Happy New Year! 2010

We wrapped up a wonderful 2-week holiday season with a New Year's Eve "Around the World" party with friends Scott and Chere who drove all the way from the Phoenix area, and our neighbors Jerry and Karen, before they left for their second lives in SE Asia this week (sniff, sniff).

For the party, we prepared several small dishes from around the world, accompanied by their local libations. So, for Ireland Jon made shepherd's pie (technically, he made cottage pie because he didn't include lamb) and paired it with Guinness and Irish soda bread. For Italy, we arranged fancy salumis and artisanal Italian cheeses on a platter, and for France we prepared my mom's traditional New Year's Eve French onion soup, paired with a 2008 Beaujolais.

From North America, we had deviled eggs, French onion dip with Ruffles, and a local microbrew from Albuquerque (Marble I.P.A.), and blue tortilla chips with salsas and guacamole with Coronas to represent Mexico.

For Asia, Jon and Scott (who doesn't like fish!) prepared ahi tuna sushi paired with sake to represent Japan, and Jerry and Karen graciously presented us with Southeast Asian delicacies such as Laotian and Thai jeows (spicy dips) with purple Cambodian dipping rice.

At midnight, to ring in the New Year, we "flew" to Russia and indulged in whitefish caviar on seaweed rice crackers with crème fraiche accompanied by sparkling wine (Gruet, from New Mexico). Finally, we traveled to South America with chocolate Brigadeiros (a type of Brazilian fudge), displayed with a bowl of floating candles, to honor a Brazilian new year's tradition.

What a great way to ring in the New Year, but it's time for moderation again. Gotta go--all this writing about food made me hungry!

Kicking Off the Los Lunas Farmers' Market

June 16th was the first day of the Los Lunas Farmers' Market, just 6 miles south of our place. We've signed up to be vendors later in the season when our watermelon, honeydew, cucumbers, radishes, and beans mature (if they make it!), but Tuesday we went to the market as customers.

It was a fantastic turn out for Day One of a brand new farmers' market; they had a bluegrass band, several vendors (many we recognized from various Albuquerque markets), and the Master Gardeners Program volunteers selling plants--oh, and DELICIOUS Italian Ice. We rode our bikes the six miles to the market along the Rio Grande bosque with our friends and neighbors, Karen and Jerry.

The ride to the market was gorgeous: not too hot, not too dusty due to recent rains, but not muddy, either. The ride back, on the other hand, was rife with mobs of mosquitoes and flurries of cotton flying into our faces, noses, and throats. I was pocked with mosquito bites and hoarse from coughing and sneezing when we arrived home. But it was definitely worth the ride!

The vendors were amazing: a couple with a one-acre farm had already sold out of bushels of artichokes by the time we arrived but still had some Swiss chard and beets, which we purchased. Another vendor sold blackberry habenero jam, blueberry marmelade, and apricot jam, mostly from local fruit. Yet another offered frozen grass-fed and -finished beef and wild-caught Alaskan salmon and other fish (his sign read "The Fish Hugger"). Mr. Hugger also ensnared us in a long diatribe about the health and reproductive dangers of electro-magnetic fields (EMFs) and how carrying a small piece of magnetite can help deflect them. It was actually my fault that we got into that conversation, as I've been reading a lot about health and EMFs lately and for unknown reasons brought up the subject. My mistake....

Strange, drawn-out conversations aside, we plan to go to the market every week, if we can make it. The wild fish and grass-fed and -finished beef is definitely in our plans next week!

Article #10: Why Food Matters

This month, we published an article about why food matters--the crux of why we moved back to New Mexico to own land in a rural area.

The article is a brief amalgamation of all the reading and research we've done over the past year, also a summary of the many conversations we've had with the intriguing people we've met here and elsewhere, who are thinking along the same lines. Read on for why food matters not only to me and Jon--but to all of us.

http://featured.matternetwork.com/2008/12/why-food-matters.cfm

Onward to Cambodia

Our newfound neighbors and friends Jerry and Karen are leaving next weekend to return to work in Cambodia. We will miss them dearly, as we have spent the summer sharing wonderful meals, stories, and most of all great company. While we're on our way to their place again this evening to enjoy a simple meal to end the weekend, we enjoyed a deliciously experimental meal at their home last weekend as well.

