Club always centers
on biology. Mike showed us the diagram
he is preparing linking all the genera of sea shells based on recent DNA
testing that looked like a broad fan with lots of inner connected ribs. Bruce made several comments, based upon his research
into the age of various genera.
Although
I am not a biologist or even knowledgeable, I asked a few questions and
determined that there are many holes and guesses about the links of various
genera to each other, due to the lack of a complete fossil record that would
clarify the linkage of various genera to each other (many of the perceived
links are over 65 million years old). Bill
caught all of our attention as he described the new 3D aerial photography technology
he is learning and working with at the Forest Service that can simultaneously look
at both at the canopy of trees and through the tree canopy at the ground.
While we were eating Tom showed us that the more brightly
colored fish in the big salt water tank were the alpha males. So there is no problem identifying the leader
in each species’ grouping of cichlids. I
guess the evolutionary function of that is that when the fish are schooling,
they know who to follow if they are split up.
I always enjoy shell club meetings because of our little group’s
knowledgeable, geeky, interesting and fun people who share my love for shells
and because I always learn interesting stuff.
After dinner, Donnie served cookies, fresh raspberries with vanilla ice
cream for dessert.
At around 9:15 after two hours of
eating, drinking and discussion, Pat, our oldest member (I think
she got the shelling bug, while serving as a WAC in the Pacific in WWII), said
she was tired and ready to go home and we all agreed with her and said goodnight.
Bon Appétit
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