Roadhouse Hippie Salad

This recipe comes from Harry's Roadhouse Cookbook.

On a warm August day, Beez and Auntie Bucksnort and I all went for a drive up around the Santa Fe area. We stopped for lunch at Harry's Roadhouse, a place that I had heard about again and again. We found a smallish-looking building with a a lovely view to the south and a huge, packed parking lot. However, there didn't seem to be much of a line, so we signed up and prepared for a wait.

To our surprise and delight, our names were called in under ten minutes. We were guided through the building, then into an added-on wing that had been invisible from the front of the place (and which explained where all the people were being seated), and then out to the most beautiful patio I've ever seen.

The patio was set into a hillside, so that it was actually a series of small terraces connected by the stone paths that wandered through natural-looking beds of colorful and fragrant flowers. There were several fountains, soft music in the background, and the whole was shaded by a number of very large trees.

If you have ever been in Santa Fe in the summer, you know how much you appreciate shade trees. You are at such an altitude (7000 ft.) that the air is probably thinner than what you are used to and the sun really beats down, so every scrap of shade is valuable. We were seated at a round table under one of the trees and the waitress immediately brought us huge glasses of ice water with lemon slices, and made sure to keep them coming.

Our meal was wonderful and the setting was fantastic. We vowed to go back and I bought the cookbook later as a gift for Bucksnort's birthday. Any time we are missing Santa Fe, we just page through and remember that fine afternoon.

Approaching Santa Fe

The Salad:

1 ear corn

2 medium beets

2 cups summer green beans

1 avocado

2 tomatoes

2 small heads or one large head Bibb lettuce

1 cup cooked garbanzo beans

1 Vidalia (or sweet) onion made into Vidalia Onion Rings

Dried porcini mushroom powder*

Roast the corn (Remove outer husk. Turn back inner husks; remove silks. Replace inner husks. Place on grill. Turn often. Roast 12 to 15 minutes) and remove the kernels.

Boil the beets, then peel and cut into wedges.

Blanch green beans in boiling water and cut into 1-inch pieces.

Cut tomatoes into wedges and dice avocados last.

Place the lettuce on a salad plate and top with corn, garbanzos, avocados, tomatoes, beets, and green beans. Drizzle with either Green Goddess or Sesame Dressing. Sprinkle with mushroom powder.

*Grind the mushrooms with a mortar and pestle or a coffee grinder that has been reserved for spices.

For a nice review of breakfast at Harry's, be sure to go to Eating the Road.