October 22, 2015 Edible Santa Fe Appreciation Dinner
I ate a bowl of the PPI fish soup I made last night in anticipation of tonight's invitation from the owners and staff of Edible Santa Fe to attend their annual appreciation dinner at Los Poblanos. It is one of my favorite food events of the year and I consider it the commencement of the Holiday Season.
The dinner is held in the large hall of the Sports Center at Los Poblanos, which is the most beautiful and dramatic room in Albuquerque, designed by John Gaw Means, built in the 30s by the McCormack/Simms family, and now wonderfully restored and maintained by the Remby/Sedberry family.
Nicole, who is the Marketing and Communications Director for the Center for Ageless Living went with me, since Suzette was out of town. It was fun having a companion to enjoy the evening with. I was happy to see Nicole quickly introduce herself to people, so we both talked to several different people during the cocktail period preceding the meal. There were no appetizers this year, but lovely wines, including a chateau bottled white Bordeaux, several nice Argentinean malbecs, several good local beers and Gruet Brut. I tied the white but was not in the mood for a dry white and settled on champagne.
After about 45 minutes we were called to dinner. There were name cards at each person’s assigned seat, which made seating easy. We sat next to the owners of Albuquerque Olive Oil Company and across the table from Christine, who works for Hilton Hotels as the event planner at Buffalo Thunder Resort. Christine brought two friends, who it turned out were delta delta delta sisters from college days at NAU in Flagstaff. They were going to a reunion this weekend, so were already in a festive mood.
I missed the lovely appetizers of past years, but realized when dinner was served the reason why. Stephanie and Walt and Executive Chef John had planned a lovely five course seated dinner.
The first course was a amor bouche/pre-appetizer of a thin sliced round of salami and pickled beet sandwiching a thin layer of herbed cream sauce garnished with fresh sunflower sprout pedals. I liked it very much and it reminded me of what a creative appetizer chef John is.
The second course was also very creative; roasted sweet potatoes, which I love , but the chipotle garlic sauce veered dangerously close to the edge of being too spicy for me that made me barely notice the fried sage and thyme garnish.
The entrée did me in; lovely pork tenderloin roasted at low temperature to pink, but coated with a crust of raw Szechwan peppercorns and served on a puddle of sauce made by emulsifying Thai green chile curry in cream. I could not enjoy the pork for the hotness of the sauce and the overly pungent flavor and harsh crunch of the roasted peppercorns. Of course I ate the pork but did not enjoy it. The red pearl onions and oyster mushrooms in the pork dish were delicious though. Christine from across the table allowed me to taste her Lamb Pot au Feu, which was a delicious lamb stew without any added heat, perhaps because as Chef John stated in his introductory remarks, ?”I cook it the way I was taught to cook the dish by the first chef I worked for.” Therein lies the secret to the irrational quality of the food at Los Poblanos in my opinion. When the chef cooks to a pre-established standard, such as a classic lamb Pot au Feu that he accepts as a correct recipe, the prep and flavor is fabulous because the quality of ingredients is first rate, but given the impulse to “be creative” his sauces and dishes inevitably veer off the chart in hotness. This makes eating at Los Poblanos an unpleasant experience for me because it is a guessing game to determine what dish will veer off my heat scale.
Dessert included a lovely pecan tart and a so so panne cotta with a not very interesting Elderberry coulis with overcooked tiny lavender shortbreads.
The other things that made the meal memorable, other than the over used of chilis and peppercorns, were the lovely home made limoncello with a lovely gelatin served between the appetizer and the entrée to clear the palate, the fresh dinner rolls with organic butter, and the wonderful chocolates served after dessert, which made me think I had been served a French style five course meal. The only thing missing was a cheese course, which would have completed a standard French six course meal, especially if the appetizer had included seafood.
During the night my body experienced a somewhat allergic reaction with a runny nose and distress. I don’t know exactly what caused it because I had eaten so much spicy food, but I guess it to be the raw Szechwan peppercorns and Thai green chile combination on the pork tenderloin.
The takeaway for me from this meal is to never and I mean never order anything at Los
Poblanos with any chili or spicy ingredient in it, and preferably stay with dishes dominated by vegetables.
The wine that was served liberally during dinner and the three hour long meal with long periods between courses also made me think of a French style meal.
A rather unsettled Bon Appetit
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