April 27, 2019 NYC to Elizabethtown, PA

April 27, 2019 NYC to Elizabethtown, PA

We woke up dressed and pulled our grips to the Morgan Library.  When we arrived at the ticket counter we were told we could not check our bags and were turned away.  We found a humble café call The Mill on Fifth at 35th.  I ordered two eggs sunny side up, two slices of ham lightly grilled and two slices of whole wheat toasted and buttered. I got packets of jelly and shared Suzette’s coffee and was in heaven.  Suzette got her q, an egg sandwich on whole wheat bread with a slice of provolone cheese, so she was in heaven also.

We then taxied to Penn Station were we bought a bottle of 2014 Baron de Ley Rioja Tempranillo Reserva and a small cheese plate and caught the Keystone Express to E town at 1:05.

We were met by Suzette’s brother, Don, who drove us to his house where we said hello to his wife, Bev, and soon, her other brother , Jeff, and his wife, Kathy, arrived from shopping.

We said goodbye and drove to the Masonic Home, where Suzette’s mother now lives to eat dinner with her.  I can not say enough wonderful things about the Masonic Home. It was built by the Freemasons and is a combination cathedral and castle.  Here are several pictures of the dining room where we ate dinner.  It looks like a cathedral to me with its rows of stained glass windows.  I was totally impressed.

Surprisingly, the food was good also.

Here is a picture of the menu.  Today there were two daily specials.  One of them was veal scaloppini.  Suzette and I chose the veal. You choose each item, including each vegetable.  I chose mixed vegetables.  Suzette chose beets and roasted red potatoes.
Mrs. Lindemuth and I chose to start the meal with a Cesar Salad.  The portions were small but delicious.

Suzette’s veal chop, beets, and roasted potatoes

Suzette and Mrs. Lindemuth ordered rice pudding for dessert.  I chose a slice of Black Forrest Cake.

A very impressive meal in an incredibly impressive dining room.

Bon Appetit

 

April 28, 2019 Mrs. Lindemuth’s BD. Lunch – Shrimp and Spinach over whole wheat Spaghetti Dinner – Wenger’s Ham loaf Meatballs, corn, Cole slaw, and Sweet Potatoes at Don and Bev’s house

April 28, 2019 Mrs. Lindemuth’s BD.  Lunch – Shrimp and Spinach over whole wheat Spaghetti  Dinner – Wenger’s Ham loaf Meatballs, corn, Cole slaw, and Sweet Potatoes at Don and Bev’s house

We woke and dressed and left Jean’s house by 10:00.  We were worried about the brake lights after being warned rudely by a woman who almost ran into us last night.

Suzette went to a car parts store and bought lights.  Changing the lights fixed a faulty turn signal but did nothing to repair the brake lights.  The store manager helped pull the fuses to the stop light switches and declared them to “not be blown.”

That left the last and obvious cause, which was the stop light switch under the peddle that turns on the brake lights when the peddle is pushed down.  Suzette bought a switch and we drove to A tire store that was open and did repairs.  Suzette had looked at the video on line to see how to install he switch so when the tire store owner said it would take an hour and cost $50.00 she said,”No thank you.” Called Don, who is the handiest person we know, who had already also looked at the installation video and they decided immediately that we would drive Don’s car back to his house and he would help Suzette install the switch.

When we arrived Bev and Kathy were beginning to cook lunch and invited us to join them.  Suzette and Don installed the new brake switch which required Don to lay in the driver’s seat with his legs over the seat so he could reach under the brake peddle to replace the switch while Suzette held the peddle up.

I stayed inside and de-stemmed a bowl full of fresh spinach leaves, while Bev and Kathy cooked the meal.

After we ate Don served some fancy cognac he received as a gift from a neighbor in a hand blown glass bottle shaped like a lion.

At 3:00 Suzette and I drove to Giant Supermarket where she bought six helium filled balloons and we drove to the Masonic Home, except this time we parked away from the building and carried the balloons through. The internal corridor to the bar that is named Goose and Lion after the first Tavern frequented by Masonic order members in London in the 18th century.

