August 23, 2015 – Day in Santa Fe. Museum Hill Café and Dinner at T. R. and Linda’s

August 23, 2015 – Day in Santa Fe. Museum Hill Café and Dinner at T. R. and Linda’s

Suzette made lovely Bacon, Chard and tomato sandwiches at About 9:30 with chard and tomatoes from our garden on toasted Fano baguette.  

We drove to Santa Fe and parked at Owings Gallery and walked through Indian Market to the Fine Arts Museum, where we saw the color show from the permanent collection.  I saw several new pieces including a Dorothy Morang abstract watercolor in the  Transcendental style from 1940 that I liked.  Then we walked upstairs and saw the Museum construction show with its wonderful Kenneth Chapman and the original Rapp and Rapp elevations.

We walked through the sea of booths and people constituting Indian Market that has grown since I last saw it 15 years ago. Booths now stretch around the Plaza and along all the streets adjoining the Plaza.  For example, we walked from the Museum along Lincoln to Marcy and saw booths stretched all the way to the federal courthouse.  The number of Indian artists seems to have grown over the years.

We then drove to Museum Hill to see the Red Show at the International Folk Art Museum.  The parking lot was full and we parked in the Botanical Garden lot across the street.  The museums in Santa Fe have coordinated shows around the Summer of Color theme with the Wheelwright’s color being silver for jewelry, the Spanish Colonial Museum’s color being blue for indigo, the Indian cultural Museum’s color being turquoise, and the Folk Art’ color red featuring cochineal.  It was 1:45 and we were hungry, so, we walked to the Museum Hill Café and were seated at a table on its expansive patio.  We both chose salads.  I ordered a Cobb with pico de gallo and Suzette ordered a salmon  salad.  My salad turned out to be an adventure as I searched through it to remove all the diced jalapeños and even then it was just on the edge of hotness for my taste with the addition of a small ramekin of blue cheese dressing.  Suzette’s salmon was grilled and a lovely salad.  We ordered glasses of wine.  I ordered a Joel Gott Sauvignon Blanc and Suzette ordered a maguey juice Bloody Mary that tasted  like the liquid in a Mexican shrimp Coctel. 

The Waiter realized that we liked wine and brought us a sample of Ponderosa’s Chardonnay that was unbaked and rather nice, like the Chardonnay produced in Anderson Valley.

We then saw the extensive Red show that was highly technical, covering the cultivation, dying and trade in cochineal, besides displays of beautiful cochineal colored objects.  Here are a few:

     El Greco

    Japanese fireman's coat

We then went to the other exhibit of Southern clay objects.  I ran out of gas and we found some lounge chairs in front of a video showing many of the potteries and folks all across the South making many of the objects in the show and I took a nap.

At 5:00 when the museum closed we had to find something to do for 1 ½ hours until dinner.  My stomach was upset from the pico de gallo in the salad, so I suggested ice cream.  We drove to Baskin and Robbin’s on Cerillos and shared a cup of pistachio almond and world champion chocolate wit both white and dark chocolate ice cream mixed together.  We then drove to the narrow park along Galisteo at Cordova and sat and read and walked through the Santa Fe Rose Society garden.

At 6:20 we drove to .t.r.band Linda’s house on Old Pecos Trail.  Soon we were joined by Mitzi and Steve who own Mid-century Modern gallery on San Francisco street and Ronald and Elizabeth who own the Indian jewelry shop in the La Fonda Hotel.  They were all interesting to talk to as we sat on the patio behind the main house and sipped wine and cocktails and ate from the abundant selection of  appetizers, including warm quesadillas, tuna stuffed green olives, cheeses, and salami.

Elisabeth and Ronald brought a bottle of chateau Pegau, Chateau Neufchâtel du Pape Rose, which was new to me.  We brought a bottle of Gruet rose and a bottle of a Presidente cotes du Rhone rose from Total Wine.  T.R. Had made watermelon margaritas, which were quite nice, but I wanted to drink the roses.  I had a glass of each and liked the Presidente the best.  About two hours later Linda made the rice and plated plates with chicken breasts with a Moroccan sauce on rice and Calabacitas.  After dinner we sat around the fire T.R. had made in the fire pit in the middle of the patio and talked until 10:00, when we said goodnight after a lovely evening of food, wine and conversation.

Bon Appetit