September 16, 2016 Lunch – Ichi Ban Dinner – PPI Eggplant Provençal, Spaghetti, and tomato,mushroom,meat sauce and buttered bread

September 16, 2016 Lunch – Ichi Ban   Dinner – PPI Eggplant Provençal, Spaghetti, and tomato,mushroom,meat sauce and buttered bread

At 11:15 I drove to Gruet to pick up my wine club selections for this quarter.  It was a very high end group of four wines: 2012 Gilbert Grand Reserve, a 2012 Gabrielle Grand Reserve Rose’, a Rose’ Sauvage, and one of the last 2012 Pinot noirs.  After a meeting with Tom Poulin and a tour of his new offices I met Robert Mueller for lunch around 1:30 at Ichi Ban at the corner of Alameda and Coors, in the shopping center with Sprouts.

I had not been to Ichi Ban in years, but remembered it as being a very good and authentic and interesting restaurant and this visit reinforced that memory.

The first thing that impressed me was the freshly brewed cup of green tea.  After watching the French Chef series on Netflix last night on Yam, Tcha in Paris that is a French/Chinese fusion restaurant in Paris that holds a Michelin Star and emphasizes great Chinese teas, I have become very aware of tea.  I now reject the tea served at Azuma as inferior because not fresh brewed and was more than pleasantly surprised when I was brought a freshly brewed cup of good Japanese green tea when I ordered green tea at Ichi Ban.  This alone is enough a to make me change allegiance, but things got better.  We ordered our usual Chirashi Lunch, which the waitress told us would contain 15 to 16 pieces of fish.  For $16.95 that seemed like a fair price since we get 12 pieces of seafood at Azuma for $14.99.

I discussed the assortment of fish with the waitress and she noted to the chef that I did not want any red snapper.

When the box came I was impressed.  It was filled with three slices each of ultra white, yellowtail, red tuna, and salmon plus two pieces of omelet, and small piles of red flying fish roe, green seaweed salad, and a goodly pile of calamari salad. The pieces of fish are smaller than at Azuma, but more elegantly cut, thus more appealing to my taste that provided a more satisfying overall dining experience.

I love all the ingredients, especially as as they became mixed with the shredded fresh daikon and delicious sushi rice they became even more delicious.

I would say that Chirashi at Ichi Ban was a revelatory experience and one I will repeat as its Chirashi moves to the top of my list in Albuquerque.

I then drove home and packed for our trip to Taos.

Barry had called last night and offered us their house in Taos to stay in.

Suzette and I both had a busy day, so we left at 4:00 rather than 2:30, which meant that we experienced most of the late afternoon light on the road and it was dramatic today.

We seemed to be driving past thunder storm cells that were illuminated in the late afternoon light.

Here are a few pictures.

We arrived at Kylene and Barry’s house a little after 7:00,poured ourselves glasses of the last of the the 2014 Conte Priola Pinot Grigio Rose’ delle Venezia (Total Wine $7.99 discounted to $6.39, my favorite Rose’ for the price in Albuquerque) and watched the sunset or more accurately the afterglow of the sunset.  Here are a few more pictures of the odd cloud formations set alight by the sunset.

After we enjoyed sitting and relaxing for a few minutes, we decided to make dinner. 

We had packed a cooler with a number of items from our fridge including 4 cups of peaches and some poached figs with the other ingredients for Laura’s Easy Cobbler: 1 cup milk, 2/3 cup sugar, 3 tsp. Baking Powder, ½ tsp. Salt, and 1 stick of butter.

We also packed the PPI tomato, meat, and mushroom sauce I had made last Sunday, the PPI spaghetti, and the four PPI Eggplant Provençals that Suzette had made Tuesday night.  I went to the cellar and fetched the lovely bottle of 2007 Cantina Zaccagnini montepuliciano d’ Abruzzo that Harry and Annie Weil gave us for Christmas 2010.  I also shredded slices of cheddar cheese that we used to garnish the finished plated dish of spaghetti, Eggplant, and tomato sauce.

Suzette heated the tomato sauce in a sauce pan on the stove and the pasta and slices of Eggplant Provençal in the microwave and I opened the bottle of wine.  Suzette also sliced and buttered four slices of Fano baguette, wrapped them in aluminum foil and heated them in the oven.

Suzette also mixed the cobbler ingredients and put them into a baking dish and when she removed the hot bread slices from the oven put the cobbler in to cook at 375 degrees for 40 minutes to adjust for high altitude.  The cobbler rose impressively and was thoroughly cooked.

We loved the dinner because it was very delicious, very easy to prepare and especially because it was complemented by the lovely smooth red wine Harry and Annie gave us.  We remembered with fondness our friend, Harry, of many years who passed on earlier this year, but lives on in our memories, as they say in the Jewish faith.  I have been reading Neil Oliver’s History of Ancient Great Britain in which he makes an interesting point.  Neolithic man’s concept of death was very different than ours.  The first permanent stone structures built around 5500 years ago were to bury the dead only later around 5000 years ago were  homes built of stone and many of these had the dead buried under the floors, so you could continue to live with those members of the family who had pre deceased.   

That is the feeling we shared at dinner tonight, that we were communicating with Harry and Annie and remembering warmly the good times we shared with them over the years as we drank the wine they gave us.  We felt festive even though only Suzette and I were sharing a bottle of wine.

After dinner Suzette figured out how to play the “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” DVD starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard from 1961.  I had checked it out from the Albuquerque Library because the book written by Truman Capote in 1958 is this month’s Book Club  book selection.

Suzette served bowls of warm peach and fig cobbler for dessert as we watched the movie.  

At 10:30 when the movie ended, we went to bed.

Bon Apoetit