Quick Dinner for Ann's Girlfriends

Ann invited Erika and Michelle over for dinner just so that they could catch up with each other. I cooked a quick gluten-free vegetarian dinner and we sat around the counter and yakked for a few hours.

Erika Makes Gorgeous Flower Arrangements
My First Time Seeing the Yellow Kangaroo Paw Flowers

I Shoot a Bunch of Candids When People Are Not Expecting It
Sometimes, I Get a Gem

Chips with Pineapple Salsa

Posole Casserole with Poblanos and Fresh Corn

Michelle Made Mexican Chocolate Mousse

Dimitri Comes to Bend

Surprise! Our friend Dimitri texted out of the blue on Monday that he and his friend Joe would be in Bend for the weekend. Dimitri still lives in Northern Virginia just outside of DC, so he was not on our bingo card for weekend visitors. He and Joe, a friend currently from Virginia but from Portland in the past, were flying into PDX. After visiting Oregon wine country and exploring Portland, they would be driving to Bend for a long weekend.

Mediterranean Crew: Greek, Italian, Italian

Dimitri and Joe had plans to dine out on Saturday at the same time we were at the Trevor Noah show at the amphitheater, so we set a get-together for Sunday starting with pre-game at Viaggio Wine Bar. We met them there after they returned from a day trip to Crater Lake, which if you have never seen before like Dimitri, I guess you have to see. But honestly, battling buses of tourists is not my thing and I would have preferred to visit Paulina Lake instead.

Dimitri and Joe are fellow winos, so we thought that a visit to Viaggio would be welcome. There, they could drool over the curated selection of bottles on the shelves and Coravin selections on the glass list. Where else can you find shelves full of Wachau and Kamptal Riesling, Piemonte wines of all sorts, or Rhônes for days? Maybe in large cities, but in the small city of Bend three hours in any direction from civilization, the selection at Viaggio is miraculous.

After a bottle of Pibarnon Bandol rosé, we drove to the house where all I had to do was assemble dinner. In planning dinner, I wanted something that I could put on the table with little to no effort. Gone are the days of à la minute cooking where cooking is the focus rather than our guests. Hence our menu of chips and salsa verde, enchiladas de carne adovada, and posole amarillo with bacon, corn, and green chiles. Ann made another summer berry and brioche pudding and I had plenty of lemon-thyme sorbet base in the fridge ready to go into the freezer.

How I arrived at this menu is anyone's guess. I was definitely looking for a slow-cooker meal that would not involve a lot of active cooking on my part. Probably in the back of my mind was the kilo of Chimayo chile that I scored in New Mexico in December. And then, I found some really good looking pork shoulder at the store. Also, who does not like enchiladas? Chips and salsa as well as posole are natural companions to carne adovada, so that part of the menu should not be a surprise.

Before we get into dinner however, Dimitri came bearing a gift, a 2014 Glen Manor Petit Verdot. I texted Jeff, "A friend showed up with a bottle of this," to which he replied, "Keep that friend!" I remember this wine. I believe I did a pairing for it for a barrel tasting. I could be wrong; 2015 was a hot minute ago.

Dimitri Brought Us a Gift

Chips and Charred Jalapeño Salsa Verde

My usual salsa verde is tomatillos (large can, drained), cilantro (one bunch), garlic (4 cloves), and a serrano chile. When I am lazy, I used canned tomatillos rather than roasting fresh ones. I am often lazy these days. I wanted to change it up a bit with some smokiness, so I charred two jalapeños and used them instead of the serrano. I also threw in an avocado and a pinch of smoked paprika for added smoke.

It was good, but next time, I want it smokier. Maybe I try using a charred poblano. Definitely will char fresh tomatillos on the next iteration. It will be a fun experiment. A batch of salsa verde or chimichurri is usually in our refrigerator: we eat a lot of vegetarian and fish tacos that benefit from salsa.

Saturday, I made a batch of slow cooker carne adovada. Like most dishes, I used no recipe for this super simple stew. I started by cutting the pork shoulder into large cubes, then browning one side of the cubes, followed by transferring them to the slow cooker as each batch browned. I want the flavor that browning creates, but I find that browning all sides of the meat tends to contribute to dryness. Browning one large side of the pork chunks suffices to yield both flavor and succulence.

