January 3, 2014 Breakfast Baked Grapefruit Lunch Casa Sena PPI Dinner at Amy’s house

January 3, 2014 Breakfast   Baked Grapefruit   Lunch  Casa Sena   PPI Dinner at Amy’s house

We decided to go to Santa Fe today.  Suzette made breakfast with toasted French bread with Rose’s Lime and Lemon Marmalade and baked grapefruit halves dusted with brown sugar.  I sliced Gravad Lax and put goat’s cheese on the table to spread on the toast.  Willy decided to stay in Albuquerque, so Suzette, Billy and I bagged the PPI lamb roast, a bottle of Le Ferme Julien Rosé and a loaf of Fano baguette and drove to Santa Fe. 

We first went to Stephen’s Consignment and then dropped Billy off at the New Mexico History Museum.  Suzette saw several new water colors by Duane Van Veckten at Stephens that we liked very much.  We then drove to the Rail Yard area and saw Luke and Lisa and Laura and another friend at the Farmer’s Market.  We then visited the indoor flea market in El Museo.

We had agreed to meet Billy and Amy for lunch at the Shed at 1:00, but the Shed had a one hour waiting list when we arrived, so we decided to eat lunch at Casa Sena, which had open tables.  We loved the cozy atmosphere of Casa Sena with its luxurious comfortable leather chairs and a fire in the fire place.  The menu was varied but Suzette and I chose the same entrée, a Texas Venison Sausage Sandwich with a side of pickled string beans and carrots in a ramekin, a small ramekin with seeded mustard, another small ramekin of house made catsup, caramelized jalapeno flavored onions, and a pile of fried sweet potato fries ($13.00).   I split the Venison Sausage with Billy and Billy and I each also ordered a bowl of pork stew, which was the soup of the day ($10.00).  The soup was a clear caldo of pork with the pork cooked until its structure collapsed into ropa viejo strands, quite delicious.

The kitchen was kind enough to split the sandwich (one piece of sausage spilt and sautéed on a piece of toasted bread) h with all the other elements of the dish for an additional charge of $6.00.

Amy ordered a salmon filet on a bed of sweetened spaghetti squash and Billy ordered a bowl of pork stew.

After lunch we went to Owings Gallery and Aaron Payne’s Gallery.  On the way from Owings to Aaron Payne’s Gallery, we stopped at Cheese Monger, a new cheese shop on Marcy Street.

We were amazed by the selection of cheeses.  We chose ¼ lb. blocks of a cooking and eating Parmesan cheese ($18.95/lb.) and a tommet made by an artisanal cheese maker in Vermont with unpasteurized goat milk ($42.95/lb.) and I filled a small plastic container with large marinated white Greek beans.  

At 4:30 we drove to Amy’s house in Eldorado for dinner.  Amy had a wide selection of mostly PPI dishes for dinner, including two small pots of black eyed peas, which she cooked every year for New Year’s Day.  One was the traditional one cooked with a ham hock and the other was vegetarian cooked with vegetable stock.  In addition there was a lovely blue corn posolé and a salad.  I sliced the lamb roast thinly and we ate it at room temperature.  Amy also served an olive and mélange with red peppers and pickles and boursin soft cheese spread with crackers as appetizers.

Luke joined us for dinner.  I did not eat any dessert of the carrot cake bought by Lisa at Whole Foods.

At 7:40 we left Billy and Luke and drove home to soak in our new hot tub after a lovely day.

Bon Appétit