December 5, 2033 Lunch - Compound Dinner - Boiled Shrimp with avocado crema

December 5, 2033 Lunch - Compound  Dinner - Boiled Shrimp with avocado crema

This was a wonderful day.

It started with the plumbers arriving at 8:00 to plumb the new bathroom for the remodel of our bathroom and front bedroom.

Then we drove to Santa Fe.  We stopped at Restore It so Suzette could find a mantle, but there was none.

We then drove to Owings Gallery to consign my Juane Quick to See Smith for sale at 11:30. Smith currently has a retrospective organized by the Whitney Museum that just opened in Fort Worth at the Modern At Museum. 

Then we drove to the Compound for lunch at 12:30.

I love the Compound because it offers fine dining at its best and the food and wine are excellent.  It has been awarded Wine Spectator’s certificate of merit for every year for the last four years.  Mark Kiffen, was the chef and is the owner and was awarded Best chef in the Southwest in 2005 by the James Beard Foundation. Kiffen has turned over executive chef responsibility to Weston Ludeke, who has cooked in Michelin restaurants. 

The food was fabulous. We first shared a bowl of Italian Wedding Soup, Beef Meatballs, Mirepoix, Spinach, Orzo Pasta, Beef Broth, and Parmesan.  I liked the strongB beef broth but Suzette thought the rosemary flavor in the broth was overpowering.

Bread and butter were also served and we tasted a taste of Albariño that was so highly acidic we passed on it and a 2022 Triennes Rose from Provence that we loved and ordered a bottle of for $64.00. 

In a bit our entrees arrived. Suzette had ordered a grilled salmon filet accompanied with farro mixed with rehydrated cranberries and a butternut squash purée that was fabulous. She said it was the best prepared salmon she had ever had.

My tart was elegantly simple, a large square of puff pastry that was incredibly fluffy filled with minced bacon and chèvre and topped with baby arugula and slices of pear that were so thin that they were translucent. 

It was one of the lightest tarts I have ever eaten.

The tart plate was decorated with dots of chèvre creamed in olive oil also.

The wine perfectly paired with the food.  We had one glass left when we finished our food that we drank and found it to be a bit harsh tasting, but we loved this elegant rose with food.

The maitre d’ is French and a trained sommelier. We complimented him on his selection of the rose and raised the issue of the acidity of the Albariño because it had not been aged on the lees.

We were full but shared the last piece of bread with butter with the last glass of rose to balance the harshness instead of ordering a dessert.

We then drove to the Santa Fe Auction house to pick up my Helen Hardin painting. The lady in charge of the auction showed us a collection of art consigned by a collector named Nelson from Taos that had an amazing number of early 20th century Taos painters.

We then drove to Stephen’s Consignment where Suzette found the perfect mantel. It did not fit in the Suzette’s SUV so we drove to a nearby hardware store,c where Suzette bought a package of bungy cords and we returned to Stephen’s and Domenic and Stephen helped Suzette lash the mantel to the luggage rack on top of the Highlander.

Suzette then drove us home.  The sun was setting at 5:30 as we drove home and I enjoyed the view of the after glow of the sun silhouetted by the line of mesas to the west.

When we returned home we drank a glass of fresh orange juice and watched the news for a while to recover from all the art, food, and shopping activity of the day.

Neither of us was particularly hungry, but around 7:00 Suzette made us a quick dinner by mashing the meat of an avocado into a cup of crema and adding a dash of hot sauce. We shelled the remaining shrimp we had boiled yesterday and dipped the large shrimp into the  avocado crema and ate them with corn chips.  I fetched a Shiner Bock beer from the garage and Suzette sipped her scotch cocktail.

We watched news until 9:00 and then went to bed.

We loved our day in Santa Fe with a world class meal and the prospect of selling one of my paintings and my new small magical deer painting by Helen Hardin.

Bon Appetit