March 19, 2016 Dinner with Barry in Taos
We sautéed Elk Sausage and fried egg over easy with toasted French Baguette for breakfast. After packing up some clothes and picking lettuce from the garden, two rib eye steaks I bought at Sprouts for $7.99/lb. that the butcher had hand cut and trimmed for me that were 1 ¼ inches thick, the Delice cheese, our two bags of mushrooms and the pate’, we went to Costco on the way out of town to get a new reading glass frame for Suzette Unfortunately, the frames were out of the replacement period and Costco refused to replace the broken frame, which disturbed Suzette considerably. I went to the wine department while she was at the optometrist and I had better luck. I found a Fonseca late bottled 2009 port for $19.99, two bottles of 2013 Clos de Val for $23.99, and a 2010 bottle of Chateau de Ahon Haut Medoc for $13.99. We soon resumed our trip to Taos and arrived at Kachina Lodge at 4:00. We checked in, dumped our grip, stopped at Smith’s for Ibuprofen for Suzette and arrived at Barry and Kylene’s new house, which they bought from Tom and Eleanor located high on the ridge southwest of Taos, near the water tower a little after 5:00.
Their house is a pleasant two bedroom and two bath house with almost 360 degree views of Wheeler Peak, the Llano Quemado, and even Cabazon. Barry served us chilled champagne and we looked around the house and took pictures of Wheeler for quite a while as Barry explained some of their intended improvements. Kylene had to stay in Albuquerque to deal with rental property issues, so we and she missed seeing each other.
Barry made a wonderful loaf of bread, so he cut pieces of it and we opened the Delice and had snacks and talked for a while. When I spoke to Barry in the morning, he told me he had a cucumber and carrots for the salad and asparagus, so I sliced some carrots and 1/3 of a cucumber for the salad and Barry placed those ingredients in a large painted Mexican salad bowl. Then we decided upon the Chateau Ahon Haut Medoc, so we opened it to let it breath and I sliced 1/3 of an onion, ½ of a carrot, and about ten mushrooms. We put the half thawed steaks in the window sill in the kitchen to thaw in the late afternoon Western sun. Barry then setup his tripod and big Canon camera, aimed it at Wheeler and set the camera to take photos every 15 seconds. We drank champagne and ate cheese and talked and peeped dinner. Barry has a charcoal grill and he filled a special can with a grate near the bottom the holds about four lb. of charcoal briquettes and allows one to place a piece of newspaper under the grate to light the charcoal. We waited about 45 minutes for the charcoal at the top to get lit, which in Barry abs Suzette’s opinion was too long because the bottom coal had turned partially to ash and the fire lost some of its intensity and did not char the steaks adequately. Next time I will leave the grilling to Miss Grilleta. Suzette took over the grilling and I counted out and snapped 15 medium asparagus from Costco and Barry prepared them by brushing them with olive oil. When Suzette placed the steaks on the grill, I started sautéing the onion and carrot and tsp. of chopped garlic in a large skillet with 2 T. of butter and 1 T. of olive oil. After about five minutes I added the mushrooms and 1 tsp. of capers and cooked that for a couple of minutes until the mushrooms soaked up the oil and butter. I then added about 2 T. of red wine and simmered the mushrooms until the softened. Barry and Suzette did the grilling. In about ten minutes Barry brought in the grilled asparagus and put a sheet of aluminum foil over them to keep them warm and allow them to steam a bit. When Suzette finished cooking the steak in about 20 minutes, she brought it in and I poured the collected juices generated in the plate from the steak into the mushrooms and heated the mushrooms briefly to integrate the steak juices and warm the mushrooms. Soon we were ready to eat. Barry placed bottles of toasted tomato dressing and a raspberry vinaigrette on the table and I sliced the two steaks, which were grilled perfectly to my mind, pink throughout. Suzette said she would have preferred a more intense charring of the edges and a slightly pinker middle. I did not disagree, but thought how difficult that was possible to attain without a gas grill on which the heat can be adjusted. I poured the wine, and although it was a new Haut Medoc to me, but it had that typical Haut-Medoc velvety smooth French finish that I love with grilled steak. I checked the wine on line and discovered than several private raters rated it 90 points. The reason why I prefer Haut-Medoc was perfectly evident in this meal and that was that the flavor components in the grilled meat and wine so perfectly complement each other that the both disappear slightly, forming a symmetry of flavor the blends both flavors.
We plated the asparagus, steak and salad and enjoyed our wonderful dinner. After dinner Barry served small chocolate chip cookies and we talked some more. Finally at 9:45 we said goodnight and drove to the Kachina and fell into deep sleep as soon as we arrived. Perhaps the cool mountain air of Taos made us sleepy.
Bon Appetit
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