My Apologies, Tech Grads ;)

A Love Letter to West Texas (haha)

Lubbock: for those of you who are not familiar with this place, I’ll enlighten you.  As you make your way to this slight oasis in the wasteland that is the panhandle of Texas you will smell it.  I mean that.  At every spoke into the “hub city” as it were, you will find a feedlot to welcome you.  The smell is nauseating and the sight is sad. Beyond that, I’m sure you’re waiting for me to tell you there lies beautiful pasture lands studded by a university, art galleries filled with rugged contemporary styles of barbed wire, and the great Buddy Holly Museum alongside meadows speckled with cute little neighborhoods reminiscent of the 1950s,  and schools with crossing guards, but what I’m here to tell you is, it’s flat.  That’s basically it.  If you think I’m exaggerating please head west from DFW, turn north when you see an entire train on the horizon, and bypass the first feedlot you see, “the LBK” will spread out before you and all the things I’ve just mentioned will make perfect sense.

We arrived in the LBK via I40 East and in keeping with MOP throughout this whole trip we checked into our hotel, took naps, then got ready to hit the town. 

Mom and I were on a mission to visit a restaurant with a wine list (there are probably only 2 in town).  So with Dad in tow, we headed for a place we’d heard good things about before called La Diosa. Because this is not a restaurant review or travel blog (I’m sure I’m confusing you now) I won’t go into too much detail about my impressions of the food, location, live music feature, and/or the service but I will touch on the things that influenced my wine choices.

The restaurant featured tapas, so we ordered a few small plates including baked crab dip, shrimp with a lime vinaigrette, and smoked oysters with a tapenade of sorts.  Because I was presented with the wine list (as usual, I’m the one making this decision) I'll take you through my thought process.

1.  I’m not paying.  So I better evaluate the price situation and not make a definitive selection without mentioning my choice to the party that the bill will be presented to before I order.
2.  In my opinion, the wine should either compliment or contrast the food.  I also look to the region from which the wine comes and think about what is typical in the food around that area.
3. What do the people I’m sharing the wine find appealing? What’s the point of ordering a buttery chardonnay when I know they’ll hate it, even if it would pair perfectly with the food?

$25 is not what I would pay retail; restaurants are different.

In this case, I chose a bottle of Montgravet from Cotes De Gascogne ($25).  While I’m not super familiar with the region I did know that this wine is from southwestern France near Bordeaux so I was thinking the wine could be similar to another grape  typically grown around that area: sauvignon blanc. Regardless of the regional cuisine I would pair an acidic wine like sauvignon blanc with seafood any day. This one in particular was a great match for the food we chose, with the lemon, limey, mineral/chalky characteristics Mom, Dad, and I talked about as we ate and drank reassured me of the selection.   The smoked oysters went spectacularly with the wine. Something about the smokiness of the oysters brought out the fruitiness in the wine.  The bacon in the crab “casserole” worked to contrast the acidity in the wine, and the lime vinaigrette with the shrimp complimented the lemon/lime situation we found so delicious.  Somehow we ended up with a contrast, and a couple compliments in the mix.  I should note that my parents have similar tastes to mine when it comes to wine, so the mineral/citrus number was a pretty safe bet.  I guess you could say I cheated on this one!

*The funny part of this whole thing is that I would serve sauvnignon blanc with fish, but I wouldn’t normally order fish in a landlocked area (lubbock) and in researching the wine I chose, the people from the region would probably not be eating seafood, but the rich food I should have picked from the LBK in the first place, HA!  I guess you live and learn :)


I ended up topping off the evening on a high note.  To be honest I’m a HUGE sucker for port, and since we’d just come off a hot hot summer in the metroplex, a breezy 68 degree day in Lubbock seemed like a blustery cold front I talked the ‘rents into a wintry treat!  We ended the evening with a ganache torte, and a glass (bottle) of port.  I chose a tawny port even though normally I would pair a ruby with chocolate and a tawny with a nutty pie or something with dried fruit this worked for us.  I chose the port that suited our tastes, and the food that we like, and let the idea of a classic pair go out the window in favor of OUR perfect pair.  It. Was. Divine.

I know, the Boy would say this is too dark, but the glasses

 were soo cute!

Ending the night with chocolate and port brought our trip to a beautiful and delicious close.  The next day we meandered our way home.  There was one final stop we had to make, with no wine selection needed.  Only true Texans know on a return trip home the place to go that welcomes you back into our great state is..say it with me..WHATABURGER!

 

New Mexican Adventure Parte Dos

We left Albuquerque the next morning and headed into Santa Fe.  After trickling through the mountains to the east and winding our way through desert passes we ended up in an urban area completely carved from stucco/adobe.  I’d never seen an "earthen" looking Starbucks, but now I can tell you they do indeed exist.

Our arrival into Santa Fe was a bit turbulent as I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and by 2:30 I was exhausted and irritable.  We headed into the arts district near the capitol and quickly realized there was a festival going on, and between my irritability, street closures for the festival, and the crowds of pedestrians we retreated to a little dive serving “mexican” food just off the main drag for lunch and then slept off the ginormous portions the rest of the afternoon in the hotel.

As I’ve mentioned before, my dad was a bit incapacitated on this trip due to a rotator cuff surgery and subsequent Breg (sling apparatus), so he chose to sit the rest of the evening out.  Mom and I decided to give the arts district another chance, so we braved the one way streets and traffic, dropped a pin at our parking spot and headed out on foot.

We did find the festival with music, food, and dancing...

From there we sidewalk shopped up a hill and found beautiful Cathedral Bacillica of St. Francis of Assisi where we tried out my forward facing camera...

And finally proceeded to a quaint little wine bar/restaurant for a glass of wine, even though the menu sounded spectacular!

I don’t have too many notes about the wines that we tried at the restaurant other than I remember we each had 2 different glasses (so, not “bottle only” ie, less expensive) and tried them all (a server’s nightmare).  We started with a Sancerre (French sauvignon Blanc) and an Albarino (citrusy, mineral situation with a slight effervescence from Spain).  Then we moved on to a Pinot Blanc from Alsace (which I thought would be sweet based on the region, but because Alsace is cold, and these grapes probably didn’t get completely ripe, the wine was acidic and delicious) and then a dry Rose.  After wine, bread and butter we walked along the streets and decided we really enjoy Santa Fe and should return with friends soon.

**Dad was not left out!  We popped by Trader Joe’s and grabbed an eggplant parmesan for him to enjoy along with a hazelnut chocolate bar for us :)

The next day we ventured out into the largest farmer’s market I’ve ever seen and had a wonderful morning, well, aside from the rain...and the cold...and the parking, but then, I’ve said too much.

Joking aside, the market was super!  We found flowers, smelled roasting chiles, ate bread with grasses baked right in, bought some apples, cider squeezed from those apples, preserves with chiles, and so many other things!  

 I couldn't believe that after all the driving through desserts and seeing no farm land at all there was a cornucopia of produce available, even things that are out of season at home all grown locally at the same time.  What a strange growing season they must have, but then again we are in the high desert, where weather is variable...surely it affects the veggies.

I should mention the people here were as interesting to look at as the produce.  Watching people being one of my favorite pastimes, I could hardly force myself into the car, but alas, our time in Santa Fe had come to an end.  We headed east toward Lubbock, TX munching on our FM finds and sipping coffee.

 Again, I'd call this a success.  From here the trips winds itself down, but Lubbock should not be slighted, so I'll post about our wine adventures there next!