It is a small miracle, this cheery fire in my little kiva fireplace at the Hacienda. For some reason this week, a perky fire has escaped me. This morning, I coaxed the pinon logs into flame with only two matches! (Honey, have I told you how much I appreciated your great fires in Montana and other cold places??)
And so, with strong coffee in hand (you could float a horseshoe in it), I am enjoying a much warmer morning than of late — a brisk 19-degrees. It’s a luxury to be here with Lucy in the quiet before dawn.
I am reflecting on a lovely dinner last evening at La Plazuela in the old La Fonda Hotel. My father’s favorite place in Santa Fe. My dinner companion was a Jewish woman with roots in New York but who had grown up in Austin and attend the University of Texas just a class or two after me. She had flown in from California in time to join us around the Hacienda fire for ‘Social Hour’, and she seemed a bit disoriented on arrival. So, inviting her to dinner seemed the right thing to do.
Meatloaf takes on new dimension in Santa Fe, especially served by the little fountain pool whose walls were covered with pots of cheerful red poinsettias. How can I describe the feast? What magical things did they do to meatloaf?! Well, there were green chilies in it and red chili poured over the top. That was pretty heavenly. Served with cheddar topped garlic “mash” (as they say in Ireland, assuming that you mean potatoes!) and a concoction of green beanies sauteed with purple onion and some wierd toadstools! I so wanted to eat everything on my plate — and that’s possible at La Plazuela, where the wait staff is not imperious and full of themselves.
