"Eric the Intrepid Food De-Coder"

It is always fun going out to eat in a restaurant with Eric. After his menu choice is served to him and he takes the first bite, he closes his eyes for a few minutes. Then he starts "de-coding". For example, we had a delicious salad at El Farol on Canyon Road. Eric tasted the dressing, and said, " olive oil, honey, but not quite sure about the vinegar and one other ingredient". When he asked our friendly server  for a list of the salad dressing ingredients, she confirmed the olive oil and honey as well as sherry vinegar and piñon nuts.

At another lunch outing with our visiting Seattle friends Bill and Deb at La Boca, Eric ordered a steak with an amazing dark, rich caramel sauce. "Foodie" Eric just had to have that recipe, and our server was happy to give him the list of ingredients:  butter, brown sugar, pimenton, (a hot smoked paprika) and a special smoked sea salt.

Eric found a shop called the Spanish Table that specializes in imported Spanish food, spices and cookware. He asked Ana, who works there, for the two ingredients pimenton and smoked sea salt. Eric explained that he was going to try to duplicate the steak sauce he had eaten at La Boca. Ana smiled and said that La Boca purchases those ingredients at her shop. She not only has them in stock, but she gladly offered Eric the restaurant's recipe for the steak with the sauce!

Last night, we had a dinner party with our new friends and neighbors, Russ, Amy, Glenn and Rita. The following is the menu that Eric prepared based on his new tasting experiences at several different restaurants in a tribute to Santa Fe:

Starter: a brick of cream cheese topped with home-made jalapeño jelly and crackers.

Soup: Roasted tomato soup finished with a dollop of Mexican crema and sour cream

Salad: mixed greens, iberico and manchego cheeses, pear slices poached in sweet wine & piñon nuts with a vinaigrette of Spanish sherry vinegar, honey and olive oil.

The main entrée was grilled hanger steak with a caramel and smoked sea salt sauce plated with a risotto of wild mushroom and apricot.

Dessert was an orange chocolate creme brulée garnished with whipped moscarpone, candied orange peel and shiny panned chocolate almond pieces.

As you can see by the photo, a good time was had by all, with rave reviews for the chef and the cuisine!