July 28, 2015 Lunch – Café Lush. Dinner – Fried Pasta with Italian Sausage

July 28, 2015 Lunch – Café Lush.  Dinner – Fried Pasta with Italian Sausage 

Today I bought a Birger Sanzen watercolor from Peter Eller and Peter invited me to go to lunch to celebrate the purchase.  

Suzette was still at home working on the kitchen remodel when Peter arrived at 11:30, so Peter invited her to join us.  Peter had said I could select the restaurant but Suzette said we needed to eat Downtown so she could drive to Los Luna's after lunch.  I asked Suzette to choose the restaurant and she said, “What about Lush.”  

We all agreed that Lush was a great idea.  I had gone there with Jim Strozier and Willy before Christmas and had a great salad, so I was up for Lush.  

 We drove the eight blocks over to Café Lush and found it to be relatively uncrowded, so we took a table for four outside shaded by an awning.  We all ordered water and then Suzette ordered a Kat sandwich with bacon, lettuce and tomatoes.  Peter and I ordered the Mango Chicken Salad with grilled chicken slices, edamame and mango, with scallions and fresh basil on a bed of fresh organic spinach dressed with a blueberry vinaigrette and garnished with Lush Bacon.  It my new favorite salad ($9.50).

Here is a bit of information published by Lush on You Tube:

Located in Downtown Albuquerque, Café Lush delivers eclectic contemporary American dining from longtime local Chef Thomas Docherty.

 

Café Lush was opened in June 2011 by husband and wife team Chef Thomas Docherty and Sandy Gregory and has quickly become a local favorite. With Chef Tom's creative, fresh, healthy fare and Sandy's gift for hospitality, Café Lush has become a beloved fixture in the downtown community.

Café Lush's interior, reflects the hip sensibilities of the surrounding area while also paying tribute to Albuquerque's storied past. The beautiful street corner cafe with its vibrant outdoor patio is now a distinct feature in the downtown neighborhood.

Dinner-  Suzette had thawed out two sandwich bags filled with baked ziti and meatballs and a bag with five Italian sausages from Costco, so at 5:30 I began cooking.  Ricardo and Cynthia had loaned us  their Louisiana cooker that they had used during their remodel on Sunday, so I decided to try to sauté a sauce for the pasta.  I went to the garden and picked chard and parsley and de-stemmed them and chopped them into bite sized pieces.  I then diced ½ onion and 2 cloves of fresh garlic and then sliced 5 mushrooms and two sausages de skinned and broken into small pieces.  

I put all the ingredients into a large cast iron skillet and hooked up our propane canister to the cooker and lit the flame.  The cooker had a huge flame that quickly cooked the ingredients.  Suzette arrived just as I started cooking and we quickly realized that we did not have enough liquid to keep the food from burning, so I added a Tbsp. of butter and Suzette added the thawed pasta and some Chianti and added some canola oil.  I tried to reduce the flame as low as t would go without blowing out in the slight breeze.  Because there was some cheese in the pasta all the ingredients stuck together and onto the surface of the skillet, but I finally wrestled the mass of food into something more like a dish of food instead of a ball of pasta and we served into pasta bowls.  I had cooked my first or second dish of fried pasta without Suzette’s help.

We opened the last bottle of the 2010 chianti superiore and enjoyed a pleasant dinner while we watched Larry Wilmore and Jon Stewart.

For dessert we ate bowls of vanilla ice cream drizzled with chocolate syrup.

Bon Appetit