Happy Hour Just Got Happier!

La Fiesta Lounge is serving up some tasty new drinks and food.

Jenny's View

Dear Friends,

Probably the biggest bonus, especially for girls’ night, is our new menu of tasty, trendy cocktails—the kind with fresh fruit, top-shelf liquor, crushed herbs, and finished with garnishes that make them extremely delicious. We’re talking Sweet Peach Mint Julep, Wild Berry Mojito, a Fruit Cup infused with fresh berries, and the amazing Brown Sugar Banana Hand Shaken Daiquiri.

That isn’t to say the guys can’t be talked into an Aperol Whiskey Sour or Mayflower Martini, but we also now have ten craft beers on tap, four of them microbrews from Santa Fe Brewing (also available in a flight) and a variety of aromatic bourbons, scotches and ryes, beautifully presented neat or with one large iced sphere, if desired. Our beverage manager Omar Carmona brought in a professional mixologist to sharpen the bar skills with squeezing, pouring, mixing and muddling (or lightly crushing). “We’re telling people it was a ‘refresh,’” Omar says of the new incarnation, “because we still have much of the same from the previous lounge—the same spirit—so we can keep everyone happy.”

One of the best additions, I think, is the new bar menu, which has a long list of cool appetizers like the Braised Shortrib Tacos—as yummy as they are pretty—and Smokin’ Shrimp Cocktail, a real showstopper served on dry ice. There’s Crispy Pork Belly, Kale and Roasted Jalapeno Hummus, and, of course, our Housemade Guacamole. Add creative salads, burgers, sandwiches, and sides, and finish it off with a delectable dessert bites like Tres Leches, which is served with prickly pear coulis, fresh berries and mint. This is definitely not your grandpa’s bar!

It’s 5 o’clock my time,

Jennifer Lea Kimball


Recipe For Adventure

Braising turkey legs is as simple as roasting a whole bird and the gravy is equally delicious, but there's no worry of over-cooking, plus you can prepare the dish ahead of time and serve it whenever you are ready. Sit back, relax and enjoy with a nice bottle of wine or hard cider.

Braised Spring Turkey Legs and Thighs - Serves 6-8

INGREDIENTS

Remove from 1 Turkey both the skinless/bone-in (and/or skin-on) leg and thigh quarters; separate leg and thigh.  

4 ounces peanut oil

kosher salt

black pepper

1 gallon turkey or chicken stock- hot

1 bottle of red table wine

1 pound onion, medium dice

8 ounces carrot, medium dice

8 ounces celery, medium dice

1 Tablespoon fresh garlic, minced

8 ounces tomato paste

1 Tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

Method

  1. Heat oil in 2 gallon pot to almost smoking - really hot!
  2. While oil is heating, liberally season your turkey pieces with salt and pepper
  3. Drop these pieces in the oil and brown on both sides, remove after golden brown and delicious and set on plate.
  4. Now put your carrots and onions in the pot and cook until they start to caramelize (brown), once caramelized add the celery and garlic, cook a few minutes.
  5. Now add your tomato paste and stir this into the vegetables, cook this for a few minutes and then add the red wine to deglaze the bottom of the pan, bring wine to a boil and reduce it by half.
  6. Once wine is reduced by half, add the turkey pieces, fresh thyme  and stock.
  7. Bring to boil and cover, put in 225 degree oven for 3 hours or until meat pulls away from bone easily.
  8. Once meat is ready remove it from the pot to a pan and let cool slightly so you can pull it from the bones.
  9. All that good stuff in the pot is your GRAVY! Now just puree it all together and pour over your pulled meat and enjoy.              

 

Live at La Fonda

A native of Antequera, Spain, the musician and dancer nicknamed Chuscales by his Gypsy grandfather grew up in a family known for its performers. He credits his childhood experience playing and listening in the famed caves of Sacromonte for steeping him in the roots and rhythm of flamenco.