Suzette had called Sara’s three living brothers and her four card club members, who all showed up within their respective spouses.  There were 15 or 16 of us in all.

We gathered a dozen chairs around three or four tables pulled together and Suzette ran a tab with the bar and ordered five appetizer plates of mushroom stuffed phyllo cups.

The party was a huge success.  We sang happy birthday and everyone talked to each other as we sipped our drinks.  It was really fun.  Especially since all of Sara’s living siblings joined us.

After the cocktail party at 6:00 Suzette made us leave to return to Don and Bev’s for dinner.

Bev and Kathy stayed behind to cook dinner.  Soon after we arrived the food was ready.  It was a typical Pennsylvania Dutch meal, which means German food was served: Ham loaf meatballs, Max and cheese, creamed corn, baked sweet potatoes, and Cole slaw.

When I asked who made the Cole slaw, which I liked very much, Bev told me that everything except the sweet potatoes had been bought at Wenger’s Meat Market.  Wenger’s is the best traditional German Meat Market in Elizabethtown.  It makes a wonderful ham loaf, and apparently lots of other dishes.

Don opened two really good bottles of wine, a 2019 Berlinger Founders Estate Cabernet Sauvignon and a Sangiovese from a winery in Mendocino County.

There was a beautifully decorated cake sitting on the table in front of Mrs. Lindemuth.  After dinner coffee was made we ate slices of cake with vanilla ice cream and raspberry sherbet and coffee for those who wanted.  The filling between the two layers of the cake was raspberry.

We enjoyed dinner and afterward Jeff and Kathy took Mrs. Lindemuth back to her apartment at Masonic Home.

At 8:30 we said goodbye to everyone and drove back to Jean’s house in Ephrada and watched Masterpiece Theatre episodes of Les Miserables and Unforgotten.

Suzette and Jean then went to sleep and I blogged.

Bon Appetit

April 29, 2019 Lunch – McCleary’s at Marietta, PA. Dinner – Grilled T-bone steaks and Asparagus with Baked Potatoes and Sautéed Mushrooms and Vidallia Onions

April 29, 2019 Lunch – McCleary’s at  Marietta, PA.  Dinner – Grilled T-bone steaks and Asparagus with Baked Potatoes and Sautéed Mushrooms and Vidallia Onions

We picked up Sara Jane at the Masonic Lodge around 11:15 and drove to Marietta, which is a riverfront town on the Susquhenna River.  On the way we stopped at an unmanned vegetable stand and fought three bunches of beautiful fresh asparagus for $8.00.

We found McCleary’s Pub easily and went in o lunch.  We were led through the cramped bar to a spacious room with a large expanse of windows open to the north light.  Our next surprise was the menu with lots of interesting choices.  Sara Jane ordered a crab cake sandwich.  Jean ordered a Cobb Salad and Suzette and I both ordered a Caesar Salad topped with a crab cake.

We ate some of Sara’s French fries, which were delicious.  The crab cakes were almost all crab and very fluffy, like they were bound together with egg white.

We enjoyed  lunch.  I had to try the desserts, so I ordered a tiramisu and a slice of o chocolate flourless torte.  Both were wonderful.  It seemed like the Park, tiramisu filling was a mixture of whipped cream, marsacapone dulce, and espresso coffee.  The flourless chocolate torte was more dense than fudge.  Wow.

After lunch we drove along the length of 250 cherry trees.  Unfortunately the cold weather and wind of the last few days had blown most of their blossoms down.  The street was littered with pink blossoms.  Still they were impressive.

We then drove to Bainbridge, another river front town a few miles up river.  We drove to Koser, named for one of Sara’s older brother’s, who raised the money to build a boat ramp into the river and park.  Sara is one of 11 Koser siblings, of which there are 4 left.
 We then drove back to Elizabethtown, dropped off Sara Jane and drove  e of fit the same bo the Giant grocery store to buy food for dinner.

We bought two bottles of Zaccagninio Montepulciano del Abbruzo for $15.00 each.

