April 11, 2013 Artichoke Café and Dinner - Sausages and Roasted Vegetables with Balsamic and Lovage Reduction Sauce

Ricardo Chaves took me and his staff, Patty and David, to lunch today at Artichoke Cafe, which is where Ricardo always eats lunch perhaps because his office/home is one block away in the remodeled old Albuquerque High complex that he helped develop and his niece started the restaurant years ago.

He had his usual ½ Cobb without the meat and blue cheese.  I ordered a Cesar Salad made with pickled white anchovies, the same type, but smaller, as those served by Cosmo Wednesday evening.  I enjoyed my salad, with its large leaves of romaine lettuce and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese and croutons.  The butternut squash ravioli dish is still on the menu, but I knew I would be eating sausages for dinner, so I stuck with salad.   

At around 6:30 after a 5:30 appointment I went to the kitchen to begin to cook and found that Suzette had already begun the preparation of roasted vegetables to accompany the sausages.  She was heating the PPI roasted vegetables in their large enamel casserole and had poured about ½ cup of balsamic vinegar into a small pot and added to that about ten lovage leaves she picked from the garden.  When the balsamic reduction was reduced by about 1/3, she removed the lovage leaves and stirred the sauce into the vegetables. 

While the sauce was cooking I had fetched five bratwurst from the meat crisper and removed some PPI canola oil from a large skillet (used last to fry avocados) and Suzette fried the brats in that skillet with the last of the PPI canola oil.  When the sausages were heated and browned and the vegetables hot, we ate dinner with Sessions beers and mustard, horseradish and catsup.   

The balsamic reduction had a slightly sweet taste and the lovage gave the sauce a woody mustiness with a slight hint of celery.  The flavor of the vegetables had been altered completely from their original starchy flavor by the sauce, which was quite nice.

Suzette was encouraged last year to plant lovage by a statement Margaret Wood made, “Lovage was Ms. O’Keefe’s favorite herb.”   Margaret recently published Remembering Miss O’Keefe and wrote a wonderful cookbook called A Painter’s Kitchen based upon the five years she spent beginning in 1977 as Georgia O’Keefe’s cook, caregiver and companion.    

A quick, easy dinner for a busy night.

Bon Appétit