After the meat was all browned, I added a diced onion to the pork pan along with call it a dozen minced cloves of garlic. Once the onions cooked, I added a a bit of Mexican oregano, rubbed between my palms into a powder, a lot of spicy ground Chimayo chile, and a lesser amount of ancho powder to add some balance to the Chimayo chile. The chile was probably a cup in total, 3/4 Chimayo and 1/4 ancho. After stirring this into the onions well, I added perhaps a couple cups of water, a splash of Sherry vinegar, and a small amount, perhaps a tablespoon, of agave nectar. Once this sauce came together, I poured it over the pork, stirred well, and put the slow cooker on.

I believe that adovada must have acidity; your grandmother may disagree as is her right. Not a lot of acidity, but some. So I always put a bit of vinegar in mine (as I do my Mexican-style chorizo). I also think that spicy Chimayo chile needs just a hint (below the taste threshold) of sweet to help mellow it, hence the agave.

When the pork was cooked, some six or seven hours later, I separated the liquid from the pork. I separated the meat and the cooking liquid for several reasons. With the liquid chilled, I could peel off the layer of pork fat that I did not want in my sauce (and use it to cook anything else; who does not love chile-flavored lard?). Because I was making enchiladas, I wanted a more solid filling that would not bleed through the tortillas. And, I wanted a thicker, more intense sauce to fold into the filling and to cover the tops of the enchiladas.

After defatting the cooking liquid, I reduced it as far as I could without it becoming too salty. I salted the pork cubes during browning. But it was a really mellow thin sauce after hours of braising and I wanted a thicker, more in-your-face chile sauce for the enchiladas. I made a quick paste of a tablespoon of flour (for thickening), half a cup of Chimayo chile, and a little of the reduced braising liquid. After stirring really well to remove all lumps, I stirred this slurry into the sauce and cooked it gently to thicken.

Enchilada Sauce, Thickened with Flour and Chimayo Chile

Once we got back to the house, assembly of the enchiladas was trivial. I mixed some of the carne adovada with some of the sauce and the meat shredded as I stirred it. After seasoning it to taste, I rolled the tortillas around this filling, placing them in an oiled half hotel pan, seam side down.

I digress, but this is my blog, so I will digress if I want to. When I retired from the restaurant, I kept one of the half hotel pans for my home kitchen. If you have worked in food service and are of a certain age, you will remember that hotel pans used to be thick and heavy, not thin and flimsy as they are today. I kept one of the old school thick pans for home use and I use it often. I had some really awesome hotel pans too, but they are far too large for home cooking.

I spooned more sauce over the top of the rolled tortillas to make them into true enchiladas ("sauced with chiles") and then scattered over just a bit of melting cheese. I used mozz, but any melting cheese such as queso chihuahua, queso quesadilla, queso oaxaca, queso asadero, or Monterey Jack would be perfect.

Posole Amarillo with Bacon, Green Chile, and Fresh Corn

I am a huge fan of hominy. I grew up on it, always fried in bacon grease as it is traditionally served in the South. It was good. When I was in grad school in Texas, I learned that the rest of the world does not see the dish the same as I grew up with. Posole is always always a stew with pork, red chile, and white hominy. It was good: I loved this stew at first bite. Then I went to New Mexico and found that they often serve a drier posole as a side dish, more akin to my southern hominy, but with local chiles. It was good. Then I started making casseroles of hominy bound with cream sauce. It too was good. What I figured out is that posole dishes are as numerous and varied as the people that make them. I feel free to riff on this ingredient in any way that seems appropriate to me.

Over the years, I learned that hominy is not always white. It is the color of the corn from which it is made and as we all know, corn comes in many shades: white, yellow, red, and purple. I have used the different colors for effect over the years. I used a lot of maíz morado, purple hominy, at the restaurant. This time, I felt like using yellow hominy.

This time, I fried up some bacon most of the way done, then added diced red onion and garlic and let that cook. Then I added the hominy and diced mild green chile (Anaheims that I torched on my patio). It too was good. I made it Sunday morning and refrigerated it. While the enchiladas were in the oven, I reheated the posole and sliced the kernels off two ears of corn. They went into the dish as a sweet counterpoint to the smoky green chile vibe going on. It was even better.

