November 26, 2016 Breakfast and Lunch – Bagels with Lax, red onion, cream cheese, and tomato. Dinner – The Cellar

November 26, 2016 Breakfast and Lunch – Bagels with Lax, red onion, cream cheese, and tomato. Dinner – The Cellar

We had bought a dozen Einstein bagels at Costco earlier this week. For breakfast I sliced into thirds and toasted  three bagels.  I then smeared them with cream cheese, and layered them with slices of gravad lax, red onion, and tomato and studded them with capers.  We could only eat three of the six open faced sandwiches at breakfast.  I worked and Suzette went to Joann’s Fabrics to find a pattern for a kimono and where she found that patterns are now available on line and are cheaper on line. Her reaction when she got home at noon was, “I could have stayed home with a cup of coffee and found the pattern more easily and cheaply.”  God bless the internet.

After lunch I rode to Montano and back and showered.  At 4:00 we went to the art museum and listened to a man play piano and saw the Mabel Dodge Lujan exhibit again.  This exhibit is so extensive and so encyclopedic that it requires several viewings to see and absorb its full breath.  This time I just looked at the art and did not read the labels, but read some of the gallery signs I had missed the first time and discovered that Mabel Dodge Lujan was the Vice President of the artists organization that organized the 1913 Armory Show and she and Tony Lujan organized the 20 pueblos to oppose the Bursum Bill that would have destroyed the reservation system in 1922 and in 1940, she and Tony were part of the American delegation to the first International Conference on Indigenous people in Patzcuaro, Mexico.   Also Mabel wrote four books and published many periodicals, including the first book ever written on the artists of Taos in 1947. As Suzette said after today’s visit to the show, “All our lives pale in comparison to Mabel Dodge Lujan’s.”

At 5:00 we drove to the Cellar, which is the relatively new tapas restaurant located next to Lowe’s grocery store on Lomas at 11th.

We ordered a bottle of the house red, which is Campo Viejo Tempranillo for $28.00 and a tapa of figs, goat cheese, and fried pancetta.  Willy joined us after we ordered and had just received the tapa.  Bread slices were also served with two small bowls, one filled with a balsamic reduction and olive oil and the other a fiery hot green chili aioli.  We the ordered three more tapas, a bruschetta of goat cheese, a tomato slice and lots of strips of fried Serrano ham, chicken skewers wrapped with Serrano ham accompanied by sautéed blanched chunks of zucchini and crock neck squash, and a lamb dish combining sautéed chunks of lamb and a grilled slice of onion in a lemon sauce. Each of the tapas was $12.00 or $13.00 and the total bill with tax was $79.00 before tip.

We finished dinner at 6:30 and then drove to the Hotel Andaluz bar and had a drink and listened to Hillary Smith and her brother play mostly blues, many of which were duets.  We really enjoyed the lazy, calming blues standards instead of the high powered Honey House presentations for a change.

At 8:30 we went home and cooked the wild rice for the turkey stuffing for tomorrow’s dinner.

I stayed up until 12:00 to make sure the wild rice was fully cooked.  The recipe calls for 3 to 1 of water to wild rice and it took three hours to full absorb the water and for the kernels of wild rice to burst open and curl into their fully cooked shape.

Bon Appetit