October 8, 2017 Breakfast – Eggs with Chick Peas, tomatoes, onion, and shrimp Dinner – Mapo Dofu with Rice and Dhal

Let me start by saying that this was a strange day of food, but a wonderful day of art.

I started working from 5:00 to 7:00 in the morning on the docketing statement.  Then I watched the news programs until 10:00.

Then I decided to make breakfast.  I checked the fridge and there at least four or five PPI dishes that need to be eaten, less they go bad.  I decided to cook the PPI chick pea stew we made with shrimp for sort of a shrimp omelet and add some spinach and purslane. I actually walked out to the driveway and picked about ¼ cup of purslane, my new favorite super food.  Remember the new mantra is, Healthy is Good.

Eggs over easy; the finished dish

Eggs sunny side up 

There was a little more than I could comfortably eat but I ate it anyway and then worked a bit longer.

Finally at 12:40 I got a sudden idea that I should go to the Albuquerque Art Museum, so I dressed quickly and drove over and walked in at 12:55 thinking that it was only free until 1:00.  I was thrilled when the receptionist said it was free all day on Sundays.  I first visited the large gallery that had the Neuberger Collection of Modern art.  Neuberger was a passionate collector, who was a financier (Neuberger Berman) who lived in New York and started collecting in 1937 and bought until his death in 2010, then bequeathed his collection to SUNY at Purchase.

The collection is extensive and there are real gems.  Here are a few pictures that caught my eye:

                       Creation by Matta

                                                Old gold and white by Mark Rothko

Homage to the Square by Josef Albers

                               A lovely mobile by Alexander Calder

                                                                 Mark Tobey

                                                    Paris Apartments by Lionel Feiningrr

     The 1908 sketch made by Feininger for the Paris apartments sent to Neuberger for his 50th BD

Jackson Pollack's No. 8 painted in 1949

Georgia O'Keefe's painting of Lake George 

                          John Marin's watercolor of Mount Desert Island, Maine

                                     Arthur Dove. A Bridge near his family home at a Lake Geneva, NY

I talked to Kylene for a few minutes and then joined up with Joe McKinney, who is retired from UNM and he and Mary are docents, and we were joined by a gentleman from Vancouver who used to teach political science at UBC and we toured the Neuberger collection and the common ground collection from 2:00 until a little after 4:00.

When we finished our tour I was tired, hungry, and thirsty and drove home and ate a peanut butter and honey sandwich on nine grain bread with two cups of tea and watched the Cowboys lose to Green Bay.

Then at 6:00 I decided to eat the PPI Mapo Dofu but was unsure of what to put it on.  I finally decided to cook basmati rice and moong dhal with some Lilly pads, seaweed, some dehydrated chicken stock, and then at the end add some fresh spinach to steam the spinach. I failed to measure anything because I did not know the proportions or cooking time for dhal so I added some additional water at the beginning once I added all the ingredients to the pot and cooked the whole pot of stuff for a total of 45 minutes with the spinach being about ten minutes at the end of that time.  I checked it at 30 minutes and the dhal was not cooked and there was still water in the pot so I poured out a bit of water and added the spinach and cooked it another fifteen minutes.  The rice was mushy but the dhal and the other ingredients tasted great.

I heated the Mapo Dofu in the microwave and made a cup of green tea and ladled spoonfuls of rice and dhal onto the Mapo Dofu for a wonderful dinner.

I guess I get a little unconventional or less creative in my menu design when Suzette leaves town.  We seem to be more creative when we plan together.

I had a tsp. of cajeta after dinner for a taste of something sweet.  Having stopped eating desserts all the time has adjusted my taste buds to be more acutely attuned to the sweetness of things.  I have stopped eating lots of desserts at one sitting except in rare occasions.  The last time I ate a full dessert was at Pavlos’ dinner at the Indian Pueblo center when I was served a wedge of flourless dark chocolate torte.

Bon Appetit