He counts among his childhood mentors some of Spain’s great flamenco masters, including Paco de Lucia. A dancer himself originally, Chuscales says he understands how to keep time by anticipating the dancers’ moves and desires. In the 1980s he emigrated to North America and spent decades touring with the famed Maria Benitez flamenco troupe. “I have a family, kids, so it’s not easy,” he says.

Now that he is musical director for Juan Siddi Flamenco (now part of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet), Chuscales is able to spend more time at home, and has shows booked at La Fiesta Lounge for April 24 and May 29. Performing solo, he says, “I try to do something different each time, so people will be more comfortable, because they are not always familiar with flamenco.” He enjoys seeing smiles break out in the audience when they recognize the melody underneath his lightning-fast scales. He is happy to take requests, he says, but not always familiar with the repertoire in rock or country. “I would like to do whatever they want,” he says of his new gig at La Fonda. “They have done so much for this town and the musicians.”

It's a Good Time To...

The lowrider show opens May 1 with a free photo booth (for selfies with your dream bomba) and high-brow lecture. Or wait until Lowrider Day on the Plaza (May 22) for free admission to the exhibit. The same day, the history museum is opening Fractured Faiths: Spanish Judaism, The Inquisition, and New World Identities (May 22), the first major museum exhibition about Crypto-Jews in North America (through Dec. 31).

 

At the New Mexico Museum of Art, Anne Noggle’s photographic exhibition Assumed Identities opens April 1. Learn techniques focused on movement and dance to reach elders with memory challenges at the workshop “Celebrating Creativity in Elder Care” at the New Mexico History Museum (April 9). The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum opens a show of the artist’s rarely seen watercolors from her years in Texas (April 29), with lecture April 30, behind-the-scenes breakfast tour (May 2) and DIY watercolor project for the family (May 21). And you can hunt for exotic bargains on Museum Hill as the Museum of International Folk Art holds its 7th Annual Folk Art Flea, gently used folk art at bargain prices (May 7). 

                              

Out and About

A number of Indian Pueblos hold their annual feast days in May, including San Felipe (May 1), Taos Pueblo (May 3), and Acoma Pueblo (May 7). Ask at the concierge desk for details on the correct protocol for visiting and observing ceremonial dances.

Native performers from around the continent gather at the Wise Pies Arena (“the Pit”) in Albuquerque for the Gathering of Nations Pow Wow (April 28-30), a weekend of competitions, exhibitions and trading of Native artifacts and crafts.

Hoping to land a tourism job in Santa Fe? The Chamber of Commerce is holding a Business Expo and Job Fair with the theme of celebrating tourism (April 7) at DeVargas Center. Longing for the South? The annual Derby Day celebration (May 7) offers a Southern buffet, mint juleps and champagne bar with Dixieland jazz to raise funds for Santa Fe Habitat for Humanity.

                        

On the last weekend of April, El Rancho de las Golondrinas living history museum revisits Civil War times in New Mexico (April 30-May1) and traditional crafts for the family (May 14-15). Cyclists celebrate spring around here with the annual Santa Fe Century bike ride, one of the most popular in the Southwest, with distances from 20 to 100 miles along the Turquoise Trail. 

You can sneak a peek into a different Northern New Mexico tradition as local Hispanos compete to play the roles of Gen. Don Diego de Vargas and la Reina de la Fiesta in the September Fiestas de Santa Fe. Winners are presented at the Baile de Mayo in an evening of music and dancing at the Santa Fe Convention Center (May 7).

                         

Students at the Santa Fe Culinary Academy test their skills on the public, Thursdays and Fridays through May 27 at the downtown student restaurant.


Music

The Santa Fe Symphony performs Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with violinist Alexi Kenney (April 10) at the Lensic, where virtuoso pianist Conrad Tao will play Rzewski, Copland, Ravel and Schumann (April 22) and Beethoven’s “Emperor” concerto (April 23-24) followed by an artist dinner. Performance Santa Fe presents superstar pianist Yuja Wang playing Brahms, Schumann and Beethoven (May 9), and even more Beethoven will be heard from Van Cliburn Crystal Award winner Sean Chen, performing at the Beethoven Festival with guest conductor Ryan McAdams (May 14-15).

