January 13, 2018  Lunch – Tapas at Cynthia and Ricardo’s House
Dinner – Antiquity

Another interesting day of food.

I made oatmeal for breakfast.  My brother, Billy, told me he has substituted a banana for brown sugar and that the dried cranberries I usually add have sugar added to them, so today I reduced the brown sugar from about 1 ½ T. to about ½ T. and added ½ banana diced and the usual 1 T. of dried cranberries. The oatmeal was still delicious and in fact I could taste the sugar, so next time I may eliminate the sugar entirely.

We showered and dressed and went to the Albuquerque Museum at 11:30 to see the Spanish exhibition.  I had never heard of the Huntington Museum or Collection and it was very impressive.  It ranged across all mediums and across all ages starting with Celtic and the entire geographic reach of Spanish culture, including South America.

Here are several photos of works that caught my eye.  My favorite paintings were by Sorolla who painted at the turn of the century in a beautifully articulated impressionistic style, usually of bathers at the seashore.

My favorite work in the exhibit is 

by Sorolla

After the Museum we went home and heated the artichoke, ham, green pea, and saffron tapa we made last week and took it to Cynthia and Ricardo’s house for their tapa party to honor Nora and Dick, their best friends from Maine, who were visiting on their way to California to visit their kids.

When we arrived at 1:00, Dick was finishing cooking a skillet full of shrimp sautéed with sweet and jalapeño Chile strips.  There were also BBQ chicken wings and Cynthia soon pulled a Tortilla Espanol out of the oven containing eggs, potatoes and leeks cooked in a Pyrex baking dish.  There were also a mushroom flavored Brie and a mushroom flavored semi-soft cheese from Italy. I also
enjoyed a tuna and caper tapa..

We took a bottle of 2017 Tularosa Tempranillo that Suzette thought had a baked flavor. In my world Baked is a lack of milder flavor.  It occurs in wine raised in warmer climate, where there are no
cooling off shore breezes or fog at night to cool the grapes.

I became tired and we left at 3:00.  We went to the candy store and covered the broken glass window with cardboard.  Then we went home and I napped for about an hour.  At 4:45 we dressed and drove to Antiquity to meet Debbie and Jeff for dinner.

Jason had given Debbie a Gift card that was expiring, so we shared a meal and split the difference above the amount of the gift card.

Suzette and I split an Oysters Rockefeller appetizer; six nice sized oysters baked in their shell with spinach and Béarnaise Sauce.  I found the addition of fennel to be a little off putting flavor but Suzette liked it.

Oysters Rockefeller

Suzette and I also split a rack of lamb with rice and fresh steamed vegetables and preceded by a salad or soup.  The soup was black bean jalapeño, which Jeff ordered with his NY strip steak.  Debbie ordered Grilled Scallops with angel hair pasta.

Suzette and ordered ½ bottle of Schug Pinot Noir and Debbie ordered a ½ bottle of Sonoma Cutrer Chardonnay.

My general impression was that the food was generally competent, although not particularly exciting, which is more than one can say about most restaurant food in Albuquerque fine dining restaurants.

We had a medley plate of vanilla crème brûlée, chocolate mousse, and key lime pie.  The most exciting part of the meal was combining roasted slivered almonds into the graham cracker key lime pie crust.

We said goodnight to Debbie and Jeff at 7:30 and drove home.

Bon Appetit