park, eat, drink, and be merry
TAILGATING AT THE OPERA
Aloaf of bread, a jug of wine, and a friend or three in the upper parking lot of the Santa Fe Opera. Add a basket full of simple picnic fare — no china, silver, crystal, or candelabra required — and you can mark the opening of the season with a maximum of pleasure and a minimum of fuss.
For something simple but special, we asked the staff at Cheesemongers of Santa Fe (130 E. Marcy St., 505-795-7878) to design a picnic plate that would reflect, as much as possible, our opening night hero’s travels across land and sea with cheeses, cured meats, and accompaniments reflecting his stops in Germany, France, Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, and points south.
Cheesemonger Lauren rose to the challenge, creating a beautifully sculpted plate for four to six ($50) that included three cheeses, two meats, a handful of Kalamata olives, radishes, cherries, Marcona almonds, fresh raspberries and blueberries, apricots and figs, with tiny edible flowers tucked here and there — all fresh and in season now, some from local farms — the kinds of things she thought Candide might have come across on his journey.
The three cheeses on our plate included Chiriboga blue, an exceptionally buttery and mild pasturized cow’s milk from Germany; Fiore Sardo, a crumbly pecorino-style raw sheep’s milk cheese from Sardinia that has been smoked over wood from the island’s cork trees; and Langres de Champenois from the champagne-producing region of France, a mild, semi-soft cheese with a romantic past: The shallow indentations in the center of the small rounds was designed to hold small, celebratory pours of bubbly. Washed with annatto seed, the rind is a lovely golden yellow color, a gentle contrast to the creamy interior pâté. The two meats included thin slices of cured French ham ( Jambon de Bayonne), sweeter and less salty than prosciutto, and sopressata, a garlicky cured sausage produced in the U.S. in authentic Italian style.
A box of translucent, paper-thin crackers accompanies the order, but we prefer to complement our savories with thinly sliced rounds of a crusty baguette. “All sorrows are less with bread,” says the Sage Bakehouse (535 Cerrillos Road, 505-820-7243) website, and the bakery is the source of our favorite baguette ($3.90) as well as the quote from Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra — although you have to get there early to be certain of scoring a loaf or two. But late sleepers need not despair: Whole Foods never seems to run out of baguettes ($2.79 each).
If you want to design your own picnic plate or basket, Cheesemongers has a large selection of cheeses, pâtés, olives, and domestically produced or imported meats. Thin slices of dry-cured Spanish jamón serrano made from black Iberian pigs ($39.95 per pound) are perfect as a finger food or layered into a slab of buttered baguette for a fine sandwich that can be prepared at home and sliced to order at the opera. (The prices seem less horrifying when you realize that a quarter pound of ham will make about two sandwiches.)
Pickles, olives, and mustards are also available. Additions of Membrillo da Morgada, a quince paste
that pairs beautifully with sheep’s milk cheeses ($19.95 per pound), Marcona almonds ($27.95 per pound), port-soaked figs ($19.95 per pound), and a hefty fig cake with almonds, redolent of anise and cinnamon ($13.99), all bring the flavors of Spain and Portugal to the table.
Cheesemongers will create picnic plates to your order that serve two to four or four to six with 24 hours’ notice. (Plates that serve two to four people are packed in cardboard takeout boxes, which you could rearrange on dishes of your own for a more graceful service.) If you move quickly, you can take advantage of a special opera-opening promotion: Put in an order by 6 p.m. on Friday, June 29, and you’ll receive a 10 percent discount.
Whole Foods Market (753 Cerrillos Road, 505992-1700) will also create picnic plates and baskets with 48 hours’ notice. Although the catering menu is designed for larger parties of 10 to 20 people, a few things — like the Mediterranean cheese and olive platter ($29.99) — serve six to eight. Staff also will put together a custom collection of meats, cheeses, condiments, sandwiches, and salads from the ready-to-eat food cases, charging the market price per pound for each item. For more information, call and ask for the prepared foods department.