Enchiladas de Carne Adovada and Posole Amarillo

After dinner, it had cooled off enough to go outside so Ann put the tunes on out on the patio and we all took our dessert, summer berry pudding and lemon-thyme sorbet, outside. I opened a bottle of 1977 Warre's Port, because I save those kinds of wines for fellow winos like Dimitri and Joe. It was a great night!

Dessert on the Patio

Ann's Berry and Brioche Pudding

Lemon-Thyme Sorbet with Summer Berry Pudding

A Southwest Dinner

We're getting close to the summer travel season when we are going to be on the road somewhat often. Before we leave for Virginia for my daughter Ellie's wedding, we wanted to have Rob and Dyce over for a casual dinner.

Rob and Dyce Brought the Most Gorgeous Peonies

I really am trying to avoid dinners with lots of last minute cooking so that I can relax and focus on guests. That shifts meals towards braises and dishes without touchy timing. Ann had kindly suggested all manner of dishes, but nothing grabbed me.

Unclear on what to make and rooting through the freezer, I found a bag of cleaned and cubed pork shoulder from a foray to Costco. Their shoulders come in two packs and that's a ton of meat. I typically break down both shoulders into cubes for braises like carnitas and freeze what I don't need right away.

Knowing that Rob and Dyce are fond of New Mexican food had me thinking along those lines and so I decided to make chile verde. After pondering for a few days, I decided to make a posole casserole to accompany the pork, and to offer empanadas for an appetizer. After a week of beautiful weather, it cooled off again and the choice of heartier food seemed lucky and apropos.

Then I remembered the heirloom masa harina that Ann gave me for my birthday and I decided to make tortillas to accompany the meal. And so the menu was set with the only last minute task to cook the tortillas. Somehow in the course of moving, my tortilla press did not make it to this house and so I improvised using a cast iron pan and a cut open Ziploc bag.

Empanadas de Picadillo Dulce, Cilantro Aïoli

Empanadas I make with an egg-enriched pie crust that never fails to bake up flaky and golden brown especially when brushed with an egg wash. Habitually, I fill empanadas most often with picadillo dulce, a sweet and sour pork that I first learned about by reading old Spanish-language recipes in the Biblioteca Nacional de México.

The filling is clearly of Moorish origin, containing almonds, olives, and sometimes raisins, though I have made it my own through the years. This version was ground pork shoulder, almonds, olives, onion, poblano chile, garlic, Mexican oregano, and three types of dried red chile (the majority ancho). I made it sweet and sour with brown sugar and Sherry vinegar. I have outlined the process in a previous post.

Masa Balls for Tortillas

Ghetto Tortilla Press: My 1930's Griswold Skillet

Tortillas on the Table

Chile Verde, Posole-Chipotle Casserole, Tortillas

Chile verde is not a recipe but an idea. At essence, it is cubes of pork braised in a salsa verde. There are as many ways to make it as there are cooks and they are all wonderful. I am certain that I make it differently each time and this time, I used the slow cooker to free our single oven to use in baking the posole.

For chile verde, there are two essential steps. First, make a salsa verde and second, brown the meat and braise it in the salsa.

For salsa verde, I roasted at high temperature (say 400F) a sheet tray of poblano peppers, Anaheim peppers, onions, garlic, and tomatillos. I rotated the chiles as each side became blistered. Once done, I pulled the tray out and covered it in film so that the veg could steam until cool and loosen the pepper skins.

Next up, I skinned and cleaned the peppers, dicing and reserving three or four Anaheims for the posole casserole. The peppers, garlic, tomatillos, onion, and a bunch of fresh cilantro went into the food processor. I blended it until roughly smooth and put it in the slow cooker.

For the pork, in recent years, I have adopted a process by which I only brown one surface of the cubes. This provides great flavor while not drying out the pork. After browning all the pork and putting it in the food processor, I deglazed the pan with a splash of water and poured all the porky goodness into the slow cooker with the pork and salsa. Eight hours later, the pork was tender and the sauce reduced to just the right thickness.

The posole casserole, something I started making in my 20s as a broke graduate student, I assembled in the afternoon and put into at 350F oven about 90 minutes before we were ready to eat. Timing is not critical, a delightfully brown crust is.

