I am spending a week in Santa Fe with Vera! After a week of workshops with high school sophomores, this vacation feels well-deserved. Not that I don’t like the 10th-graders; but the work was challenging and I needed a rest. And, thanks to an overbooked flight last summer, I had a free airline ticket!
So this is my ”spa week.” Except for the meal above: Tomasita’s “Big Bowl” and a sopapilla. I will try not to eat too many of them this week, but you cannot come to Santa Fe and not have a sopapilla. This particular one was satisfying, but I think I liked the soup better. Pinto beans, chicken, and BOTH red and green chile sauce (the waitress wrote “Xmas” on the check). Spicy, savory, wonderful food.
Santa Fe is glorious. The sun is brilliant and the temperature is shirt-sleeve weather. The plaza was full of people yesterday, and everyone seemed friendly:
I am SO glad to have you here! I have never eaten such great and nourishing food! Well, I am not talking about the sopapilla, of course!
Don’t know if you remember that Jonah was born in Santa Fe. Labor was at Catholic Maternity Institute which used to be down the street from the plaza. I had pneumonia and my contractions conked out, so the nurse midwives loaded me into the institute’s vw bug and drove me down the street to St. Francis, where he was actually born. We lived on Agua Fria, 1115 I think, in a house built by the owner of Hansen’s lumber yard for his daughter. Probably all gone now.
Oh, sopapilas. Yum.
Sopapillas. O my goodness. That meal looks so good! The food here at Uni in New Zealand isn’t a whole lot to brag about so whenever I get to go out it’s awesome. And last night I went out to a mexican restaurant and made me feel like I was in New Mexico again. Hopefully I can get back soon!