Chufi

Day 17 - continued So after I had my eggy breakfast, dennis was hungry too. We went to a little restaurant owned by friends of Verjuice, we had met them at her cocktailparty, French and Italian, they have a cozy little place where they serve sandwiches, fresh pasta they make themselves everyday, and salads. Everything fresh and made on the spot and served with incredible hospitality and enhusiasm. They're tucked away in one of Santa Fe's many covered 'markets', and a bit hard to find, but well worth seeking out. Torino's @home I watched Dennis eat and only had a bite of his pasta, because I had a big afternoon of eating ahead of me. I had booked a Culinary History Tour with the Santa Fe School of Cooking. An afternoon which wold shed some light, finally, on all thedifferent culinary infleunces on the Santa Fe cuisine. (Mexican, native American, Spanish and Santa Fe style). ofcourse I was a bit too optimistic, and while I had an enjoyable afternoon, it was more an afternoon of sampling the foods at different restaurants than actually learning much about the history of culinary traditions in New Mexico. Anyway, onto the food. We started out at the test kitchen in the School of Cooking with these red and green enchiladas: Our first restaurant stop was the Mexican restaurant Los Mayas take that margarita away from me please I later heard it wasn't made with tequila but with something called mezcal wine.. so not as strong?? It smelled like a margarita though... Chiles en nogada Our next stop was the museum for native America Art, where in one of the rooms this navajo chef (whose name I can now not remember but will look it up later) had prepared this simple chili for us, made with bison, beans and chiles. It was the best thing I ate all afternoon. From there we proceeded to la Boca, a Spanish tapas restaurant where we were served this delicious little dish of scallops and mussels in a mustard sherry sauce: ... and finally to the Coyote Cafe for this dish of lamb and potato puree with a mushroom sauce. Solid and nothing wrong with it but not really interesting. Overall, I think my expectations for this afternoon were set too high, although I don't only blame myself for being disappointed. While I understand that these things are targeted at people who know much less about food than I do... I still think they could have talked just a little bit more about the story behind the food.

Yesterday: Illegal slices of my mom´s butter pastry. Illegal cause I´m supposed to be eating healthy this week Today: pasta with roasted cauliflower, pinenuts, lots of garlic, chili flakes and parsley.

There are some great dinner ideas on these pages! So much wonderful food. I really love the fall cooking.. the roasted tomatoes and the roasted squash and the ragu. We´ve been away on vacation to the Southwest USA.. I´ve cooked every night since we came back, but today was the first day (in a week or so) that I actually had fun in the kitchen. We had our parents over to give them a picture loaded report of our trip ( the eGullet version can be seen here ) and in honor of the many great burgers we had in the US I made this: mini burgers with cheese and bacon, potato salad, pickles, avocado/tomato salad, beans in smoky barbecue sauce.

Day 17 - Santa Fe I did not get up very early that morning and when I did, I couldn´t decide if I was still sick or ravenously hungry. We went to the public library to check on email and other stuff, and as we were there I suddenly knew that yes, I was hungry, I needed food, more specifically, I needed eggs and Diet Coke. Left Dennis to his email and went to the Plaza restaurant which is, you guessed it, right at the Santa Fe Plaza, where I had this deliciously appropriate breakfast of eggs, bacon, potatoes and toast. And 2 huge Diet Cokes.

Day 16 - Santa Fe That day we wake up slightly tired (we´d stayed talking to Verjuice long after all the other guests had gone) and a little blue. It did not help that it was cold and rainy, but I think it was more the moment in the vacation... the moment when you realize there´s less vacation before than behind you, and the moment when even though you have another week of leisure left, thoughts of home and work start creeping up on you. We decided to take it easy, very easy, and we went to the fabulousTen Thousand Waves Spa just outside Santa Fe, where we spent the entire day steaming and relaxing and getting massaged. The place does not have a restaurant but they have salads and sandwiches for sale and we had a very nice and light soba noodle salad for lunch. In the evening we met up with Verjuice again for some Santa Fe food and drink. We went to Maria´s. "I´ll have a margarita", said Dennis. At Maria´s, that´s easier said than done.. here´s Verjuice holding up the entire Margarita menu: I don´t much about tequila, so I decided a tequila sample was in order. That´s the tequila menu on the sheet of paper underneath the 3 glasses. let´s get to work! Ofcourse there was food too: Quesadilla´s barbecued ribs Dennis´chicken with green chiles my combination platter, which has a tamale, a taco, chile relleno, burrito.. with red and green chile That´s a lot of food eh? I needed it though cause after my tequila sampler I went on and had 2 margarita´s. We were so deep in conversation that I hardly noticed them.. After dinner Verjuice asked if we were ready for round 2, and then took us to the Cowgirl bar. A little lesson from Chufi: if you feel you have had enough margarita´s, it´s probably wise not to order another one. And lesson # 2: If you feel you´ve had enough margarita´s, and still order another one, it would be wise not to order ANOTHER one. Wise, I was not. We had a fabulous time, but, the after effect was not so pretty. Even the thought of a margarita makes me slightly queasy right now....

