April 5, 2013 Lunch – Mussel Soup and “Deep Forest”

I ate fruit and granola for breakfast and went to an appointment.  When I returned home I started taking pictures of my art collection and cataloging it, finally at 2:30 I became really hungry and had to eat something.

I decided to combine the PPI lobster and fish stock, the mussel stock and the PPI mussels with spinach in cream sauce into a soup and add the PPI spaghetti to it. 

I sliced 2 Tbsp. of onion and heated that with the stocks and mussels and added the approx. 1 cup of spaghetti.  That was it.

While the soup was heating, I made a sandwich with the last piece of German Muesli Fullkorns bread smeared with mustard and covered with slices of hard salami and ate ½ of it.  I poured a glass of the PPI Chateau Thauvenay Sancerre into a glass and sipped it.

When the soup was hot I ate 2 ½ bowls of it.  It had a most satisfying taste and flavor; so satisfying that it eliminated any desire for dinner.  Suzette ate something when she arrived home at around 5:30 p.m. and Willy made a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich when he got home from work at 5:00 p.m.   

So I went on a mini-fast until the next morning.

Every picture has a story.  The story behind my recent purchase, Robert Ray “Deep Forest” is interesting.  We went to the Winter Wine Festival in Taos this year as usual.  This year there was a fund raiser for the Harwood Museum on Saturday afternoon from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. for a $30.00 donation with food prepared by the Taos High School Culinary Arts class and wine poured and an art auction.  I went mainly for the food and wine but as I walked through the selection of art being offered I saw a large watercolor on grey paper in a beautiful walnut frame by an artist I had never seen before, R.D. Day.  I asked Steve Parks, who knows everyone involved in the arts in Taos, about Ray and he said he was a good mid 20^th century Taos artist.  When I looked at the list of bidders, I saw only one bid by Gus Foster, the photographer and mountaineer, at the starting bid of $400.00.  The bidding was to stop at 5:00, so after eating and drinking and looking at other art, at 2 minute until 5:00 I walked over to the Ray and waited anxiously until 4:59 ½ p.m. and put my bid down of $475.00.  At 5:00 ½ a young volunteer came over and told me he had to enter another bid by Foster and started to write in Gus Foster’s name.  I argued with him in my best legal style that the bidding had closed and he relented finally and I bought the piece.  So “Gus, please excuse me for wanting the piece.”  

 

I have gained a love of night scenes and this is one more of that category.  It shimmers kinetically in low light, just like the Wesley Rushnell “Dark Studio” piece and is painted on grey paper

like the Doel Reed charcoal night scene, “Near My studio”. 

 

When I got home I turned the piece over and saw that it was donated by Fred and Marcia Winter, so, Thanks to you for your donation and collecting.”

Here are the pieces, so you can compare them.

Bon Art et Appétit