September 18, 2016 Breakfast – Cinnamon Toast and fruit, cobbler, and yogurt. Lunch – Eloisa’s. Dinner – Mapo Dofu and rice
We slept in a bit and tidied up and made breakfast. Our goal was to make egg sandwiches, but when I discovered a shaker of cinnamon mixed with sugar I decided to make Cinnamon Toast, which is one of the most delicious simple dishes ever invented. I spread bits of butter on slices of French bread and then shuck the cinnamon sugar mixture on the bread to cover it and the butter. Then I baked the coated bread in the oven at 400 degrees until the sugar melted and started bubbling and the bread started turning golden brown at the uncovered edges
While I was making the toast, Suzette was cleaning out the fridge and packing the ice chest with the food and filling bowls with PPI peach and fig cobbler, fresh sliced peaches and blueberries and yogurt.
After breakfast we packed up, finished cleaning up, and left for Santa Fe, only stopping at Old Marina’s for a cup of coffee.
We arrived at Santa Fe at noon and stopped at the traders' mall at De Vargas Center and then decided to eat lunch at the Shed. We parked at Owing’s Gallery and walked to the Shed, but it was closed. Suzette suggested Eloisa’s, so we walked through an arts and crafts show in the Cathedral Garden to Eloisa’s in the Drury Lane a Hotel, which used to be St. Vincent’s Hospital. It was a warm sunny day, so we sat on the patio. We decided to split a grilled salmon Salad Nicoise and each have a bowl of Cream of Butternut Squash soup. The soup was lovely, garnished with flash fried strips of cipollini onions or shallots and creamy but not lumpy. We felt like fall food had arrived.
The salmon Nicoise was more conventional, but also very tasty with slices of purple Peruvian potatoes, a nice piece of grilled salmon, blanched string beans, halved caper berries instead of olives, grape tomatoes, sliced carrot, organic lettuce, and a sliced firmly boiled egg with a zippy lime, sugar, and olive oil vinaigrette ($13.00).
At lunch I suggested we try the new Gruet Wine Bar, so we inserted its address into Suzette’s phone direction app and walked to the address on Don Gaspar. We were pleasantly surprised to find that it was part of the first floor of the Hotel St. Francis, which used to be the De Vargas Hotel that I think may be the oldest hotel left standing in Santa Fe. We sat in the garden and were served a tasting of five or six wines of our choice as members of the wine club. We tried the newly released 2012 Gabrielle Reserve Rose’ champagne, which is 90% Chardonnay and 10% Pinot Noir that had as lightly cassis flavor, then the newly released 2012 Gilbert Reserve, which is 100% Chardonnay, aged in French oak for six months and then three years of triage that induces the thousands of small bubble (it was our favorite with a rich yet delicate character) and worth the $39.00 per bottle price, we felt. Then we tried the 2011 Grand Blanc de Blanc because it was one of the wine club wines this quarter and it was delicious but not as complex and rich as the Gilbert.
Justin and Alicia were perfect host and hostess bringing bottles and pouring tastes as we warned ourselves at a canopied table on the small enclosed patio.
Then we tried the newly bottled 2015 Chenin Blanc, which we did not care for because it lacked the usual fruitiness of Chenin Blanc, a rather dry tart and slightly acidic wine. Since a bottle of the 2013 Pinot Noir was included in the wine club selections, we tried it and found it to also be slightly tart and acidic. So we asked to try the 2013 Reserve Pinot Noir ($34.00) and loved it, rich full bodied and more fruity that the regular Pinot.
Since Billy is having hip surgery and we can not carry on wine, we decided to send a bottle of each of the 2012 Gilbert and the 2013 Reserve Pinot Noir to Billy to speed his convalescence.
The Gruet winery took care of the shipping and with the FedEx shipping charge included the cost of the wine delivered to Billy and Elaine was $95.00.
Suzette then drove us home as I napped. We arrived home at 4:30 and Suzette lay down for a nap. I was restless and decided to make Mapo Dofu, one of my favorite Chinese dishes that is a Szechuan stew of eggplant, pork, wood ear, green onion, tofu, ginger, and hot chili paste. I add garlic, and a vegetable; today it was broccoli,since it was $.48/lb. at Sprouts plus fresh sliced mushrooms (both oyster and baby portobello) and some dried slices of shiitake mushrooms.
I sautéed about ¼ cup each of garlic and Ginger in 2 T. of peanut oil and then added 3 diced ichiban eggplants (about 3 cups) and 1/2 lb. of diced boneless pork sirloin to the wok. Then I added the broccoli and the mushrooms and sautéed all of that until it took on color.
Before cooking the dish I had started 1 cup of rice simmering in 2 cups of boiling water seasoned with 1 tsp. of Knorr chicken stock and a small handful of lily pods for 30 minutes on the lowest simmer setting on our stove.
After everything seemed to take on color and partially cooked. I added 14 oz. of medium firm diced tofu and a T. of wood ear and a T. of dried shiitake mushrooms that I had softened in two cups of hot water for about ten to fifteen minutes and then Enough water to cover the ingredients so they would stew. I checked the recipe I use in the The Good a Food of Szechuan Cookbook and realized I had failed to add the chili sauce, so I added a heaping tsp. of garlic chili paste, less than ½ of what the recipe calls for.
I let the stew stew for about 30 minutes to allow the ingredients to cook and begin exchanging flavors. Then I made a thickening sauce with 2 T. of corn starch, 1 T. each of soy sauce and Chinese Cooking Wine, about 2 T. of water, and 1 Tsp. of sesame seed oil.
After three or four minutes of turning the stew it thickened and was ready to serve on a pile of rice with a cup of Lychee tea.
Bon Appetit
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