They invited us over for this experimental meal for Karen's yet-unpublished test kitchen article. We can't divulge any details here, but suffice it to say that it's related to a fascinating topic she's mentioned before, the food was miraculous (as usual), and it made us feel like we were on top of the world (I really don't know how else to describe it, particularly the effects of the fiery red Thai chiles the morning after...).

While these are poor-quality photos taken with my Blackberry phone, you can get the idea of the spirit of our dinners, particularly the exercise of documenting the many out-of-context quotes we've blurted during the many meals we've shared this summer.

We'll miss you guys K & J! Don't worry about the weeds, and keep the blog posts coming!

Thai Cooking Class

Thursday night I attended my first-ever Thai cooking class with our neighbor and friend, Karen. One would think she wouldn't need such a class--with her extensive first-hand experience with Thai, Cambodian, and Lao cuisine, she could have easily and gracefully stepped in for the instructor and taken over, but she didn't. Rather, the class was just a great opportunity to be with other foodies (Karen found the class through the Albuquerque Foodies group on meetup.com), and to better understand ingredients used in Thai cooking, not to mention enjoy a fabulous, well-prepared meal all for only $25.

The class took place at Albuquerque's Talin Market, an international grocery store that I've watched grow from a dingy hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese convenience store to one of the best international markets I've ever visited. The aisles at Talin now boast exotic ingredients and produce from all over Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Carribean.

As far as I can remember from my first stint in Albuquerque many moons ago (Talin opened in 1978), it was the place to go for strange ingredients required for recipes I'd concoct from obscure Asian cookbooks I picked up in used bookstores near UNM. Once I wandered two or three small aisles of foreign labels, whiffs of putrid aromas, and cluttered shelves, I'd find my prized bottle of fish sauce, usually caked with a quarter-inch of dust.

Now, Talin is an enormous, pleasant, well organized store with a modern production kitchen upstairs for demonstrations and classes. While they didn't serve wine with our delicious meal, it was restaurant-quality and authentic. We even ate our sticky rice by hand by rolling it into small balls and dipping it into chili paste, Lao style.

We made tom yum goong (spicy, tangy shrimp soup), som tam (papaya salad), and, my favorite of the evening, eggplant and shrimp salad. Two things I learned from the class: it matters which kind of eggplant you use (Chinese and Japanese eggplants are far more tender and less bitter than traditional, larger eggplants), and the trick to ordering or planning a perfect Thai meal is to balance the four key flavors of Thai cuisine: sweet, sour, salty, and spicy. If you have too much of one or two over the others, the meal could be cloying or generally just less exciting.

Thanks for inviting me to take the class Karen! It was truly a treat.

Vegas, Mama!

Spent the weekend in Vegas with Mom for our somewhat-annual mother/daughter trip (we've missed the past couple years). While we had a fantastic time (great food! won $100 in 5 minutes at the blackjack table!) I think I've seen enough of Vegas for a lifetime.

When we arrived Thursday night, we had our first dinner at Benihana. Mom loves to sit at the teppanyaki table and enjoy the chef doing his thing. Yummy cocktails too--I had a cucumber cocktail made with sake. Sooooo refreshing....

We spent most of our time on the Strip as we stayed at a Hilton behind the Flamingo, a Las Vegas hotel rich in dramatic history (the infamous mobster Bugsy was one of its founders). Our hotel was in a great location--completely central to the Strip, right on a monorail stop, clean, decent service, and not expensive. The Flamingo is somewhat of a stone's throw from the Paris hotel and casino, where we had our favorite breakfast of fresh pastries and coffee, Parisian style. And our hotel had a nice, quiet patio area engulfed with palm trees and other lush foliage to enjoy a glass of wine in the evening or coffee in the morning. Perfect pace for me and mum.












