Baseball, Burgers & the Blues

I love summer weekends in Taos. (actually, I love weekends year round).   This past weekend was no exception.  Saturdays in summer mean starting the day at the Taos Farmers' Market.  Our growing season starts much later than California's, so we are just now getting lots of spring onions, garlic, greens, radishes and turnips.  I scored and got a huge bag of garlic scapes for $1.00.  I don't think scapes are looked at as a rare item here.  In Napa I would have paid a small fortune for them. (What is a scape?  Read all about them, plus get some delicious recipes by clicking here)

Saturday night we went to a concert at this wonderful bar (lounge) called the Midtown Market and Lounge located in Arroyo Hondo, a town located just 12 miles north of Taos. The Midtown describes their venue this way:
We are a locally-owned convenience market and lounge. Our market offers beer, package liquor, wine, snacks, grocery and household items. Our lounge offers a full-bar, three pool tables, and a large dance floor. We also have three flat-screen televisions for catching the big game.

Lightin' Malcolm

Does that not sound like the perfect place to hang out on a casual Saturday night?  This past Saturday, Lightnin' Malcolm was performing.  Lightnin' is this amazing Blues guitarist/vocalist from North Mississippi with a sound described as "infusing soul, reggae, hip hop and rock into his hill country sound."  Take a listen via this YouTube video.

We had a rocking good time at the Midtown.

watching the game with taos mountain in the background...what a view!

Sunday brought church, Father's Day brunch and then we attended a baseball game.  We watched our local pro team, the Taos Blizzard. The Blizzard are part of the Pecos League, an independent professional baseball league which operates throughout New Mexico, West Texas and Southern Colorado.  If you are a baseball fan you have probably heard about Triple A, Double A and Single A teams affiliated with Major League teams.  The Blizzard are considered a  "Rookie team", not affiliated with the Major Leagues.  Players here hope to be "discovered" and promoted to a team in a higher division. Since 2010, the Pecos League has promoted 147 players.  Not bad guys....

This is the first year for Taos' team.  What a blast to attend these games.  They play at the local high school's field, the crowds are quite small...and everyone knows everyone else in the stands as we are a very small town. The field does not have lights so all games are played in the afternoon,  the kids from Taos High School Culinary Arts Program barbecue hamburgers and hot dogs (this being Taos, the hamburgers come with green chile!), the beer is Santa Fe Brewing Company...New Mexico's oldest microbrewery.... and they pass the hat each time one of our players hits a home run with the proceeds going to that player.  Rookie League players earn tiny salaries...they stay in "foster family" homes during the season....so the home run cash really comes in handy.  Cool motivator!

Baseball, Brews, Burgers, Brunch, Blues....What a perfect weekend! Hope all the Dad's out there had a wonderful Father's Day. Now I cannot wait to tell you about our hike today in Taos Ski Valley, the Thursday night concerts in the Plaza, the progress (or lack thereof) with the restoration of the ruin, our garden, ripe summer produce at the Farmer's Market, the Mumford and Sons recap, the Pow Wow at the Pueblo, and on and on and on...summer in Taos is magical.  I have a lot of blogging to do.

my best,
diane
June 19 , 2013

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