We rode our tandem bike to Chatters this morning. Jim Burbank, from the meditation group, was the featured poet and Riha Rothenburger was the sponsor. I knew her mother and father and did an adult adoption by Gene of her. Her mother Francis, chose me to be the chairman of Oasis for a couple of the formative years in New Mexico in the 90’s, so I felt very comfortable. Suzette found us seats on the third row just to the left of the piano keyboard where I like to sit so I can see both hands of the pianist and the keyboard. The musical program included works related to the ocean.
After Chatter we rode home at noon and heated the PPI Polish dogs and Sauerkraut and added a little beer and drank beers.
We invited Cynthia and Ricardo for bocce and dinner, so we started cooking in the afternoon. I picked red lettuce and zested, peeled and sectioned two oranges and squeezed the juice out of another, while Suzette cut two stalks of fennel and after I cut off the leaves and she cut them into thin slices and blanched the fennel strips.
Suzette then made the Strawberry Pecan Soup with Pecans, strawberries, sour cream, apple juice, and yogurt.
When Cynthia and Ricardo arrived they brought six chard custards, a bottle of Clos de Bois Sauvignon Blanc, and a container of frozen vanilla yogurt ice cream. Suzette made a cocktail of cucumber muddled with mint to which mint flavored simple syrup and soda water was added. Sort of a mojito with cucumber instead of lime juice. We carried our drinks out to the bocce court and played a game of bocce. Then we returned to the kitchen to prepare dinner.
We are all on healthy diets now, so we are exploring new recipes. Cynthia created a new recipe for chard custard by blending chard into a custard recipe of egg yolks, a little sugar, milk, and a sprinkle of nutmeg, which she baked in individual ramekins.
We collected a salad recipe in Chicago at an Italian restaurant across the street from the Drake Hotel named Spiaggia about eighteen years ago that features Gravad lax. We used the red lettuce from our garden to make the salad and drizzled basil infused olive oil around the plate. Then we added four or five slices of Gravad Lax and four or five orange sections and a few slices of blanched fennel and drizzled the salad with the orange juice flavored mayonnaise dressing and garnished the salad with a sprig of fennel.
Suzette ladled the strawberry Pecan soup into bowls and garnished the soup with sprigs of mint and I poured glasses of Sauvignon Blanc and Cynthia demolded four of the chard custards and placed one each on a small plate. We then carried all the food out to the table under the gazebo. We enjoyed the warm glow of the late afternoon sun as we ate our healthy dinner. No complaints, just compliments for each of the three delicious dishes.
After we finished dinner and the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, we decided to serve dessert, which was a scoop of vanilla frozen yogurt garnished with fresh blueberries. I poured glasses of 2016 Acequia Winery Osprey, a sweet wine made with Vidal Blanc grapes, that we bought yesterday during our wine tastings in Corrales.
The sweet wine had a slight citrus flavor that went well with the creamy vanilla yogurt ice cream.
The Osprey is really a dessert. We sipped wine and talked into the evening, until we finished the bottle of wine.
Bon Appetit
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