Day 15 - Santa Fe, continued Our good fortunes had gotten us an invitation to eGulleter Verjuices house that night. She had invited a couple of friends over for cocktails and nibbles, and as soon as we walked in the door we were greeted by this: La vie en rose, a raspberry/rosemary cocktail. (I hope Verjuice will chime in to correct any of my descriptions of food and drink.. I made no notes so am going solely on cocktail-hazed memory here). Different cocktails kept coming (in the background here you can see the makings of Shogun, a lychee/sake ?? cocktail: and Verjuice kept producing delicious little bites: (candied bacon at 7 o´clock - mmmmm) Halloumi, figs and prosciutto: I pretty much stuffed myself with the appetizers because I honestly thought that this was a cocktailparty with finger food... and then all of a sudden Verjuice starting setting the table and said: "Now it´s time for food" and we sat down to a multi course dinner! Salad with roasted beets and goats cheese, then a delicious and very rich puff pastry thingie with onion compote and creme fraiche, and then this ´duo of eggplant´: (sorry that the pics are all so dark and blurry!) Then there was Fattet Hummus, toasted pitta bread layered with garlicky yohurt, hummus and chickpeas... so good. Verjuice had done some good research because some of my favorite foods were in this dinner.. and the nice thing also was that it had been 2 weeks since we had chickpeas or eggplant or any Middle Eastern flavors! Just when we thought we could eat no more out came this: I adore anything that combines chocolate and peanutbutter, and this was peanutbutter icecream and a chocolate caramel tart (with a little fleur de sel if I´m not mistaken) Oh, oh, oh.

I´ll get to questions and comments later - first, some more pics! Day 15 - Santa Fe we got up early and went to the Santa Fe farmer´s market I love visiting farmers markets when on holiday, although its always also a little bit of a bittersweet feeling.. how I would love to buy stuff and go home and cook something! Instead, we made a little museum trip to Whole Foods where we found more chiles.. wow! look at all those chiles .. and where we bought a light lunch to eat at the hotelroom. Good thing we had a light lunch, even though we did not know what Verjuice had in store for us.. yet...

A beetroot and blue cheese salad I had at work yesterday. We have a new caterer at the office, she makes a different salad every day. Office lunch used to be really bad and now it´s really good... it brightens up the workday!

uhm... that´s not what we thought. And we found it was not so easy to escape the crowds, even when spending an entire day at a park. And I never meant to say that we did not enjoy the wonders of nature that we found on our way. I guess we are just a little weird in the things we enjoy the most. Our solitary hike up the mountain in Durango, we enjoyed more than the hike in Bryce Canyon. My simple burger at the Burr Trail Grill, I enjoyed more than my much anticipated dinner at Cafe Diablo. What we love about travelling in the US, is that this is ALL there. More food tomorrow!!

Day 14 - Durango -> Santa Fe let's talk a bit about breakfast. Oh how I would love to be able to eat a big hearty savoury breakfast. Eggs, bacon, toast. And then a couple of hours later, be ready for lunch. And then a couple of hours later, have my stomach growling again and ready for a big delicious dinner. It doesn't work that way. Instead, I eat some fruit and milk/ joghurt, maybe with some granola or other grains, early in the morning. A not too big sandwich for lunch. And then dinner. So the reason I haven't been talking much about breakfast is because most days it looked like this: not very interesting.... We drove to Santa Fe with a littel detour so we could visit Taos. We had a sandwich in Taos that I don't remember much about, and arrived in Santa Fe late in the afternoon. That night we went to dinner at Aqua Santa. It was one the 'fancier' dinners of the trip, and we had something to celebrate, so we were all ready for a nice evening out. We did not have a reservation but were seated without a problem, ordered a nice bottle of wine, starters and a main course. (no pics - they were all dark and blurry). The fried oysters we had as a starter were delicious, my fish (I think it was halibut) with heirloom tomato vinaigrette was light and bright and interesting, Dennis' scallops with wild mushrooms just the thing he adores. It felt nice to be in a real restaurant for once. And then, I think I hardly swallowed the last bite of fish, they put the check on the table "uhm, I was kind of looking forward to having dessert!" I said. The waiter said he had to ask us to leave because there were people waiting who had a reservation. I asked why he had not told us we would only have an hour to eat (and I dont even think we'd even been there a whole hour). He said it was his fault and that if we came back 2 hours later he would give us dessert.. well that was not exactly what we had in mind so we left, but it was a bit of an unpleasant experience. I had my mind set on dessert though, so we wandered into town and ended up at the Coyote Cafe. It was packed, but we asked if we could just have dessert, and they said it was ok if we could find a seat at the bar. Peach trifle, peach tart and vanilla ice cream (and a glass of 12 yr old Knob Creek Bourbon for me) It was a good, but not great, dessert, however we really had fun watching the crowd... it felt like the most cosmopolitan place we'd been in for weeks and it was fun to see so many people dressed up for their night out. We had some nice conversations with other people sitting at the bar and had the first of a series of exchanges that would repeat itself for the next couple of days: them: "So where are you going from here?" us: "Silver City" them: "........." (with a look that said 'I'm too polite to comment on that' )