I admit that I did not make my own posole, though I could. I bought two 28-ounce cans of commercial hominy, the same Teasdale brand that I used in the restaurant. One can each of yellow and white hominy went into a mixing bowl with the reserved chopped green chiles, half a bunch of sliced green onions, and the kernels of one ear of fresh sweet corn for contrast and variation on the corn theme. Purple hominy (maíz morado) would have been cool, but my store had none.

I bound the casserole with a chipotle béchamel: olive oil and a spoon of flour cooked for a minute, then a pinch of salt and one finely chopped chipotle in adobo. After mixing the hominy and sauce, I adjusted the salt and put it into an oiled baking dish and topped it with a little grated white cheese. The result is as delicious as it is simple.

Making tortillas with modern masa harina is a trivial process of mixing the corn flour with enough water to make a workable dough. Then you roll it into balls and smash the balls between sheets of plastic (or a cut open Ziploc freezer bag in my case) in a tortilla press (or beneath a cast iron skillet in my case). We restaurant chefs are used to adapting and overcoming: no tortilla press, no problem. I can even patty them by hand, old school.

After peeling the masa circle off the plastic, it goes into a hot, dry frying pan on low to medium heat. Cooking both sides takes less than a minute and if I had a flat-top, I could have cooked them all at once rather than one at a time. Naturally, I could have fired four pans on the stove and cooked four at a time, but no matter. We were all busy yakking while I was pressing and cooking tortillas.

It should be axiomatic that a tortilla is only as good as the masa from which it is made. And if you use shitty Maseca or Masa Brosa, you are going to get a shitty tortilla. My masa is from Masienda and is processed from heirloom corn varieties grown on small farms in Mexico. It is expensive relative to the big brands (but even so, tortillas cost cents), but it helps sustain small farmers and preserve heirloom corn varieties.

Long Weekend in Santa Fe

Ann and I are just back from our first visit to Santa Fe, a three-day weekend in the beautiful small town that is the capital of the state of New Mexico.

Ever since we first met Rob and Dyce, two days after they had relocated to Bend from Santa Fe, they have consistently mentioned that we needed to visit Santa Fe, their former home of ten years. At about 90,000 residents, Santa Fe is just a bit smaller than Bend. Back in the spring of this year, we all decided to visit Santa Fe for a few days during the holiday season to see the town all decorated. In the early fall, we set the date for the first weekend in December. Ann and I planned to fly in Thursday and out Monday, leaving us a nice long weekend in Santa Fe. Rob and Dyce had come in from Boulder a couple days prior.

Ann has never been to New Mexico before and was excitedly looking forward to crossing it off the list of states that she has never visited. I’ve been a few times but not recently. My last trip to the Land of Enchantment was a gig at Sandia National Labs in the mid-to-late 80s. I no longer can clearly fix that visit to a firm date in my mind. Prior to that, I had hiked a fair amount in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the southernmost extension of the Rocky Mountain chain. So while I have spent time in and near Albuquerque and in far northeast New Mexico, I have never been to Santa Fe.

I have a fondness for the Sangre de Cristos: those mountains are where I, as a young man from the East, first encountered the Ponderosa Pines that are so familiar to us in Bend and all over the West. I had never seen anything like them. I marveled then and I still marvel now at how they form open savannas of widely spaced trees with underlying grasses and shrubs.

Early December in Central Oregon is not a time that is conducive to air travel. It is our season for freezing fog and no carrier will fly their planes in or out of that icy mess. Nobody wants to stall because of ice build-up on the wings. We watched the weather anxiously as flights were cancelled Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings. If the planes cannot land at our airport the night before, they will not be here for flights out the following morning.

Rime from Freezing Fog

It will come as no surprise then that Wednesday night at 8:00pm, we got a message that our was flight cancelled for Thursday morning. Anticipating this, I had already looked at flight availability out of PDX the next day, so that when we finally got a callback from an Alaska agent, Ashley in Boise, we were able to get her to look into a 14:46 flight out of PDX to ABQ. Ashley was fantastic in getting us rebooked.

Naturally, rebooking to another airport has its own set of ripple effects. We had to move our return flight to Portland as well, because our car would be there, sitting in the long term garage. And because our rebooked flight would be getting in very late to Portland, we booked a hotel there rather than risk driving over the Cascades in the dark of night. Finally, I canceled our car shuttle service to and from the local airport.