We did, however, spend a day in downtown Las Vegas, which was surprisingly great. It has such a retro-Ocean's Eleven feel (the original, with Sinatra & co.). Mom likes to feed the slots more than I do, so I either played the blackjack tables or wandered around with my camera waiting for her. Downtown generally has lower-limit tables than the Strip, so it's easier to sit and enjoy a longer, less-devastating round of blackjack. We also stumbled into Triple George Grill on 3rd street, a great restaurant/bar that had a phenomenal wine list and fresh kumamoto oysters--my favorite. It was a welcome light lunch before we headed off to Rosemary's Restaurant eons away from the strip later that evening for what may have been the most amazing meal (and service) I've ever had.

There was a vintage car show going on downtown, with the most gorgeous classic cars on display. I'm not a huge car fan, but it was fun to see all the different styles and the enormous effort people pour into them...

We had a great time, but it's good to be back on the farm. Seventy-two hours in Vegas is just enough to never want to see it again...until next time.

more at twiigs.com...

The Story of Stuff

Concerned about rising gas and food prices? Worried about your drinking water? Wondering how you'll be able to afford commuting to and from work when gas is $10 a gallon?

The video that spawned this web site is a bit lengthy (about 15 minutes?), but very much worth watching. It's the story of "stuff", how the Western world (especially America) got to be such a consumeristic society over the past 60-odd years, how it has changed the world for the worse, and what we can do now to hopefully right the ship.

The web site has great resources and ideas for how each of us can change the trend of materialism that has actually consumed us over the past decades. Upgrading our lightbulbs and using recycling bins simply isn't enough. We all have to make some uncomfortable and permanent lifestyle changes if we want future generations--even our own generation!--to be able to sustain themselves. Besides, many of these changes would be GREAT for us mentally, morally, physically, socially, and spirtually. Definitely a worthy video and web site to peruse, particularly if you're concerned at all about what lies ahead for today's kids, or even for those of us who will already have to deal with this big mess as time goes by.

Cheese, Glorious Cheese!

Last weekend, we rolled up our sleeves and spent an entire Sunday discovering what it takes to make 12 wheels of aged cheddar goat cheese. And folks, we're here to tell you it's no walk in the park....














Through what must have been a cosmic connection, we made contact with the owners of The Old Windmill Dairy in Estancia, N.M., just east of the Sandia mountain range (opposite Albuquerque on the west side of the range). Ed and Michael Lobaugh each hold full-time jobs, but spend their evenings and weekends tending a herd of over 60 goats and milking about 1/2 of those about twice a day--once before dawn, once around dusk or whenever they come home from work.














We felt like losers compared to these two Energizer bunnies. PLUS they were stuck with us for about 10 hours, taking us through each step of making the cheese and keeping the facilities clean and functional, all while staying cheerful and congenial. Amazing!

They only started seriously making cheese last summer, and their products are on the shelves of New Mexico's food co-op, La Montanita, and at the local farmers' markets each week. They blend herbs like garlic, dill, and capers into their raw cheeses, and they are the only aged-cheese producers in the state (there are only about seven artisanal dairies in New Mexico, including Old Windmill).

We met Michael and Ed under circuitous circumstances...our friend Lauren (whom Val met on a plane a few years ago) was visiting her parents in Santa Fe and attended a yoga class where she met a friend of theirs, another Michael. He told her that he makes goat cheese on weekends at the Old Windmill, gave her his card, and she encouraged us to call him, so we did. He referred us directly to Michael and Ed, and we made arrangements to visit their dairy. Incidentally, the other Michael was working with us on Sunday, where he revealed that his brother has been working for Autodesk--the company where Val works--for a couple decades! Small world....

While Ed and Michael aren't farmers, we learned so much about carrying the responsibility of a day job and a mortgage (and a farm mortgage) while trying to establish a dream. These guys are determined, and they taught us a lot about what it will take to achieve our own dreams. Thanks Michael and Ed!