Day 13 - Durango The next day we went hiking in the beautiful green mountains surrounding Durango. We had a very good, simple picnic with stuff we bought at the local Citimarket: On our way back into town I spotted this backyard where somebody was laying out the ripe apples. I thought it looked beautiful and very fall-like. In the evening we were ready for another brew pub! Durango Brewing Company beer sample tray the chili beer was good, in a weird way! salmon and bacon sandwich carne asada with green chile sauce let's get to work!

Day 12 - continued, Durango From coffee and newspapers onto other aspects of civilization: the cocktail bar. The Office is the cocktail bar adjacent to the historic Strater Hotel. A very nice place with cocktails, good wines by the glass, and cocktail waitresses in mini skirts... (sorry, no picture of them) I did get a picture of the ceiling though From there we went to dinner at Gazpacho where we had an excellent dinner, the sopaipilla's were especially good.. unfortunately all my pics of this meal came out horribly dark and blurry. Afterwards we headed to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate factory where I had this thing which is best described as a huge Reese's cup! Delicious but very rich....

You are very right, and unfortunately I also put in the wrong link upthread, so here's the right link: Beaver Street Brewery thanks for de-lurking

ouch I'm sorry we did not go.. and sorry if people feel that this means we did not do the region justice. I feel we did, and there will always be so many things you missed, and you won't know what you missed cause you did not see it. It's only after a trip that you know how you should have planned differently. Personally, I would not have minded if I'd never seen the Grand Canyon.. but that, we did see. Oh and btw we did visit some ruins, even though they were very small.. Anasazi State Park in Boulder, Colorado

I think this topic could use a revival. I used to really love it. The most delicious thing I consumed today was a glass of nondescript pretty cheap red wine, on the terrace of my favorite place to be in Amsterdam, Het Blauwe Theehuis in the Vondelpark. It was 5:30 and chilly, but the sun was finally out after a day of rain, and I sat there watching the sun set and looking at the coloring leaves and enjoying the coldness and dampness of fall. I was so ready for cool fall weather after spending 3 weeks in the American Southwest!

Day 12 - Bluff -> Monument Valley -> Cortez -> Durango The next day we visited Monument Valley in the morning and then drove on to Durango, CO, with the intention to stop in Cortez for lunch. I had some 5 year old recommendation in my files, and ofcourse the place did not exist anymore. Fortunately as we were driving down main Street I spotted this friendly looking place in one of the side streets. It´s called Let it Grow, and it´s one of those small town enterprises that is a lot of things at once.. bookstore, coop, gardening centre, a place to advertise your yoga class, giftshop, coffee shop and deli. Good coffee and excellent sandwiches (this one was hummus and cheese and lots of fresh vegetables). On to Durango. Dennis was a bit tired of rocks and sand at this point, and actually exclaimed, when we had to look for a parking space for a bit: parking problems! a sign of civilization! Well Durango turned out to very civilized with nice bars, shops, and a brewpub. And trees! We had coffee at the Durango Coffee Company while browsing the local news

Jaymes.. I was kind of avoiding your question, cause I´m embarrassed to admit, no. I really wished we had planned a little differently and gone to Mesa Verde. It was on the way.. but somehow we managed to pass it by. I console myself with the thought that you can´t see everything.. and that maybe I´ll come back to this region one day, and see the stuff I missed the first time.