We then bought russet potatoes, white wine vinegar, three T-bone steaks on sale for $6.99/lb., ½ lb. of sliced baby portobello mushrooms, two Visalia onions, two shallots, a package of fresh tarragon, and two bagels.butter

We arrived at Don and Bev’s house at 3:30 and I napped until 5:00.

Suzette put the potatoes into the oven to ate at 4:00.

When Suzette awakened me I went to the kitchen and began cooking the Béarnaise Sauce with Don’s assistance.  I diced about 1 ½ T. of shallot and plucked about the same amount of tarragon leaves and put them into a small sauce pan with 1/3 cup each of white wine and white wine vinegar plus a dash or two of salt and pepper.  We then boiled the mixture down to ¼ of its volume and let it cool, while I separated 3 egg yolks from their whites.  I whipped the egg yolks and then put them into a medium sauce pan and added the liquid from the tarragon and shallot mixture.  I then added about 2/3 lb. of cold butter and the sauce thickened.  I then put the sauce in the fridge for about fifteen minutes while I thinly sliced 1 ½ Vidalia onions and sautéed them in a large skillet in 3 T. of heated butter and 2 T. of olive oil.  When the onions I added the sliced portobello mushrooms and another 2 T. of butter. After few minutes I added about ¼ cup of Finger Lakes Riesling white wine and reduced the heat to  simmering my part of the meal was finished.

While I was making the sauce and sautéed mushrooms and onions, Suzette shaped the tough ends of the asparagus and put them in freezer bags with olive oil and salt and pepper to  coat them.  She then salted and peppered the three steaks.  Suzette Grilled the asparagus first and then the steaks to medium rare.  When the asparagus were almost done she removed them from the grill and wrapped them in aluminum foil to stay warm and continue to cook a bit.

The potatoes were ready a bit after 5:00, but we left them in the oven to stay warm.  By 6:00 everything was ready.  When Suzette brought in the steaks I sliced them into strips and Suzette plated the six plates with steak, asparagus, mushrooms and onions, and a potato.  We put butter and sour cream on the table and I poured wine .

Everyone seemed to like dinner.

After dinner I ate a bowl of butter pecan ice cream as we were leaving.

We took Sara back to the Lodge and returned to Ephrata.

On the way home we stopped at the state wine and spirits store and bought a bottle of Covoussier V.S. Cognac.

We had a glass of cognac and I made a cup of tea and we watched a Rachel Maddow and went to sleep.

Tomorrow is an early rising travel day.

Bon Appetit

April 26, 2019 Lunch – Le Charlot. Dinner – The Terrace Café at MOMA

April 26, 2019 Lunch – Le Charlot. Dinner – The Terrace Café at MOMA


We left the hotel at around 10:00.  We were lucky to find a bus driver going north to Yonkers who took us north to Madison at 80th and we walked the two blocks to the Metropolitan.  The lines were three blocks long.  We did not wish to wait.  We decided to walk the ten blocks down 5th Ave. to he Frick Museum.  We called Luke and he met us .  The Frick is one of my favorite museums.  It has several of the greatest paintings in the world.  To start at the top.  Vermeer is considered one of the greatest of a if not the greatest painter of history.  There are 33 known Vermeer in the world. The Frick owns three of them, including the “Letter” and the “Music Lesson”.  Rembrandt’s Polish Rider and his self portrait as an old man are also in the collection plus lots of other great paintings.  Today we saw a special exhibit of a brilliant Renaissance portrait painter named Moroni.

I was tired because I had eaten only 1/3 of a ham sandwich, so when we left the Frick at noon we decided to walk to Le Charlot on 69th St. near 5th.  It turned out that Charlot is a French Bistro with a talented French wait staff and wonderful French Cuisine.  We were hungry  and each ordered two courses.  As appetizers Luke ordered split pea soup and a Caesar Salad,  Suzette ordered French Onion Soup, and I ordered Frisée Salad with lardons, croutons, walnuts, and a poached egg (my favorite salad).  Everything was delicious.  I was happy we had gone to so we ordered entrees.  Suzette and I split a steak tartare and Luke ordered Moules Frites   There were lots of very crispy fried potatoes.  We ate and ate and could not finish Luke’s mussels or fried potatoes.