More Home Cooking: Paella Night

A couple Saturdays ago, we spent the evening with Val's folks, sipping Spanish wine and making a traditional Spanish paella. It was a lot of prep--shucking shellfish, chopping veggies, and measuring everything out--but once we threw it all together in the paella pan, under Mom's direction, it all came together into one of the most delicious home cooked meals ever. She still has the magic!

The best part of the evening was the four of us enjoying our handiwork at the table with a bottle of Bodegas Castano 2004 Monastrell Yecla Hecula, and Val's mom teaching us a repertoire of dirty words in French. Quelle soiree!

Recipe for Comfort Food

It's been great being home, so we've ventured to cook nearly every meal over the past few days vs. going out. Our most creative so far has been chopped veggie "junk" salad with an awesome light dressing (Jon's magic creation), and a bun-less, spicy burger: low-fat, grass-fed, Angus beef burger patties atop hearty mashed red potatoes, surrounded by the veggie of your choice (we chose peas and corn to give the dish a comfort food feeling. Plus it just looked and tasted good). I think we'll call this dish "Wannabehomealotta". It has a Hungarian ring, which reminds of us of other good comfort food meals like goulash and papprikash.... The whole meal took about 40 minutes to prepare, cook, and serve.









RECIPES

Chopped Junk Salad with Jon's Dressing (serves 2)


Chop the following and toss in large salad bowl:

1 cup red cabbage
4 medium carrots
1 large red bell pepper
1 cup mixed greens
1 cup cooked beets

For the dressing, whisk together in a small mixing bowl:

3/4 cup unseasoned rice wine vinaigrette
3 Tbsp. canola oil
2 Tbsp. low-sodium soy sauce

Drizzle over the salad and serve.

Wannabehomealotta (bun-less spicy burger over mashed potatoes and veggies)


1 lb. lean ground Angus or Kobe beef

2 cloves minced garlic or 1 Tbsp. garlic powder
1 Tbsp. mild red chile powder (New Mexico preferred, of course)
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. chopped oregano, basil, or 21 Seasoning Salute (available at Trader Joe's)
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

Combine beef with remaining ingredients in a medium mixing bowl. Split mixture in half and form two 1/2 lb. patties with your hands. Heat a non-stick skillet over med-high heat, and once the skillet is hot cook patties for 5-10 minutes on each side, until you reach the meat temperature you like (5 minutes should be rare to medium, 7 minutes med-well, 10 minutes well).

Serve over a bed of mashed red potatoes (boil 1 lb. red potatoes for about 20 minutes or until they break or fall off a fork when tested; mash potatoes (skins on) with a fork or a potato masher in a large bowl with 3/4 cup milk and 4 Tbsp. salted butter, soft or melted). Add fresh cut corn and peas--or frozen if you wish--and voila! Enjoy!

Do you have a recipe you'd like to share with our blog community? Post a comment and include your recipe!

Wine, Food, and Golf...Life is Good!

Gorgeous, crisp autumn weather...excellent wine and food at every third hole...and a great couple in our foursome who were more interested in having fun than winning the tournament (like us)...a perfect day!

The 12th annual Gruet Golf Classic was part of the annual Santa Fe Wine & Chile Festival. Gruet is a local family winery that began in France, specializing in excellent French-style champagne, Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay--all sourced locally!

It was Val's first golf tournament. We had loads of fun, but no--we didn't win! Nevertheless, it was a great experience. We hope to do it again next year!

On the menu (each paired with a Gruet wine):

Hole #1: Carnitas with fresh salsas and homemade corn tortillas (La Plazeula Restaurant)

Hole #4: "Trash can" Angus beef burgers, topped with homemade cole slaw, lettuce, cucumber and sweet potato fries (Geronimo)

Hole #7: Alaskan halibut ceviche with habanero guacamole, salsa ranchera, salsa verde and mango salsa with fresh tortilla chips (Rio Chama)

Hole #10: Buffalo short rib taquitos with huitlachoche sauce and napa cabbage, quince & sundried cherry slaw (La Casa Sena)

Hole #15: Duck and asiago quesadillas with tropical mint salsa (Quail Run)

Hole #17: Asian crab cakes (Jinja)