IFyou want to make an even simpler picnic plate — and put the accent on Candide’s French connection — Clafoutis (333 W. Cordova Road, 505-988-1809) has just what you need. The Country and The Sea, two plates served at room temperature, generously combine meats (or fish), cheeses, condiments, crusty slices of baguette, and the dessert of the day — all for the can’t-be-beat price of $12.50. Both boxes contain the same salad, a mix of greens, shards of carrot and finely chopped cucumber, tomato, and bell pepper. Ask for the dressing on the side if you are buying in advance for a tailgate (the restaurant closes at 4 p.m.). Five slices of baguette and a slab of butter are also part of each combination. On the day we visited, the dessert was a rich, moist slab of blueberry almondine. The Country combines a slice of nicely ripe Brie with a very mild rind; a chunk of Comté, a cow’s milk cheese reminiscent of Gruyère; a slab of coarse country-style pâté, and three large slices of country ham. It’s all complemented by a tub of mustard, some pickled pearl onions, and a few cornichons to cut the richness of it all. There is almost enough food on this plate to serve two people. Almost. Although the ham is good on its own, with the cheese and rounds of baguette, it would also make a lovely French-style ham and cheese sandwich tucked into a length of your own baguette. To bring out the flavor, butter that bread before slathering it with mustard; the butter makes everything feel softer and silkier in the mouth, and brings out the flavor of the ham. If you’re dairy intolerant or have just had enough cheese, Clafoutis’ Sea plate — Candide and company do cross the ocean several times — combines six perfectly cooked shrimp, four cured anchovies, and a tangle of smoked salmon, all set off by a sprinkling of capers.
INsome versions of the opera, one of those sea journeys takes Candide to Argentina. To add some South American sizzle to your culinary travels, stop by Sabor Peruano (163 Paseo de Peralta, in the DeVargas Center, 505-358-3829), where you’ll find savory empanadas (two for $18) that require neither fork nor plate nor Wet-Naps. Sabor’s pies come wrapped in a sturdy, rolled pastry casing. The beef pies are flavored the Mediterranean way, with raisins, cinnamon, black olives, and a bit of queso fresco. The surprisingly delicious spinach-and-cheese variation, made with whole-leaf spinach and wedges of queso fresco, is an excellent vegetarian option.
Light desserts are a fitting conclusion to a preperformance picnic: You don’t want to be so sated that you fall asleep during the first act. Two-bite Frenchstyle macarons are available in a variety of flavors at Clafoutis ($1.50 each) and Whole Foods ($2 each). The cookies at Clafoutis are smaller, drier, and more crumbly than those at Whole Foods, which tuck a creamy, often jammy, filling into a crisp, glossy shell. Some mini meringues (6 for $3.50 at Clafoutis) and not-so-sweet alfajores — a traditional dulce de lechestuffed cookie sandwich popular throughout South America ($5 for two cookies, making one sandwich, at Sabor Peruano) complete the plate and the evening.
What to drink with it all? When we asked for some wine pairings that could hold up to the hot weather, the asphalt parking lot, and the full-flavored meats and cheeses on our menu, Dan Cannella of Susan’s Fine Wine and Spirits (1005 S. St. Francis Drive, Ste. 101, 505-984-1582) recommended Villa Antinori Chianti Classico Riserva ($28.99) — a medium-bodied red that can be served slightly chilled to 50-55 degrees, refreshing on a hot night and the perfect complement to cured meats. He also suggested a classic, cheesefriendly Ferrari-Carano Cabernet Sauvignon ($34.99) from California’s Alexander Valley. For a sparkler on the dry side, you could add a Roederer Estate Brut NV to your picnic basket. The American cousin of champagne producer Louis Roederer (the French house that brings us Cristal), the Mendocino-based vineyard crafts its wines only from its own grapes. The Brut is an excellent buy at $24.99.
If you can’t resist the the call of summer rosé, Cannella suggests breaking away from the crowd with a Weingut Hexamer Spatburgunder Rosé — a well-balanced, German take on the Provençal darling. Served icy cold, it was a staff favorite at a recent tasting. One thing to remember: While we must, with
Candide, acknowledge that we are not quite living in the best of all possible worlds, we are nonetheless very fortunate to live in a high desert garden that can still provide us with fine food, and drink, and music.
While we must, with Candide, acknowledge that we are not quite living in the best of all possible worlds, we are nonetheless very fortunate to live in a high desert garden that can still provide us with fine food, and drink, and music.