Day 11 - Moab -> Valley of the Gods -> Bluff The next morning we headed to the Eklecticafe in Moab for breakfast, Dennis had milk and granola and I had a delicious spicy pumpkin muffin, which could alomst make you think of fall, hadn't the temperatures been so summer-like. The shady porch of the cafe makes it a real nice place to sit.. From there it was a long drive to the Valley of the Gods. But again, what a fascinating, eerie landscape.. evoking so many movies and romantic images of the past. I think Verjuice said somewhere upthread about how beautiful Utah is, and how the settlers ever got past Utah.. While I understand what she means, I had another feeling when looking at the Utah desert.. the utmost awe and respect and admiration for the settlers who attempted tpo make a life for themselves in this harsh and arid land. As beautiful as the desert is, there's something so forbidding and cruel about it.. the heat, the dryness, the openness which is almost scary. The drive through the Valley of The Gods is on a pretty bumpy dirt road, we were all alone, and when we got out of the car every couple of miles, the silence was deafening. A very special and impressive place. After leaving the Valley we drove up the Moki Dugway. When you're almost at the top there's a little path you can hike up to a viewpoint, with views of the Valley of the Gods to the left and Monument valley to the right. There we had a little snack picnic with supplies we got from the very poorly stocked convenience store in Bluff. But, tomatojuice, crackers and cheese never tasted so good. After that to the motel in Bluff for a relaxing afternoon by the pool with some clandestine beer, Edward Abbey and my notes. In the evening we went to The Twin Rocks cafe, the restaurant that would certainly get the prize for the most dramatically located: Unfortunately the food wasn't as impressive. Not bad, but a bit bland and boring. Navajo Taco.

He Chufi, Back to work hmmm... Avoiding mine by looking at your pics ;-) While I was scrolling through them and since I know a bit about your eating habits (yep, I'm one of the lucky one's who lives in Amsterdam, am a friend of Chufi and therefore sometimes have dinner with her) I was wondering: haven't you OD'ed on the sauces over there? Kicking off now or missing it intensely? Bye, Marq ← well we definitely had food overdose.. that's very perceptive of you to notice how different our vacation eating habits are from our regular ones.. On the trip, even when I started to only eat a piece of fruit for breakfast, it was hard not to feel contstantly full. I guess this just means that our regular diet is pretty frugal and healthy, and that's what we're used to... Also, it takes self discipline not to finish you plate if everything on it is good. Like many Dutch people my age I was raised to always finish my plate.. but when in the US, it just cannot be done so if there is no doggy bag option (no fridge in the hotelroom, for instance) that means the food will just go to waste.. I do miss the flavors.. especially the green chiles!!

Visaandeschelde might be an option for you, it's not too far from the area you're staying in and they're open for dinner on Sunday. It's been years since I've been there but I've been hearing good things lately. click At the high end of high end, Michelin starred (2 stars) Ciel Bleu is also open for dinner on Sunday. as for lunch on Monday: you're right, Dutch lunch mostly sonsists of sandwiches/eggdishes etc. The College Hotel does lunch on Monday.. it's supposed to be modern Dutch cuisine, I've never been. Otherwise, head to Van Dobben for the most informal, quintessential Dutch lunch.

just keep in mind that Le Fournil is open every day BUT Sunday from 7am-7pm!

I'm trying to get back to my regular work, so the rest of the trip report will come with a little more time between installments. But don't worry, we still have till day 21 to go!

Funny, at first I thought how could that be possible! Southern Utah is so wonderful! Then I remembered how during the end of my trips to various places in Europe I've started to tire of beautiful medieval hill towns, cathedrals, museums, castles...too much of any one thing can make our eyes glaze over. ← I think it wasn't so much that we were tired of the landscape, but that we were tired of the National Park version of the landscape. There's something odd about looking at nature like it's a museum - from behind a fence.

Day 10 - continued The evening brought us back to the brewpub. I´m sure there are plenty of other good restaurants in Moab.. but when you´re travelling, and getting so many new impressions everyday, its sometimes really nice to go back to a place where you´ve been before. Blackened chicken sandwich with roasted green chiles and cheese, blackened catfish with coleslaw. And cheesecake for dessert:

Day 10 - Moab, Arches National Park For breakfast we had one of those melons from Green River, an incredibly juicy sweet cantaloupe: and then went to Arches National Park. It was a hot day, and I think we were a bit park´d out at this point. The National Parks have their own dynamics and it takes some effort to make them your own. In Arches especially, it felt like we were visiting a museum - where everybody gets out of the car at the exact same view point, oohs and aahs, takes a picture, drives on again. It was too hot for us to go on a long hike and escape the crowds. So after a couple of the obligatory stops, we went to the picnic area and had lunch: Bread, goats cheese, hummus and tomatoes from Moab´s Citimarket, watermelon from Green River. Don´t get me wrong.. this is some gorgeous scenery. It´s just that you don´t really feel you can really experience it or appreciate it from behind a little fence. Or maybe I´d been reading too much Edward Abbey at this point...