Sadly and despite my best attempt to prevent a shuttle from showing up at the house unnecessarily, a shuttle driver texted me the next morning at 7:07 from the curb outside the house. Nobody can say that I did not try. I felt truly bad for the driver; it was not his or her fault that the dispatcher messed up.

We did not plan to leave for PDX until 8:30 or 9:00, depending on weather conditions outside. The later in the day, the better the roads through the Cascades were likely to be. It was super foggy when I got up, but that had largely burned off by the time we got underway towards PDX at 8:30. As we headed through the neighborhood to fill up on gas, we marveled at the winter wonderland around us. Every single tree and every single surface was covered in beautiful and delicate crystalline ice as if a giant had sprayed our entire world with massive cans of spray snow.

Even though the fog had cleared in south Bend, as we drove north, we could see the fog bank on the horizon and the sunlight faded with each mile north. Just north of Bend, we entered the fog bank and could barely see the airport exit in Redmond when we passed it. The drive north, albeit foggy, was spectacularly beautiful. Every surface was covered in feathery rime.

The roads were largely clear except for a few miles just on the outskirts of Redmond where there was a little snow on the travel lanes. The weather forecast was for cold and foggy on our side of the Cascades, but for sun and blue skies on the west side of the mountains in the Willamette Valley where the airport sits. Look at the following photos taken just 11 minutes apart as we were climbing up the Cascades near Mount Hood.

Clouds and Fog Starting up into the Cascades

Eleven Minutes Later, Bluebird Day at Mount Hood

It's always a pleasure to see Mount Hood, but today it was particularly beautiful in the sunshine, gleaming with its huge cover of snow. We found it positively mild at the rest stop just before Timberline Lodge, compared to 21 degrees at home. The run to the airport through Clackamas County was about as drama free as it could be, including no back ups on I-84.

We arrived at the airport just before noon and found parking easily. We did not expect to breeze through security to our gate, but it took only 15 minutes from the parking garage through security. Having plenty of time on our hands, not having had any breakfast, and with no prospects of food until late in the evening, we went in search of some grub, hoping to get a sandwich at Lardo. Unfortunately, no longer living in Portlandia, we missed the memo about Lardo, a favorite sandwich shop, closing. Sadly, we opted for lunch in some generic airport bar near our gate. The food was terrible.

Back at the gate, I was eyeballing the crowd gathering for our flight. I made a mental note of the two worst passengers that I hoped would not be seated near us. The first was an obese woman who would not shut up, yammering on with volume at 11, Spinal Tap style. The second was a special needs girl in a wheel chair who screamed piercingly and frequently.

As we boarded in the last boarding group (thanks to our rebooked flight), I was displeased to see both of them seated in the row in front of us. The large woman was relatively quieter on the plane, eating for the duration of the 2-1/2 hour flight.

On the other hand, the little girl screamed a lot. She did not appear to be verbal, so I imagine that screaming is the only way she can communicate. I felt horrible for the mom. Ann and I would only have to put up with the screaming for the duration of the flight. The poor mother never gets a break from it. Ann summed it up, "That poor woman has a hell of a cross to bear." The mom spoke no English, only Spanish. At one point, she used Google Translate to ask the flight attendant to tell us she was sorry. My kitchen Spanish does not extend to consoling someone with a cranky special needs kid, but at least I could assure her that we were not mad. Poor woman. I feel so bad for her.

The Moon, Venus, and Sunset at 30,000 Feet over Utah

Now during the shortest days of our year, we enjoyed a fantastic sunset as we were headed over Utah into ABQ. We had already received some photos of glorious sunsets in Santa Fe from Rob and Dyce and this sight out the airplane window only whetted our appetite to see more, which we would on Sunday night.

The guys met us at the airport in Albuquerque; Santa Fe is on the short list of US capital cities without a major airport, such as Dover and Annapolis. We made the run up I-25 to Santa Fe in a hurry to get to a restaurant before closing. They had planned to take us to a favorite Santa Fe restaurant, La Choza, back when we were arriving in the mid-afternoon. Our rebooked flight arriving at dinner time put that plan in jeopardy given the one-hour ride back to Santa Fe.

