Our first morning in Santa Fe. You'll be shocked to hear that we wanted eggs and chile. Luckily, just a block or so from our hotel was the well-regarded Tia Sophia's.
We'd heard that the wait at Tia Sophia's could be insurmountable, but when we arrived just before 10 there were only a couple of people ahead of us. We waited out on the sidewalk, checkin' out the Lensic theater across the street.
Soon enough, our number was called, and we sat down to this exciting disclaimer:
New Mexico's so cool because of their complete unselfconscious mix of American, Mexican, and often Native American culture, especially with their food. Tia Sophia's menu allows choices between sausage, bologna, bacon and ham; hash browns, posole, or home fries; tortillas or toast; and of course, the state question - green or red. Chile, of course.
Husbear ordered bologna and posole, because wtf? but was accidentally brought hash browns. They quickly fixed the mistake. But damn, were they stingy with the chile! We ordered a second ramekin.
Also, sadly, their chile was barely warm, totally undeserving of the bold disclaimer. The restaurant is just off the Plaza, though, and probably gets a lot of tourists from cold, unspicy climes like North Dakota, people who would send back dishes spiced with black peppercorns.
After our completely passable breakfast, we drove over to the Santa Fe farmer's market. It was so exciting to be in town on a Saturday and be able to go!
The booths are housed in a big new barn of a fake train depot. It's a nice setup.
Santa Fe has a great market. There were all sorts of things we don't see here in Austin, like people actually bringing sunchokes to market, and huge stands selling eleventythree varieties of chile pepper/powder/stew/spread/jelly.
It seems like goats do really well around Santa Fe, because there were at least three booths selling goat-milk soap, not to mention all the goat cheese and goat meat places.
And yak meat! I think we might be ordering from these folks in the near future. Though maybe we should have picked up some yak for christmas... stupid traveling without a cooler.
The artists' market, just outside the farmers' market, was a great help in knocking down a little more of our gift list.
Two of our lovely Santa Fe friendly people came down to the market to meet us and suggested we all go check out Site Santa Fe, a contemporary art space that was putting on their giant biennial project.
OK, to be honest, a lot of it was kind of silly. Self-important modernistic minimalist wanking. But I did get to jump off a 16 foot ledge onto a big stunt mat, and Husbear pulled apart a couch, and there was a great bronze.
The idea of all the art in this exhibition is that it will not survive the exhibition as art - they'll destroy it in some way. Which makes the idea of working in bronze a strange one. But the artists, Fabien Giraud and Raphael Siboni, got around it by talking a Santa Fe studio into lending them a bronze sculpture. It looked like this.
The two Frenchman have an obsession with the mythos of the West - the alien abduction stuff, mostly - so they took this bronze and reimagined it a little later in the day, after the children and their horse have been kidnapped by aliens and returned.
Cored horse, probed boys. Wonderful.
Our friends hadn't had lunch, and though it doesn't look like it skimming this post, it had been hours since our enormous breakfast. So, they offered to drive us out to the Bobcat Bite, out of town on old iconic Route 66.
Bobcat Bite's a thoroughly discovered diner that's mostly famous for one thing, their green chile cheeseburger. The place is small, and even though we got there at an off time during the off season, we still had to wait fifteen minutes or so for a table for 4.
The two of us split a burger. The 10-ounce patty would have been way too much for one of us, after the eating we'd been doing! Plus, this way you get to see a very, very bright cross-section.
The home fries, barely pictured, were undercooked and not special. The fricknormous burger, on the other hand, was perfectly cooked, moist and meaty, and the green chiles added just a warming touch of heat. The bun was barely able to contain the fun. I'm so glad we split it, though I think Husbear was just a touch disappointed that I finished my half...
Next stop - Shidoni, a bronze foundry and giant sculpture garden. On Saturdays, you can watch them pour new bronze if you arrive at certain points throughout the day. We were aiming for 4, but when we arrived at 4:01 they were just about finished with the day's final demonstration. Early birds.
It was still cool to see, though we had no idea what was going on, and afterwards we took a tour of the foundry that started out self-guided until one of the artisans took us under his wing and pumped us full of information about the process. It's very, very labor-intensive!
Outside is a large field filled with enormous bronzes for sale if you have wads of cash falling from your ears.
So, Shidoni's cool, and our new friend told us that they had cast large bronzes for a new nearby Indian casino. We had to go take a look at Buffalo Thunder.
And since we were there, Husbear had to play blackjack. I wandered off to check out the slots, and the strangest thing... they were almost all penny slots. And I didn't see a single cocktail waitress.
Dinner that night was at Maria's, with an enormously intimidating tequila list, superstrong margaritas, and a pretty good green chile stew. Phoosh. And then we played board games until 2 in the morning. Dorks? Nah.
Tia Sophia's, (no website) 210 W. San Francisco, Santa Fe. Breakfast and lunch only. 505.983.9880.
Santa Fe Farmer's Market, 1607A Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe. Check website for hours and days.
Site Santa Fe, 1606 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe. 505.989.1199.
Bobcat Bite, 420 Old Las Vegas Highway, Santa Fe. 505.983.5319.
Shidoni Foundry and Galleries, 1508 Bishops Lodge Road, Tesuque, NM. 505.988.9001. Call for pouring times on Saturdays. Open Monday-Saturday.
Buffalo Thunder, if you feel like gamblin'.
And Maria's, if you feel like drinkin'. 555 West Cordova, Santa Fe. 505.983.7929.
