June 16, 2014 Lunch at Vietnam 2000 Dinner PPI Five Spice Pork and Brussels Sprouts Casserole

June 16, 2014 Lunch at Vietnam 2000   Dinner  PPI Five Spice Pork and Brussels Sprouts Casserole

Luke and his friend and business partner, Lisa Levine, who founded and owns Maha Rose Center in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, arrived at the airport today at 1:00 today.   

They are both devotees of the Hindu living saint, Amma, and were on their way to the New Mexico Amma convocation at Buffalo Thunder Resort north of Santa Fe this week.  

Luke wanted to go to Vietnam 2000 for lunch, which is near the airport. Luke and I ordered No. 21, warm rice vermicelli noodles on a bed of cool chopped lettuce, mung bean sprouts, basil and cilantro and cucumbers topped with pork filled deep fried eggrolls and char broiled pork.  Lisa ordered a small bowl of pho (beef broth) with sliced beef meatballs ($3.50) and No. 48 (a plate of rice sheets over sautéed mung bean sprouts and green onions, garnished with shrimp sausage and egg rolls and roasted crushed peanuts) both dishes come with a fish sauce to pour over and flavor and soak into the noodles to moisten them.  The waitress also brings me a small plate of extra herbs and bean sprouts that I garnish the dishes with.

Rice sheets with shrimp sausage and egg rolls and shirasha

No. 21 rice vermicelli with grilled prk and egg rolls

Luke ordered iced coffee and I passed on the coffee because I have been sort of alternating between hyper and lethargic lately.  Luke immediately said that Mercury is in retrograde and that is putting lots more iron into the atmosphere and weighing things down.   I later googled Maha Rose and saw that Luke and Lisa are both healers at the Maha Rose Center in the Greenpoint area of Brooklyn, NY.  In fact, Luke is the web designer for Maha Rose and largely responsible for its content and appearance and Lisa owns the Center and holds a master’s degree in acupuncture.  Luke holds several certifications in yoga and has studied and trained in yoga in India several times, as well as having graduated from Sarah Lawrence College.

After lunch we went home to transfer their grips to the mustang, which they are driving to the conference and allow them some time to rest and write some information into the Maha Rose website.  I am impressed with how they are approaching the running of Maha Rose as both a business and as a center for spiritual enlightenment and healing.

I took off early and watched the U.S. play Nigeria to an amazing 2-1 victory for the U.S. during which Suzette came home.  By the end of the game around 6:00 we both realized that we had enough PPI Five Spice Pork and Brussels sprouts casserole to cook a quick and delicious dinner, so we could watch Suzette’s ad for the Center for Ageless Living at the beginning of the Antique Roadshow at 7:00, so Suzette we de-stemmed about thirty snow peas we had plucked from our garden and sautéed them with the pork and casserole for about five minutes to heat the PPIs and lightly cook the snow peas, while I fetched a bottle of La Granja Tempranillo/Grenache blend Rioja red wine, and we had a great quick dinner.  

Suzette’s 15 second ad about the Center for Ageless Living is wonderful and will run at the beginning of each episode of the Antique Roadshow for a year.  Suzette loves the Roadshow and even went to see it live early in its history, when it still was produced in Boston.  Also, we attended the Antique Roadshow when it was last here in Albuquerque and will volunteer for the July session in Albuquerque this year.   It surely seems like my world is connected to the spiritual, healing world in lots of ways, at least today.

Bon Appétit