We needn't have worried. Although we were the last table at the restaurant, we were on a short wait to get a table when we arrived at 8:15 or so at La Choza, an unpretentious restaurant with a classic New Mexican menu. I have always loved New Mexican food, especially the more northern style featuring a lot of Chimayo chile (as opposed to the more southern style down in Las Cruces). I promised myself to order as much New Mexican food as possible while we were in New Mexico.

I'm the Nut with the Cell Phone in the Mirror

Rob's Quesadilla

My Pork Burrito with Green Chile

I ordered a burrito filled with rice, beans, and pork adovada topped with green chile. My take on chile is this: red for beef, green for everything else, Christmas never. Ann is going to Christmas it up any chance she gets. Me, I love the complex herbaceousness of a good green chile sauce. In comparison, red seems a bit one-note, though I make plenty of it myself.

My first bite of the green sauce on my burrito answered my question if they like spice at this restaurant. Why, yes they do! The chile was delightfully spicy; "live" is the word I used to describe it. Finally, spice without apology! Our server said this year's chiles are on the spicy end of the spectrum.

I must say that this burrito went a long way towards satisfying my itch for New Mexican food. Also, I am a posole fiend and was happy to see a small pile of that cooked nixtamalized corn on my plate as a side dish. I have only seen this in New Mexico. In Mexico, posole is most often served in a bowl by itself as a guisado, a stew. Good on La Choza!

La Choza offers a choice of sopaipillas or garlic bread with dinner or after dinner. Sopaipillas are a fried pastry à la pizza fritta, gnocchi fritti, beignets, poori, or crescentine, basically fried pie crust of which pretty much every culture has a version. Some people eat them as bread or fill them with savory foods, but I would say that the vast majority of people bite the corner off of them, squeeze honey into them, and eat them for dessert.

Sopaipillas bring back great boyhood memories for me. After having learned how to make them as a teenager in New Mexico, I used to make them with my friend Mark on our camping trips in Alabama when we were able to bring along a dutch oven and oil (lard is the best) enough to fry the dough. Those were good times. And times when I could eat anything I wanted thanks to a teenage metabolism!

I totally enjoyed my experience at La Choza as we all did. After dinner, we headed to our house in the hills just north and slightly east of downtown. Because it was pitch black, I couldn't really appreciate anything about the house or the neighborhood or even Santa Fe itself. But once inside, I did appreciate the nicely appointed Pueblo Revival house and especially the gas fire in the kiva, the corner fireplace.

Welcome Warm Fire in the Kiva

The story of our fantastic long weekend with our great friends Rob and Dyce continues in separate posts:

Friday: Shopping Downtown

Friday Part 2: Friday Night on the Town
Saturday: Ghost Ranch and Dinner at the Pink Adobe

Sunday: Brunch, a Glorious Sunset, and Japanese Food

On Monday, after our splendid weekend in New Mexico thanks to wonderful hosts Rob and Dyce, we had to face going back home. I awoke about 15 minutes before sunup to coyotes howling. We don’t hear them at our house in Bend like we did in McMinnville, but they aren’t far away. Still, I love to hear these guys yip and yap.

We were facing a long layover today because in leaving Oregon, winter weather forced us to reroute our entire trip through Portland instead of Seattle. The rerouted return flight was several hours after our originally scheduled flight. Because we carpooled with Rob and Dyce who had to be at the airport by noon, we were facing a long wait in Albuquerque: our flight did not board until nearly 19:00.

On the drive in to Albuquerque, we looked for mustangs alongside I-25 to no avail. We did, however, have great views of the New Mexico landscape and of the Sandia Crest, views that we did not see on the way in because it was dark. We also had tantalizing views of the greenbelt and canyon around the Rio Grande River, but never a glimpse of water.

Before the airport, we stopped for gas and brunch in Albuquerque at Tin Can Alley, an indoor food court. From the parking lot, we had beautiful views of Sandia Peak in the background. We ended up waiting a few minutes for Cuban food at Guava Tree Sabor Latino. It was worth the wait. The guys assured us that these were cubanos worth eating. And they were so right. We enjoyed classic cubanos: the bread, mustard, cheese, ham, pork, and pickles were just as they should be. Delicious!