 

Suzette’s French Onion Soup

                                                            Luke’s Ceasar Salad

 

                                                        My Frisée Salad

 

                                                             My steak tartare

We decided against dessert, deciding to order some dessert at MOMA.  We went with Luke to the Malle perfume store after lunch, where Suzette bought her om some perfume We taxied to MOMA and sallied through three floors of exhibits.

  There was a special Joan Miro exhibit.  Here are several wonderful paintings in the exhibit.  There were lots of other world class paintings, including Picasso’s greatest painting “Les Demoiselles de Avignon”  the first Cubist painting in 1907.

At 5:00 we went to the Terrace Café on the 5th floor.  Luke ordered hummus with crackers, a ginger beer and strawberry shortcake.   I ordered a tomato bisque with a cracker spread with a vegetable paste with peas and a flourless chocolate torte.  Suzette ordered a very interesting canned cocktail of gin and tonic with cucumber and elder flower juice.

After this light meal I felt better and we taxied over to the theater.  We walked around the corner onto 7th Ave. and walked two blocks.  When we returned to the Hayes Theater, we went downstairs where Melissa joined us.  After a drink we went upstairs to take our seats for the challenging and insightful “What the Constitution Means to me” by and with Heidi Schreck That has been nominated as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for 2019 for drama.  It is a deeply insightful examination of the Constitution and her family story as it relates to the Constitution by Schreck.  It centers around how Schreck competed in the American Legion’s national competition for high school students regarding their knowledge of the Constitution.

It was surprisingly disarming with deeply personal exposures about family violence, homosexuality, abortion, and many other subjects that the Courts have yet to fully deal with that raise questions about the continuing difficulty of the American political system to apply the Constitution to effect the guarantee of the Preamble that all men are created equal.

After the show Luke went home and we went next door to Sardi’s for a drink.  We shared a bottle of 2014 Castellani Chianti Reserva and a cheese plate with slices of cheddar, Manchego, blue, and Brie and a pile of a very interesting creamy goat cheese. The waiter served us three types our bread.  I enjoyed the dark raisin nut bread the best, but used the lighter Italian bread for the lighter cheeses.

After Sardi’s we returned to the room and watched news on MSNBC and ate some chocolate and I drank tea with milk and sugar and blogged this missive.

One of the things that I find fascinating about NYC is the variety and wonderful quality of food in good Restaurants.  Restaurant food is not inexpensive but of you can forget about the cost and just let yourself enjoy the dining experience as we did at lunch, it is really wonderful.

For example, at lunch when Suzette and I told the waiter we wished to split the steak tartare, the waiter brought us two plates filled with salad, fried potatoes and a slice of steak tartare, we thanked him profusely and completely disregarded the $6.00 charge for splitting the dish because it was done beautifully and without any intent than a regard for our enjoyment of lunch.  I drank a glass of Pinot Noir and Suzette had a glass of St. Emillon.  Lunch cost $230.00, which by New Mexico standards  is unbelievable, but does not seem terribly expensive by NYC standards at a really good restaurant, especially one ½ block from 5th Ave. and 69th in the midst of some of the highest priced real estate in the world that is comparable in quality and price to what the same meal would cost in a similar Paris bistro.

Bon Appetit

April 25, 2019 Trip to NYC Dinner – Oiji

We awakened at 3:45. I got dressed and toasted four slices of bagel and spread them with cream cheese  and garnished them with slices of ham and Dubliner cheddar cheese spread with German deli mustard. Hxhgghxh(++-  c++

We flew to Dallas and then Philadelphia.  We took the regional train from the airport to the Amtrak train station in downtown, a beautiful Art Deco bldg.  Here are some pictures of its interior.

The Statue of an angel lifting a fallen soldier to heaven is amazing!

