March 8, 2019 Lunch – Church Street Café. Dinner – National Hispanic Cultural Center “La Chola” Opening

March 8, 2019 Lunch – Church Street Café. Dinner – National Hispanic Cultural Center “La Chola” Opening


This morning I fetched suzette’s Friday paper and toasted two bagels and smeared them with cream cheese and laid slices of onion and the last of the Lax I made in December on them for a hardy breakfast.

Suzette read me two interesting items from the paper, that the Legislature had voted in principle to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana in NM and that from 6:00 until 8:00 there was going to be a free opening of the new “La Chola” Exhibit at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.  We decided to go to the opening.

I worked on the hotel transaction until after 1:00 when Max Aragon arrived and we went to the building in Old Town to show it to a prospective tenant.

We then walked to Church Street Café for lunch. When we were shown to the sun lit covered patio in the back of the restaurant Max ran into an old friend playing the guitar who used to work for Max’ uncle as a bartender at the La Fonda Hotel. MIT was old home week as the two men embraced and talked about folks and places they knew.

Finally we ordered, I ordered Traditional Chile Rellenos with Green Chile and spinach and beans and Max ordered a turkey sandwich with potato salad. I was surprised by my dish.  It was two Spanish ham fritters.  I could have been back in Spain, except for the Green Chile that had been spooned onto the fritters.  The fritters were too doughy for me and the Green Chile too hot so I offered Max part of one of the fritters and most of the Green Chile and boxed the other fritter and remaining ½ of the beans and spinach.

We returned to the building and met Rueben and Max’ cousin Derrick who is a plumbing sub-contractor and latter Matt who does electric sub-contracting.  We returned home around 4:00 and I made a couple of phone calls on the hotel transaction and then Max and I settled his dispute with the lender on his house in Santa Fe, by ending the litigation with a court supervised Modification Agreement that reduced his interest and monthly payment by deferring a portion of the principle for 40 years.  After a few glasses of wine and signing the agreement, we all congratulated ourselves and he left for Santa Fe around 6:15.

At 6:30 Suzette drove us to the National Hispanic Cultural Center and we we walked to the art gallery.  When we arrived we were greeted by a huge celebration.  There was free ½ pint glasses of beer made by Marble Brewery and a buffet of interesting Mexican food.  We both drank a special dark German style lager made especially for the opening named Chicamisa. We took our beers and a plate, fork, and napkin and we and servers filled our plates.  There was a tamale cup small quiche that was filled with squash and Green Chile in a tomato sauce that was very unusual and delicious served with a Chipotle sour cream.  There were large beef meatballs (albondigos) and finally there were large bowls of stewed chicken tacos served with sour cream (Crema).  There were no seats, but there was a four foot open space at the end of the buffet table where we stood and placed our beer glasses
We placed out glass and plates on the table as we switched between eating and drinking.  The location was also strategic because a bowl of chicken tacos were within reach and we ate several extra of those.

After we finished our food and beer we walked through the large exhibit and works of art devoted to
Cholas.  I did not read all the Gallery notes but it was apparent that the La Chola theme centered on the modern Hispanic culture of the Southwest dominated by women with hair teased up into elaborate hairdos held firmly in place with lots of hair spray and highly decorated low rider cars.  We loved the exhibit and was particularly taken by the casual and yet intimate Miguel Gandert photos .  We returned home at 7:45 just in time to watch Washington Week at 8:00 with our second cocktail of the day.  I switched to a White Russian from my earlier gin and tonic.

We went to bed around 9:30.

Another day of discovering a whole new world of food that I did not know existed in Albuquerque.  What was really amazing was the use of masa to make a tamale cup for a small quiche, brilliant.

Bon Appetit