February 1, 2020 Lunch – Oysters and Salmon, and Wine. Dinner - Grand Tasting at TSV

We slept in this morning until 8:30. After getting dressed I ate some yogurt and blueberries.  We left at 10:30 and drove to the church gym for the craft show.  We immediately saw Honduran woven bags similar to the ones we bought in Sayulita. The ones here were not as nice as ours, so we passed on them.  Suzette, Willy and left Billy talking to a fellow selling books and drove to Bent Street.  They went to the café to buy coffee and tea and I walked to Robert Parsons.  Robert was not there but his assistant showed me a new collection that had just arrived.  I was attracted to Clift Harman pencil drawing. Q

Suzette and Willy arrived  and said we needed to go to pick up Billy and drive to the Taos Ski Valley for the Oyster Lunch.

We picked up Billy at 11:30 and arrived at TSV at 12:00. Suzette let us off at the walk and went to park the car.  We walked up to the plaza and saw a long line of people waiting to enter the area where there were three food stands and five or six wineries pouring their wines, including Argyle, Beaux Freres, a good Oregon Gruner Vitlander and a good Dry Riesling.  The first table was serving a raw oysters on the half shell from Virginia with a mignonette sauce.  The second table was broiling Kumi oysters from Washington State garnished with a butter, parsley, red pepper flakes, and garlic sauce.  I asked and was given several kumi oysters on the half shell before they were grilled.  They were small, but had a deep bowl with lots of brine and were delicious.  Billy, Suzette and I probably ate eighteen to  two dozen oysters each.

The third table served salmon two ways, one way was grilled fresh salmon served with a vinegary Cole Slaw and an aioli cream sauce on a corn tortilla as a taco.  The other way was as ceviche, but a very unusual ceviche made by marinating diced pieces of salmon in lemon, lime, and orange juice for an hour and then finishing with soy sauce and Aji Mirin and diced pieces of mango.

We really enjoyed this event and stayed until almost 1:30 at which we could no longer eat or drink any more.

Unfortunately, we had tickets for the Grand Tasting at 4:00.  Suzette suggested that we go to the Saint Bernard.  Suzette used to sit in the Saint Bernard and a drink called the Saint Bernard whole Harold, her ex-husband skied.  Today was no exception, she ordered a Saint Bernard, which combines hot chocolate, Kailua, bourbon whisky and is topped with whipped cream.  Willy ordered a Hefeweizen German beer and I ordered a Urquell, Czech beer.

After about an hour we went back outside. Suzette and I sat in Addorondiak style chars by a fire pit and rested until 3:45, while Willy and Billy wandered away.  Willy later made an interesting observation, that Ski resorts are among the most walkable environments in our day and age.

At 4:10 Billy and I went into the large room where skiers can rest and eat food from the cafeteria named Katie’s Tenderfoot at the base of the ski runs.  All the tables and chairs had been removed in the large dining hall, and replaced with tables around the edges stacked with different wine offerings of a lower quality from mostly the same wineries and importers and food offerings from mostly TSV restaurants.

There are two floors in the facility and both were filled with food and wine.  I found several wines and foods that were interesting.  I especially liked the duck wings braised in a honey and chipotle sauce and upstairs a huge standing rib roast from which slices were being cut and placed on small bamboo plates.  We have become casual friends with many winery participants and so we had mostly casual conversations as we sipped their wines in no special order.  I did try as many red Barolo wines as possible, since this moderately priced wine seemed to be offered by many importers.  The first two wines I tried at Synergy Wines table were great another amazing white and next to them ,my favorite white was a white Burgundy that the pourer told me had a little mixing grape added to it that gave it more complexity than the usual 100% Chardonnay.

This is Suzette’s favorite event because she can find great wines at moderate prices for her restaurant.  She said, “This has been a successful event because I found three new wines.”

Willy and Billy wanted to leave.  We all agreed that the oyster lunch had been the peak event of the day and had we not paid $90.00 for tickets for the Grand Tasting we would have left after lunch. Suzette and I left after I ate my second duck wing at 5:30 and walked back down the hill to the parking lot.  We called Willy and discovered that they had walked to the car.  Soon they drove up to the top of the lot to pick us up and we drove back to the house with a stop at Cid’s for popcorn, milk, fresh ginger, and honey.

When we arrived home Willy ate an ice cream sandwich and I ate a Blue Bunny chocolate brownie cone we found in the refrigerator freezer and then we made popcorn and watched the Irishman, another Scorsese mob film with his usual cast of Pacino, De Niro, Pesci, with a plot developed around the facts of the rise and fall and mysterious disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.  It was a 3 ½ hour long movie, so we went to bed at 10:30. Suzette and I found its focus on killings unsettling and not a great movie, but perhaps it says something about our American culture of violence.

Bon Appetit