Arriving at Tin Can Alley

Waiting for Lunch in the Large Atrium

It Would be Hard to Find a Better Cubano

On the way to drop off the rental car, Rob and Dyce dropped us at noon at the departures curb where we said our goodbyes. We will not see them again until they move back to Bend from Boulder, hopefully in about six weeks. By 12:30 we were through security and at our gate in the very small terminal. We chose seats and set about whiling away the hours until our flight. We had the option of taking a Uber into Albuquerque but we were tired and it seemed more appropriate just to hole up at the airport even though that would be no fun.

Four hours later when we were just about out of our skulls with boredom, we went to the sports bar across from our gate to kill some more time and eat some dinner. We planned, on arriving at PDX, to go straight to our hotel and go to sleep without stopping to eat.

Our food was surprisingly good. I got a green chile burger and our bartender was kind enough to have the kitchen smother my fries in green chile. While the green chile was good, the red chile sauce on Ann's dinner was the best we had all trip. Go figure! Add that to my list of airport surprises: the best cubano ever at MIA and the best chile relleno at ABQ.

Final Green Chile of the Trip

Naturally, after waiting seven hours to board, we had to wait some more while the mechanics repaired a broken seat that was needed on the full flight. Once boarded, just ten or fifteen minutes late, I found the seats in the new Embraer 157 to be terribly uncomfortable.

We arrived at PDX more or less on time and got our car out of hock, arriving at our hotel at 22:00 where we proceeded to pass out. I slept surprisingly well for being in a hotel, especially one directly in the flight path of the primary runway with jet engines roaring all night long.

The original plan was to depart for home at 9:00 to give the road by Mount Hood a bit of time to thaw. But at 8:10, I was done being cooped up and proposed to Ann that we leave immediately and stop in Gresham for coffee. A quick search found Autumn Coffee Roasters in Gresham directly on our path home.

Fine Coffee, Fine Scone at Autumn Coffee in Gresham

We took our time with our drip coffee, which was pretty good. After coffee, we went around the block to highway 26/Powell Boulevard and headed east towards Mount Hood. We encountered a couple inches of fresh snow just as we were getting up to Mount Hood, especially in the section from Government Camp past Timberline Lodge.

Fresh Snow in the Cascades
Selfie in the Side View Mirror

Other than the new snow by Hood, the roads were reasonable with only about a 30-mile stretch of somewhat icy road. I am amazed at the number of drivers of four-wheel-drive vehicles that think that having four-wheel-drive is somehow going to help them on ice. We did not have any problems with traction, and I only felt the traction control system engage once as we moved out into the snow to pass a tandem UPS truck going up the mountain.

Driving east on Mount Hood Highway, it was gorgeous to see that big volcano in the early morning light silhouetted against the horizon. Once across the Cascades on the east side, it was unusual to be driving with Mount Hood in my rearview mirror and Mount Jefferson just over my right shoulder in my peripheral vision. That's a sight I could see every day!

And so ends the saga of our first visit to Santa Fe. Rob and Dyce, we are so grateful for your friendship and your hospitality. Thank you so much for showing us "your" Santa Fe! It was so much more meaningful than if we had just visited on our own.

Más Guadalajara

Two Mondays ago, we visited Taqueria Guadalajara, a newish Mexican restaurant on the outskirts of town, with Billy and Shawn and we were favorably impressed enough to return.

Ann Loves Her Margaritas

Monday was a chilly, dreary, rainy evening and we were tired. After work, Ann and I had a meeting with our financial adviser and then Ann had a board meeting to attend. We just weren't in the mood to cook, so we decided to go for a late dinner and see if the teenage offspring was of the frame of mind to be seen in public with his parents. He said he would go out with us, a bit to our surprise. I was looking forward to a family dinner rather than just date night for a change. We parents really don't hate teenagers as much as they suppose we do.

Decent Beer in a Mexican Restaurant

Last visit, I saw that they had Sneaky Pete Imperial IPA from Laughing Dog brewery on their menu. It's a beer we sell a lot of at the restaurant and a beer that I really like, so I got one when Ann ordered her margarita. Ann also asked for chips and salsa, which you can see that they make an effort to present nicely. The salsa was much, much better on this visit, with a nice charred flavor. It still needed salt, but the salt shaker was handy.

