Josefo and Davida and I were finishing a meeting at my
office at noon and they suggested that we go somewhere for lunch. I suggested the new Turkish restaurant,
Anatolia, and they, being good sports, agreed, so we drove the ten blocks. When we sat down I looked at the menu board and
saw that the lunch specials included lentil soup with spinach rolls ($5.95),
Adana Shish kabob ($5.95) and Ground lamb shish kabob ($8.95). We
ordered one of each. Adana for me, lentil for Josefo and lamb or Davida. I usually order the special because it is
usually a regular menu item at a reduced price.
In the case of the Adana, its menu price is $7.25 but on the lunch
special it is $5.95. The shish kabob plates
are served with one freshly made shish kabob formed on a sword and cooked on a charcoal
grill on pile of rice pilaf covering more than half of a plate with salad filling
the rest of the plate. The salad is dressed with a light vinaigrette and a few
marinated onions seasoned with fenugreek.
When Josefo saw our plates and I gave him a taste of my Adana special, he
ordered an Adana special also. I enjoy going to lunch with Davida and Josefo,
because they love to eat good food and they were loving the Turkish food at Anatolia,
Josefo in his quiet way of constant eating and Davida in her boisterous way. She kept telling the waiter, “This is great food;
you need to open a restaurant in Rio Rancho! We have no good food in Rio Rancho!”
After lunch I went to a client’s office for a meeting at
4:00 and then I went to Costco today at 5:00 to gas the truck and buy a few
items including a salmon filet for dinner, a case of Kirtland Brand beer and Cholula
Mexican Hot Sauce. When Suzette arrived
home I was making guacamole with the last three large avocados and three ounces
of red onion and the newly purchased Cholula hot sauce and she suggested that
we make fish tacos, because we still had a pile of about 70 corn tortillas left
from Christmas and she could use the new container of panko she had bought on
her last trip to Costco.I agreed immediately, because I love fish tacos. One of the innovations we have developed for fish tacos is to make a Cole slaw with cucumbers to garnish the fish tacos, which we call cucumber slaw. We decided to make that again because I had bought three cucumbers at Pro’s Ranch Market last week (5 for $.99) and did not have cabbage. So I peeled, de-seeded and sliced the cucumber in half and then into thirds and then sliced each third into long thin slices and then salted the cucumber slices in a bowl to which I added mayonnaise, catsup and pickle relish to them to make a kind of Russian dressing.
While I was making the cucumber garnish, Suzette was cutting the fish into bite sized pieces and dipping and coating them in panko and frying the pieces in a skillet filled with canola oil to a depth of about ¼ inch.
She got Willy to help her wrap about a dozen tortillas in a
moistened tea towel and heat the tortillas in the microwave for a minute or
two. Then Willy went to the basement and
fetched several beers. As soon as the fish had been fried and was draining on a
paper towel and the tortillas steaming hot, we served dinner. We each made our own tacos by laying pieces
of fried salmon and a spoonful of guacamole and cucumber slaw on a warm
tortilla. I had asked for a German style
beer and it was not quiet cold and reminded me of drinking beer in Northern
Europe where beer is drunk warm, which is cool by our standards, but is
unrefrigerated.
Bon Appètit
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