This weekend was full of special New Mexican activities. On Thursday we bought 2 bushels of roasted green chilis (see photo of the peeling process). Green chilis are now for sale all over town and propane powered roasters made out of a half barrel with a rotating mesh drum efficiently blacken the outer skins. Or some smaller operations have a charcoal grill for smaller quantities. Peeling takes awhile, so we will also freeze some unpeeled to be peeled after thawing. We got medium hot chilis, and they are pretty hot! We may get a bushel of mild for guests with sensitive palates!
Friday was our long awaited trip to the Santa Fe Opera. We had dinner with Tom and his family, and with Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg! Okay, she wasn't at our table, but she was at the pre-opera dinner along with 5 Secret Service agents in suits and sunglasses. You can see our southwestern getup in the photo above. I had a long skirt and boots and Jake wore jeans and boots. The opera dinner was an excellent buffet of seasonal vegetables, shrimp and tenderloin steaks. A lady gave an entertaining and informative talk about the opera we would be seeing, The Marriage of Figaro. The opera house is covered but has open sides and the back of the stage looks out onto the mountains. As we sat down the sun was setting behind the mountains turning the sky a peach-pink hue. The only bad thing was that it had been a hot day and we were very warm with little air circulating. The stage though was magnificent set with a garden of flowers. During the overture, 5 courtiers appeared from the back of the set and began picking bouquets until the whole front half of the stage had been cleared of flowers. The main set rolled out from the sides and through open windows and doors you could see the remaining flowers in back. The singing and acting were wonderful of course.
Saturday brought the start of the annual Indian Market attracting 80,000 people to town. The major downtown streets were filled with booths with art of all kinds made by indigenous people from across the US. The pottery, jewelry, rugs, sculpture, kachinas and other art were all of the finest quality I've seen and ranged from traditional to modern. All very pricey too. Apparently collectors will sleep in front of the booths of particular artists they want to buy from to be first in line in the morning. People watching was almost as much fun as the booths with many people wearing lots of jewelry, probably bought at previous Indian markets!
Today we went to Bandelier National Monument with John, a friend of Jake's visiting from North Carolina. See photos of Bandelier in the above post.
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