Elsewhere, virtuoso guitarist Ana Vidovic performs at St. Francis Auditorium (April 15), and the Santa Fe Symphony orchestra and chorus will play a concert of choral masterworks at the First Presbyterian Church (April 17). 

​In contemporary music, international vocalist Zap Mama ​plays the Lensic (April 8) , followed by the 16th annual Nuestra Musica (April15), a showcase of Hispano folk music. It appears to be too late to buy tickets to Jackson Browne, playing a sold-out show at the Lensic May 10, but you can still catch jazz icon Jack DeJohnette with tap dancer Savion Glover as the tap together May 22. Elsewhere, world music duo Rising Appalachia plays Skylight (May 18) with a special yoga VIP package earlier in the day, and virtuoso guitarist Richard Smith plays GiG Performance Space (April 1).

Elsewhere, the self-described “Seattle-by-way-of-Tucson punk rocking” band Supersuckers bring their guitar-shredding Americana to Meow Wolf (April 18), followed by San Francisco indie folk-rock band Vetiver (April 24) and LA quartet Chicano Batman (May 3). Veteran singer-songwriter folkie Robert Earl Keen plays the Skylight (April 24), followed by world music duo Rising Appalachia (May 18), with a special yoga VIP package earlier in the day. Virtuoso guitarist Richard Smith plays GiG Performance Space (April 1), followed by the Leni Stern African Trio (June 17) and Little Tybee (June 28) from Atlanta.


Film & Performance

The contemporary Latino theater Teatro Paraguas honors Federico Garcia Lorca on the 80th anniversary of his death with two evenings of flamenco and poetry (April 29-30). The last play of the theater’s season is Welcome to Arroyo’s  (April 7-24).

Aspen Santa Fe Ballet is showcasing two new commissions from Latin America (April 1). And if you missed it on Broadway, the national tour of the family musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat will be at Popejoy Hall in Albuquerque, directed by Tony Award winner Andy Blankenbuehler (April 21-24).

                                                                           

Comedian David Cross, named one of the top 100 stand-up comics of all time by Comedy Central, comes to Santa Fe on his nationwide tour “Making America Great Again!” (May 4) at the Lensic. Also a treat: the Lifesongs concert for 2016, I Saw the Mystery, a collaborative project involving elder artists and youth, hospice patients, and others on end-of-life insights (May 7), also at the Lensic. 

Meanwhile, live from New York, the Met Live on HD features Anthony Mingella’s 2006 production of Madama Butterfly (April 2); Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux (April 16); and Strauss’s Elektra (April 30). 

Speakers

The Lannan Foundation presents a number of speakers at the Lensic, including Middle East scholar Juan Cole (April 6), Karl Ove Knausgaard, Norwegian author of the six-volume autobiographical My Struggle (April 27) and former U.S. Poet Laureate Louise Glück (May 11).  Also at the Lensic, the Santa Fe Institute’s free community lecture series presents mathematical biologist Carlos Castillo-Chavez on the complex factors in the spread of global epidemics (April 12), and comics artist Lynda Barry in a talk about creativity that promises “swear words, party tricks, and jokes about balls” (May 31). 

St. John’s College hosts a Santa Fe World Affairs Forum symposium on the migration crisis in Europe (April 18-19), with Mayor Javier Gonzalez among the speakers, addressing local impacts. Santa Fe poet Miriam Sagan will give a free reading fom her work at the Santa Fe Community College Library (April 13).

La Fonda and Santa Fe In the News

Examiner, Jan. 2016 - La Plazuela is a long time favorite in this article. "Santa Fe is an adventure in Fine Dining" – CLICK HERE to read more

Los Angeles Times - "Soon you’ll be able to hit the Santa Fe's new Margarita Trail" and La Fonda has three stops on the trail. – CLICK HERE to read more

US News - La Fonda is Among the "Best Ranked Hotels in New Mexico"  - CLICK HERE to read more

We'd love to have you also follow our blog, A View from the Plaza. If you are interested and would like to sign up, please CLICK HERE and just complete the brief form. See you next month!