if only i took pictures

I haven’t posted in here for a while and today’s post will be quite different.  This past weekend my sister, Julie, and sister-in-law, Cristina, came to visit sans hijos, so we did what we like to do most…eat out in peace. So get ready for a culinary tour though my favorite New Mexico haunts.  If this doesn’t make you want to come, I don’t know what will.

Thursday:

They flew in late Thursday night and we flew to Frontier.  Julie and I got breakfast burritos, Cristina got a burger.  The food here is decent but the ambiance is top notch, they really like John Wayne.

Friday:

Baked oatmeal at the house

Lattes and Chai’s at a bike-up coffee shop, Mimmo Espresso

Truffles in Madrid with the rudest service ever.  “What types of truffles do you have?” “Oh, you didn’t read the sign?”

Lunch in Santa Fe at “Mucho: The Gourmet Sandwich Shoppe.”  In spite of their lame spelling of shop, Cristina had the best BLT she’s ever had, Julie’s sandwich came with stuffing and I got the Food Network recommended Southwestern Grilled Cheese.  Cristina and I both learned that when they say “mound of crisp bacon” they’re not joking.

Then came teatime at the Tea House.  The tea was great and the scones with cream and lemon curd…um I decided that if you mix them together, ignore the scone, you can pretend it’s lemon ice cream and eat it off a spoon.  Fortunately it wasn’t an overly pretentious teahouse.

On the way home from Santa Fe we stopped by my favorite tortilleria, Ruby’s, in a gravel lot to pick up barbacoa. They were closed! But I am known so they let us in and we got a pound of deliciousness to go.  At home we ate it with tortillas and chips…and cuties because we needed some freshness.

Dad sponsored our purchase of a german chocolate cake from Chocolate Maven…what a way to end the day!

Saturday:

Pre-breakfast was granola and snacks we had around the house (i.e. german chocolate cake)

Real breakfast at Julie’s favorite place to visit in Albuquerque, Golden Crown Panaderia.  They have these sweet potato empanadas, and these raspberry empanadas, and these cinnamon bread things and lattes and a sunny patio in November.

For lunch we went to Flying Star Bakery and Café because they do have lots of fresh options.  We didn’t get any of those.

Quite a while ago Julie and I discovered that if you’re going to dinner and ice cream you should get the ice cream first because it’s harder to save as leftovers. We took that to heart this trip and went to Pop Fizz, where they have these homemade choco taco things (pumpkin!) and other delicious ice creams, before dinner at Farinas where we got chopped salad and a pizza that was good, but somehow we overlooked the burning peppers from the ingredient list.

Sunday:  Sunday started off rough because Golden Crown wasn’t open before church and my back-up bakery, limonata, was closed because of a leak.  Fortunately we still had a little time to run to Satellite café for coffees and muffins before the meeting.  After church my adopted family had us over for 4 hours of eating, and saving money.

We figured by this time Golden Crown would be open to stock up on empanadas. They were and the pizza they sold looked so good too so…cheese pizza on blue corn crust to go, with our ½ dozen empanadas. So dinner was pizza, guacamole and chips, cuties and sweet potatoes with raw milk (purchased during our field trip to the farm earlier in the day) for dessert.

Monday:  Sadness…they left.  But we were ready ahead of schedule like at 6:20am instead of 6:30, so we got to sneak in one more latte run to enjoy with the empanadas before the airport. 

And, since New Mexico is cheap, the whole food weekend was only like $200.