Chips are OK; Salsa is Really Good

For some reason, Ann decided she wanted to have an empanada as an antojito, so she asked the server to bring one with the filling of her choice. The server picked carnitas, I guess so as not to risk offending Ann, but with a carnitas-stuffed burrito as a second course, she might have chosen something more interesting, such as birria.

Really Large Empanada, Stuffed to Order

Carnitas Burrito

Ann and the offspring had carnitas burritos for dinner, while I had a big bowl of posole. When it is dark, cold, and dreary out, I can think of nothing better than a hearty soup or stew for dinner, such as posole, menudo, caldo de pollo, or caldo de mariscos. This bowl of posole was pretty good. I've never ever had a bad bowl of posole; I'm not sure such a thing exists. I would grade this about a B+. The fatty cubes of pork in it were outstanding; the posole itself was kind of so-so.

The brick red salsa that they serve in squeeze bottles, always accompanied by a mild green tomatillo salsa in a sister squeeze bottle, has a great chile seco flavor coupled with some intense spice. It seems to be based on chiles de árbol, but with something else added for heat. A healthy dose of this earthy spicy salsa, cilantro scavenged off Ann and Carter's plates, and raw onions and lime from the garnish tray really perked this soup right up. I was a happy camper.

Posole, Ungarnished from the Kitchen

And, then there was Carter. At 5:00, he was all gung ho to have dinner with us. When we were ready to leave, we called him out of his pig sty. He came down and asked where we were going. When Ann told him we were going to Guadalajara, he scowled, "I don't want Mexican!" When given the choice to stay or come with, he chose to come with anyway, but made us pay for it in the usual teenage manner. He was especially offended when his mother told him to put his cell phone away, that there would be no phone during dinner. This isn't a new or even unusual thing, but what's a kid to do if he can't bitch via text to his friends about having to have dinner with his parents?

In Full-on Teenage Jerk Mode

Posole Verde de Pollo

I'm not sure why I decided, on a January day that was supposed to be headed to nearly 70F, to make posole, a hearty Mexican soup, for dinner. But I'm glad I did. The day didn't turn out to be all that anyway: up on top of the hill at Linden where we spent the day, it was cool, damp, and fogged in. Good soup weather. And a good day to have dinner waiting in the slow cooker when we got back home.

I make all kinds of posole, from thick and heavy chile-laced fiery pork stews, to light and almost ethereal soups of amazing flavor. It was this latter I was aiming for in making a green posole with chicken.

Roasting Poblanos

The day before, I charred my poblanos, peeled, seeded, and chopped them. It is not necessary to roast poblanos or even skin them beforehand, but I like them better that way. I am always careful with poblanos for their heat is unpredictable. Some are totally mild; some will hurt you. I've found that in winter when our poblanos come from very far south, they can be extremely spicy.

Roasting Tomatillos and Garlic

Also the day before, I made a green tomatillo sauce by roasting tomatillos and garlic on a sheet tray until the tops of the tomatillos were nicely blackened. Then into the blender with the lot.

Posole Ingredients

I was going to start my posole with dried hominy, but oddly enough, I couldn't find any at the market, so I grabbed a can of hominy. From the hominy clockwise: oregano, avocado leaves, tomatillo-roasted garlic sauce, green onion, cilantro, lime, roasted and diced poblanos, and an onion. What you don't see: 4 big chicken leg quarters and a bottle of cheap Mexican beer that was leftover from some party last summer. What else can you do with flavorless lager but cook with it?

Posole Verde de Pollo

Everything went into the slow cooker, then I poured the Sol beer over and added water to cover. I added maybe a teaspoon of salt at this point and set it to cooking. Six or seven hours later when we got back home, I fished out the chicken thighs, deboned them, added the meat back to the posole, and adjusted the salt. I served it with a lime wedge, fresh cilantro leaves, and sliced green onions. I would have topped each bowl with slices of avocado except that the avocado I thought was on the counter ended up in Ann's egg salad earlier in the week.

If I want a thicker stew rather than a thinner stew, I will sometimes stick the immersion blender into the soup and blitz up some of the hominy. Other times, I will add a little masa to the cooking soup. This time, I just wanted a thin soup. Delicious and easy to make with almost no clean up, because I had the foresight to roast the poblanos and make the salsa verde the day before.