April 4, 2014 Lunch - La Salita Dinner – Bouche
Today I
fulfilled my second and final round of eating great New Mexican food before I leave on my trip .with a Chile
Relleno at Las Salita. Aaron came over
for some corporate work around 10:00 and when we finished around 11:00 I asked
him if he had eaten a chile relleno at La Salita. When he said, “No”, I asked if he wanted to
try it for lunch and we decided to meet there for lunch and both drove to La
Salita. I ordered the chile relleno
dipped once (la Salita serves chile rellenos naked, dipped once and dipped
twice) with green sauce on a bed of turkey hash and stuffed and topped with
Swiss cheese, as a Lite bite plate (1
chile relleno, $7.79) and Aaron ordered the full plate (2 rellenos) in the same
configuration. We both loved the dish
and I was happy to have completed my New Mexico food fix and am now ready for
whatever food our trip presents.
We had made arrangements to meet T.R. Lawrence and Linda
O’Leary of Nomads of Santa Fe at Bouche in Santa Fe for dinner at 7:15 so
Suzette came home around 5:00 and we left at around 5:30 for Santa Fe. We have become friends with T.R. and Linda
through our dealings with them. We
started buying their imported olive oil and Suzette bought their teak fixtures
and I bought several Moroccan rugs when they closed Nomads and then a couple of
years ago I started talking to T.R. at the Santa Fe Flea and we became friends
and when we went to Sayulita last time a year ago with Luke, we rented their
teak house at Baliville located in the jungle just north of Sayulita and
enjoyed it. When we decided to go to
Marrakesh this year I remembered that T.R. had told me they had an apartment in
the center of Marrakesh. So I wrote to
him and Linda they said they were thinking about fixing up the apartment and
renting it out and offered to let us stay in the apartment. We exchanged letters over the last few months
and made a date to meet on April 4 at Bouche to discuss the apartment and the
trip.
When we
parked at Bouche, we were about 45 minutes early for our 7:15 dinner
reservation. Suzette said, “I know what we can do. We can go to Joseph’s and buy two slices of
Italian Cloud Cake and ask for their Cloud Cake recipe.” So we went to Joseph’s and bought two slices
of their Italian Cloud Cake ($14.00 each) and gave them my e mail address. $14.00 is pretty expensive for a slice of
mostly air, but really cheap if we can learn how to replicate this amazing
dessert. We collect recipes from our
trips like others collect souvenirs, so we are looking forward to our trip to
see what recipes are out there.
Then we walked back to Bouche and after putting our Cloud
Cake desserts into the car went into Bouche and were offered seats at the high
counter near the door about ten feet from Bouche’s open kitchen to await our
table becoming available. We looked at
the menu and immediately realized Bouche was exactly what it said it was, a
French Bistro.
Here is the menu:
We decided
to start our trip at the very moment that we were handed menus and ordered a bottle
of Champalou Vouvray and an appetizer sized order of Garden Herb Ravioli ‘au
Pistou’ with Crispy Frog Legs ($16.00) because Suzette loves frog legs and I
was interested in the ravioli ‘au Pistou’.
When the order arrived we discovered that the appetizer was included
four ravioli but only one frog leg, not even the full complement of two
legs. I was fine with not eating a frog
leg but when Suzette bit into the crispy leg, the mat was so tender that the
foot fell off and I ate the crispy batter and meat off that and then Suzette
let me eat a bit of the meat from the leg.
The meat was delicate and hot, so we loved the frog leg. The ravioli were also tasty and
interesting. The ravioli were filled
with a sort of pea and herb paste with a soft texture and a very herby
taste. I found the raviolis very
interesting and loved the fact that they were served in a tomato broth.
When
T.R. and Linda arrived about twenty minutes later we were finished with our
appetizer, but not our wine so we poured Linda a glass of wine and talked until
our table was ready. When we were seated
we started talking about Marrakesh. T.R.
has been a Moroccan trader for many years during which time he has established
relationships with Moroccan families and businesses and spent lots of time in
Morocco and purchased a building near the center of Marrakesh, so he and Linda
are very familiar with Marrakesh and how to navigate ones way around it. T.R. and Linda gave us a flurry of
information about everything we would need to know about staying in
Marrakesh. I was only in Marrakesh once
in 1968 for a day, so I am looking forward to seeing it again. T.R. and Linda assure us that a rather
cosmopolitan French section of the city has developed, so I am looking forward
to having all the good food and wines of France along with Morocco’s ancient
Arab Muslim culture.
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| Sweetbreads with mushrooms and Brussels Sprouts |
After about thirty minutes of note taking and
conversation our waitress came back a second time to ask us if we were ready to
order. T.R. eats simply and ordered the
Onion Soup. Linda ordered a small order
of Black Mussels in poached in white wine and red chili broth. Suzette ordered the Frisée aux lardons
(crispy fried pieces of thick cut bacon) salad with a poached egg and Broiled
Humboldt Fog cheese (one of my favorite salads). I ordered a small plate of my favorite,
Sautéed Sweetbreads, Brussels sprouts in a wild mushroom jus. I ordered another bottle of Champalou
($38.00) and T.R., who is a beer drinker, ordered a bottle of Kronenbourg 1664
pilsner. We all liked our food. I had made it a point to ask the waitress how
the sweetbreads were cooked and she described the process the way I remember my
mother making them. I was pleasantly surprised
to find that they were tender and yet crisp on the outside from a dusting of
flour and sautéing in butter. This
evening the food was secondary to a friendship kindled around discussing
Morocco, real property, which, T.R. and Linda enjoy developing, and our lives
the primary focus of our attention.
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| French Onion Soup |
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| Sauteed Brussels Sproutsn |
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Frisee, lardons and poached egg salad and steamed mussels
At around 9:30 we all said goodnight and we drove back to Albuq. When we arrived home, we shared one of the Cloud Cake slices and both agreed it was a keeper recipe that we needed to try to develop.
Bon Appétit
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