I’ve become interested in wine lately. I’m not exactly sure why. It all started when I read a series of French detective novels and for whatever reason the idea of the wine stuck. I’m a working artist with limited extra funds and had no idea there was wine that routinely went for $7,000 a bottle and more. Needless to say, the upper echelon of French wines, even most of the lower, is out of my reach.
But I read about a Pinot Noir from Oregon that received a glowing review and rating from Wine Spectator and I was captivated. You see, while I was born in the Seattle area, Tacoma, Washington to be precise, we moved to Oregon when I was twelve, so a lot of my formative years, including college, took place in Oregon. And it is the Oregon coast my heart pines for if ever it pines.
So I called the winery, Evening Land, in the Eola-Amity Hills, and reserved two bottles of their 2012 Seven Springs La Source Pinot Noir, the one that was turning heads.
And, in the midst of a surprise spring snow, Kim (see previous post A Very Mini Artist’s Colony in New Mexico) decided to create a simple meal that would honor the opening of the first bottle.
It couldn’t have been a better day for it. The snow just kept falling…
… and the dogs lined up in their usual places by the fire, snoring more often than not, one of my very favorite sounds in this world.
Kim tried something different with the potatoes…
… which is always exciting for me. I’m more than happy to be his recipe tester…
He carefully seasoned a beautiful leg of lamb, tucking it into the oven for a couple of hours…
And finished by dropping baby green beans into boiling water at the last minute.
Most of you know I’ve had my share of troubles in the last few years (see previous post Stick).
But up here in the mountains of northern New Mexico, in an ancient village that has gone through more than its share of hardships, whose suffering would put mine to shame, two friends spent a day celebrating what it is to live, even while one is seriously questioning that very fact.
And there is a reserved beauty and joy here—in the constancy of friends who have gone through it together, have seen each other exhausted by life, but who choose, time and again, not to be defined by that.
Up here in the wilds of New Mexico on a snowy day in spring, Kim’s special dinner ended up being the perfect one to go with my Oregon Pinot…
… a fine bottle of wine from the land of my childhood, which promises to grow better, still, several years from now.
Just like our friendship…
Just like all of us…
Just like life… sometimes even when it’s very hard.
Love to you all,
Jeane
Thank you! I always look forward to hearing about your life in that beautiful place. I once lived in a place I loved as much as you love yours…no more…I appreciate your generous sharing of the joy you feel for where you are and what you have. Please, never take it for granted…life is capricious and way too short.
Thank you, Karen, and I do know life should never, ever, be taken for granted. Even when it’s hard.
Are there cooking ingredients you have available where you live which you’d miss if you lived someplace else? Somehow when I think New Mexico I think food!
Well, I’m not a cook so I’m probably the wrong person to ask. But I know Kim likes all the different kinds of chilis one can buy to roast, squash in the fall, apples, apricots… Lots of wonderful dried beans of different sorts, blue corn. I was a decades-long vegetarian–even a vegan for some of those years–before moving to New Mexico. Various meats are such a large part of the diet here and I watched friends raise animals for food, animals that lived great lives and were humanely “harvested,” so I slowly started eating meat again. I’d never had lamb before coming here. Of course in the restaurants there are the wonderful hand-made tortillas and sopapillas…
Kim’s choices sound great. And yes, it’s the large scale slaughterhouse horror that turned me off to meat for the most part. If you can get it from friends who give their animals good lives it makes all the difference. I never see blue corn tortillas for sale in San Francisco, and I miss them. Prepared foods I miss when not in New Mexico, especially at holiday time, would include biscochitos and other dessert items unique to the area–in addition to the things you mentioned.
Oh, how could I have forgotten biscochitos? Perhaps because it’s not Christmas.
I just received, today, Cleofas’s cook book. Haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. I’ve finished reading “Shadows of the Past” and am beginning “Romance of a Little Village Girl.” I’m beginning chapter 3. A trip to Arroyo Hondo is in my near future. I’ll do a post you can be sure…
I warn you not to read, “Dinner at Antoines” as you will gain weight and start drinking wine with your breakfast!
Well then, I stand warned. Let’s see if I can resist it.