May 6, 2017 Breakfast – Gravad Lax Omelet, Lunch – Costco Polish Dog. Dinner – PPI Greenhouse Bistro Mexican Pot Pie

May 6, 2017 Breakfast – Gravad Lax Omelet,  Lunch – Costco Polish Dog. Dinner – PPI Greenhouse Bistro Mexican Pot Pie

Today was one of the few days for which food was not of primary focus, as I will explain.

I watched English Premier League football until the half and then made a salmon, green onion, P’tit Basque cheese, tomato, and avocado omelet.  We had a busy day planned so we drank water with the omelet.

At 10:00 we drove to a house on 11th St. Willy was interested in and checked it out.  We then drove to Corrales for its Annual Gallery and Studio tour.  We got a map and went to the first location, a realty office, and then got a Vine and Wine Growers brovhure and  coordinated the wineries in Corrales’ locations with the studios we wanted to visit.  There were four wineries in Corrales and we visited all except for Milagro.  We visited Pasando Tiempo Winery, which had a good Merlot/Cabernet Franc blend Bordeaux style; then , Corrales Winery that had a good Riesling, and finally, Acequia Winery, where we sat on covered the porch overlooking the Sandias at tables with other visitors and drank a tasting of all of the seven of eight wines it produced.  At Acequia we liked three wines and bought a bottle of 2016 Osprey which was 100% Vidal Blanc.  We also liked Acequia’s Leon Millot Rose’.

We visited two or three art studios and the strip center in Corrales with four or five art galleries.  At the gallery that was an artist’s coop, we bought a small raku horse shaped bowl that we thought could be used as a salt cellar.

Finally, at 2:00 when we finished our tasting at Acequia, I was hungry, so on our way to the Apple Store for our 3:00 lesson on picture taking, we stopped at Costco for a quick lunch.  I ordered a Polish Dog and Suzette ordered a slice of cheese pizza, which we ate in about ten minutes.  We simply needed food to keep going, so abandoned any of the elaborate niceties such as eating with a knife and fork.  I simply threw some onions, catsup, mustard and relish on the dog and ate it by holding it in the wrapper in my hand.

We then drove to the Apple Store for our classes on picture taking and picture organization.  The lessons are free and you can take them as often as you wish. I found the lessons helpful and hopefully readers of this blog will benefit from the rudimentary steps I take toward a more effective use of the camera function in my Apple devices. The whole experience of interacting with the trainers felt to me like we were being praised for joining the Apple culture.  There were a couple dozen Apple green shirted geniuses at the store, so I asked a green shirted young man when we left the store at 4:00, “How many Apple stores are there in New Mexico?”  The friendly green shirted man answered, “One.”

The effect of his answer was twofold, one, there is still lots of running room for Apple to sell its products and services in the future and second, this is like when I moved to Albuquerque in 1981 and Amy was thrilled when Starbucks opened its first shop in Albuquerque.  Penetration of markets takes a very long time, especially with a constantly evolving technical device like Apple makes.  I recommend taking lessons to expose yourself to the vast array of amazing features offered by the Apple eco-system, such as something as simple as having all you devices linked to and be able to store and share all your pictures and videos taken on any device using the same user name in and from the cloud.  The result of these features for me is to have access to my thousands of photos any time I have an internet connection.

My conclusion from the lessons was

that our phones and computers are machines that have technical capabilities built into them that provide a wide range of communication capabilities and it is necessary to learn those technical capacities, if we a

want to communicate effectively.

After our lessons, we drove around the corner to Trader Joe's and bought artichokes, a bouquet of tulips, toothpaste, bottles of French cider, and three bottles of Le Chevalier VS cognac, which was finally back on the shelf at its usual price of $19.99.

When we arrived at the house Suzette went to the garden and cut roses and arranged bouquets in two vases of roses and tulips.  We then  made ourselves cocktails and sat by the fish pond in the garden and enjoyed the golden light cast by the setting sun across our garden.

We decided to plant the 10 tomato plants Suzette’s folks grew from seeds at the Center for Ageless Living.

We then decided to eat something light for dinner.  We did not wish to cook, so agreed to try the Mexican pot pie Made at the Greenhouse Bistro and bakery as part of the special menu for Cinco de Mayo.  Besides the usual Ingredients of potatoes, carrots, corn kernels, and a rich crust of dough, the filling included pieces of chayote and was seasoned with Epazote.  It was nice to crunch into a piece of baked chayote as one ate the pie.  Suzette fetched the cream and we dabbed some on the pot pie slices warm from the microwave.

We loved not cooking after our long day of activities and still enjoying a delicious dinner.  For the second time today, we were eating a quick meal prepared by others and being driven by our hunger, eating to live, rather than living to eat.

Bon Appetit