Angels Night Out Tonight
T ake the night off from cooking and go out to eat today (April 21), because it’s the 18th annual fundraiser for Kitchen Angels. Nearly 30 restaurants have agreed to donate a quarter of their revenue to this nonprofit that delivers free meals to people who can’t cook for themselves because of life-challenging health conditions. Here’s the list of who’s participating.
Breakfast: The Teahouse
Breakfast and Lunch: Tecolote Café
Lunch: Omira Bar & Grill
Lunch and Dinner: Andiamo!, Piccolino Italian Restaurant, TerraCotta Wine Bistro and the Ranch House
Dinner: Second Street Brewery @ the Railyard, 315 Restaurant and Wine Bar, Bouche Bistro, Bourbon Grill, Café Castro, Café Fina, Café Pasqual's, Counter Culture Café, Cowgirl BBQ, El Meson, Fire & Hops, Galisteo Bistro, India House, Jambo Café, L'Olivier, Mariscos Costa Azul, Midtown Bistro, Pizzeria Espiritu, Plaza Café Southside, Santa Fe Bite, Sazón and Vinaigrette.
Make It a Matzo Ball Soup Night
In this week's paper, we have a recipe for the chicken matzo ball soup that David Jacoby makes over at Back Street Bistro, so check that out for sure. Where to find the chicken necks and backs Jacoby uses to make his rich chicken stock? Call your grocery store and ask them to set some aside for you. I asked my Facebook followers for suggestions, and they said they've had luck at Smith's, Albertsons, Whole Foods and from Pollo Real at the Farmers Market.
Succession at Geronimo
Did you see that Sllin Cruz has taken over at Geronimo? For the past couple of years, Cruz was chef de cuisine under Eric DiStefano, so this was probably the most logical step for the owners. Have you been to Geronimo in the past few weeks? How is the transition going? Let The Fork know.
Full Fat Is Back in Favor
This week, NPR ran yet another news story about the health benefits of full-fat dairy (The Full-Fat Paradox: Dairy Fat Linked to Lower Diabetes Risk). Not so long ago, two studies showed full-fat dairy is linked to weight loss. Yes, loss, which is a total mystery, but apparently true. I've been a nonfat person since I was a kid, but this week, I was finally persuaded to switch to full-fat yogurt for my morning bowl. OMG, wow. It is so much better. I feel foolish. I dig Nancy's Whole Milk yogurt, which you can get at La Montañita and other stores. Also, it is my personal opinion that the expiration dates on yogurt are pure fiction. So if you see some items marked down because the sell-by date is coming up, just ignore it and take the massive discount. Yogurt lasts for weeks in the fridge.
Park It
I'm planning to make that matzo ball soup next weekend. This weekend, I'm heading out to the Grand Canyon for a weekend of hiking, taking bad cellphone pictures of a geological marvel—and trying to find decent food in a national park that's miles from anywhere. I've made reservations for the dining room at the historic El Tovar hotel, but if you've got any other suggestions for dining in the park—or in Flagstaff—drop me an email. I'll report back next week.
Meanwhile, I'm planning to pack a cooler full of booze and snacks. As long as we've got cans of Happy Camper IPA, a bottle of Gruet Blanc de Noirs, a bunch of cheese, cured meats and smoked almonds, everything's gonna be OK. (Except my liver, but whatever.) Here's something I learned last summer during a week in Yellowstone: It actually does pay to buy the ridiculously expensive cooler. My dude has a Yeti (the Kelly bag for the lumbersexual set) that kept our comestibles cold for nearly five August days in Wyoming. It's amazing. Yetis come in different sizes, which all cost some alarmingly large fraction of your mortgage payment, but my dude bought his at REI, and the dividend he just got was almost enough to buy a new day pack for the Grand Canyon trip.
If this has inspired you to plan a trip to a national park, allow me to share one successful tip: Try to get a reservation for a room or cabin and dinner in whatever the best restaurant is. Yes, they book up a year in advance, but most parks allow you to cancel reservations a few days or a week ahead and get a full refund. So there's a lot of change happening. Call, call and call again. I've had great success getting awesome last-minute rooms and dinners.
Thanks for the Response
Thanks for all the great messages last week! One reader sent a smart suggestion to look for fresh and dried chiles at the Santa Fe Farmers Market. And chile seed packets are available at the Santa Fe School of Cooking, so pop in there if you're planting this week.
Also in the mail, a ringing endorsement of the breakfast burrito bar at La Montañita. Reader Mitch says he stopped in on a whim and encountered "beautiful tortillas that don't fall apart when you pick a burrito up, but soft enough to bite through. I had the guy put egg, cheese, hot green chile, and simmered ground pork. I almost turned around halfway home to get another. I've been getting them exclusively from the Co-Op since. PS, I know breakfast burritos. My dad used to own the Pantry Restaurant, and I've made a thousand of them."
Oh, man. Now I'm hungry again.
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