July 31, 2021 Lunch - The Shed. Dinner at Crystal and Doug’s dinner Party.

 July 31, 2021 Lunch - The Shed. Dinner at Crystal and Doug’s  dinner Party. 

We woke up and I ate a toasted slice of whole wheat bread on which I smeared sour cream iand then lay thin slices of onion and pieces of herring in wine sauce and drank a cup of tea with it for breakfast.

At 8:30 we left for Santa Fe. We drove to the Farmers Market at the Railyard.  We were looking for shishito peppers and we found them at several stands.  We bought a lb. of the peppers plus corn from Espanola haricot verts, and 1/2 lb. of medium red chili from Chimayo.

We then drove to The Owings Gallery and spoke to Nat for a few minutes and then walked to the Shed.  There was a 45 minute wait, so we each took a margarita and went to the patio to wait.  When we were seated for lunch, Suzette and I split a No. 5 with double posole. Dee ordered No. 5 with beans and Posole.  After lunch we drove back to Albuquerque so we could rest before dinner and Dee drove to Glorietta to visit Joe Mills.

At 6:00 we got dressed and took the two bottles of Greek wine, a red Nemea and a sweet Filias white we had bought at Total Wine and a DePonte Clay Hill Pinot Noir to Chrystal and Doug’s.  Tom and Janice had already arrived.  Doug and Crystal have built a portal onto the back of their living room accessible through French doors for indoor outdoor living.

On one side of the portal was a cocktail table with chairs  and on the other side of the portal was a dining table with six chairs.

Crystal made us Campari or Aperol cocktails with soda and a lemon twist and after we seated ourselves on the portal, served us an eggplant skin baked with pinon nuts and honey and a hot terrine of baked feta cheese and tomato accompanied with a plate of toast points.

After a while Doug and Crystal returned to the kitchen and soon after I followed them.  Doug was removing layers of baked ingredients from a large cauldron all of which were stuffed with a mixture of rice and ground lamb; first dolmas, then Italian sweet peppers, then peeled and cored cucumbers, then cored zucchini, and finally tomatoes.  He then poured the remaining liquid sauce in the cauldron into a pitcher.  Doug said this was a traditional Armenian dish his grandmother used to make.  The quantities were so large it could have served two dozen.  Here are some pictures.

We each took one of each stuffed ingredient and poured sauce over them.  I opened the Greek wines and poured glasses for each person. I also opened the Clay Hill to let it breath and we drank it after the Nemea was finished. The Nemea was dry and delicious, but the white Filias was too sweet for us to enjoy.

The portion was so large it took a while to finish dinner.  It was raining when we had 

walked to Doug and Crystal’s but soon the rain stopped and we enjoyed a cool evening.

After dinner Janice served us pieces of her delicious coconut cream pie and Crystal poured small shop glasses of Mastic, a Sweet Greek liquor made from the resin of the mastic tree.

It was a wonderful dinner and introduced me to Armenian Cuisine that I was previously unfamiliar with, so I loved it.

Bon Appetit