                                              The History of Transportation

Our train was delayed for 45 minutes but we arrived in NYC Penn Station a bit after 6:00.  We waited about fifteen minutes for a taxi so we took the taxi directly to the restaurant.  Oiji is a relatively small restaurant.  Mickey was already there and Rebecca and Luke arrived soon after.  We were greeted by a very unusual menu.  It combined Korean ingredients and preparation techniques with American and European ingredients.  Some dishes seemed to be rather traditionally Korean, but there are no BBQ
braziers.  All dishes are created and presented beautifully by a group of chefs in the kitchen.

Here is the menu

We started with a mushroom salad with fresh Mia-take, woodea, and shiitake mushrooms coated with rice starch and flash fried served in a bowl of Romaine lettuce garnished with Slices of watermelon
radish, and sautéed pinon nuts and golden raisins  dressed with a dressing made with a nut milk and
the oil liberated from the sautéed pinon nuts.  A very tasty, although slightly sweet dressing.

The other dish served initially was grilled octopus in a Korean gochujang  chili paste butter dressing.  I could not tell what was in the sauce, but it was both spicy and sweet and made the experience of eating the octopus one of discovery of some of the flavors in Korean Cuisine.

Next came our entrees.  Suzette ordered the Daily Special that was a tube of monkfish filet sautéed and sauced with a light chorizo cream sauce served on a puddle of puréed potatoes.  It was the best dish of the night. The reddish brown sauce also appeared  to contain a bit of  Korean chili paste, perhaps just for the color.

 I ordered Truffle Seafood Broth:  Manila clams and shrimp meat with baby bok Choy and sizzling rice cakes served with a truffle broth. The slightly thickened truffle broth overwhelmed the delicate steamed seafood and baby bok Choy, but I loved the attempted fusion of Oriental ingredients with a French ingredient and cooking technique.

Pouring the trufffle broth 

Luke ordered a stew of bone marrow and oxtail with cellophane noodles and root vegetables that was surprisingly slightly sweet. The oxtail must have been cooked all day because the meat and marrow were tender although it had to be held and sucked out it the boney structure.

Mickie and Rebecca shared a Seam Platter which was a small bundle of sticky rice seasoned with soy and rice starch wrapped in a banana leaf and baked served with small bowls of spicey tender chunks of pork and a mustard sauce and lettuce leaves to wraps.  They made one and the pork was surprisingly tender and appeared to be white cooked or, as Suzette suspected, sour vide cooked the
fish and pork because they were perfectly cooked.

After dinner we walked two blocks to Dual Indian Market.  We bought a large container of saffron and Luke bought several items and so did Mickie.

We were on 1st Ave. so Suzette and I shared a cab with
Mickie and Rebecca t her apartment and then had the taxi take us to our hotel at 303 Lexington.
After a long day of travel we were happy to relax and go to bed.

Bon Appetit

April 24, 2019 Lunch – AmerAsia Dinner – New Recipe - Chicken Florentine with Fresh Diced Tomato

April 24, 2019 Lunch – AmerAsia Dinner – New Recipe - Chicken Florentine with Fresh Diced Tomato

I ate the uneaten leftover bowl of granola and fruit and yogurt from yesterday while spenting the morning reading Earn documents until Aaron came at 11:00 and we cleaned up a couple of documents and prepared By-laws and Minutes of the Organizational Meeting.

We then went to lunch at AmerAsia.  We ordered five items, stuffed tofu, steamed buns, deep fried pork filled dumplings, pork and ginger steamed dumplings, and sticky rice with spicy pork, which was more than enough food for us to share.

I am reminded of the amazing dumpling restaurant we ate at on the square inside the walls of the inner city in Xian on our trip to China.  The waiters did not serve dumplings on small plates like AmerAsia but instead brought out the large steaming trays in which 50 to 100 dumplings are cooked at a time and stacked trays one on top of the other as we ate dumplings until we could not see straight and had to waddle out of the restaurant.

After lunch I went to the bank and deposited a check and then went home around 3:00. I checked the Market results and I was down about half of my gain yesterday, but when I checked Facebook it was up over $12.00 in the after market, so it looks like things may go up tomorrow.

I did not sleep well last night and we must get up early tomorrow to leave to go to NYC.
So I lay down fell asleep around 4:00 and awakened at 5:36, just in time to go meditate at 6:00.

When I returned home at 7:20 I cleaned the kitchen and soon after Suzette arrived.

Chicken Florentine with Tomato

We had decided to eat the PPI roasted chicken with spinach and we had lots of chunks of red onion left from Suzette’s cutting pieces off to sprout them in jars filled with water.  So I diced red onion and about 1 T. of garlic and then the chicken breast while Suzette de-stemmed a colander full of fresh spinach leaves.  There were two nice Roma tomatoes in the fridge, so I diced them also

Suzette then sautéed all the ingredients in a large skillet and made a light cream sauce by adding heavy cream and white wine.  She also boiled a pot full of casarecce Italian macaroni and I minced the last of a bunch of parsley and sliced sheets of Pecorino Romano cheese.

When the pasta was done we lay it in the bottom of pasta bowls, laid slices of cheese on top, then ladled spoonfuls of Chicken Florentine on top and finally garnished the top with finely chopped parsley for a beautiful plate of food that was also delectable.  It is amazing what you can do with PPIs.

After dinner I drank a glass of tonic water with the juice of ½ lime and cleaned up and ate a few bites of the rhubarb blueberry Clafoutis.

We then packed and showered and went to bed after setting the alarm for 4:00 a.m.

Bon Appetit

April 23 , 2019 Lunch – Vietnam 2000. Dinner- Roasted Chicken, Ears of Corn, and Cauliflower Couscous with green beans and Mushroom slices

April 23 , 2019 Lunch – Vietnam 2000. Dinner- Roasted Chicken, Ears of Corn, and Cauliflower Couscous with green beans and Mushroom slices

I drank a cup of hot water with juice of ½ sweet lime and a squirt of honey as I watched the stock market lit off for another stellar day.

I later made a bowl of granola with fruit salad and yogurt, but did not eat it. I was happy when Aaron called and agreed to go to lunch.

I had to file a document with the Supreme Court and one with the N.M. Court of Appeals, so it was a busy morning.

I met Aaron for lunch at Vietnam 2000 a bit after noon.  It was a cool rainy day, perfect weather for a bowl of pho.  I chose number 40, with slices of raw beef and beef brisket in a great tasting beef broth with lots of rice vermicelli.

Aaron ordered a dish unique to Vietnam 2000 as far as I know; a basket of fried vermicelli noodles filled with sautéed vegetables and meats of your choice with just enough light brown sauce to moisten the noodles enough to be soft but still crunchy in places.  The variation in texture was very appealing, crisp and soft sauce moistened noodles mixed with sauce covered lightly stir fried meats and vegetables.  Aaron ordered the mixed meat version that included chunks of beef and chicken, and shrimp.  Sort of a rice noodle cotton candy.

After lunch I filed my Motion with the Supreme Court and prepared and mailed the motion to each of the four parties and the Court.

I then went to my dietitian conference and found out a bit more about controlling against diabetes with diet. Basically a Mediterranean diet with moderate portions of  pasta, bread, and rice and lots of green leafy vegetables.

Suzette was at home when I arrived a bit after 5:00.  She had brought home a roasted chicken from Costco.  At about 6:00 when Willy responded to her text that he would not arrive for dinner until 8:00 we decided to prep dinner.  Suzette processed cauliflower flowerets into Couscous sized granules and then sautéed them in a large skillet in butter and added green bean sections and mushroom slices for about fifteen minutes until the cauliflower began to take on color and the green beans and mushrooms were cooked.

I removed the hindquarters of the chicken to a plate that Suzette reheated in the microwave covered with Saran.  Suzette also shucked three ears of corn and boiled them in a large pot of boiling water.

The dinner was delicious and healthy and very much on the diet.

Unfortunately, later in the evening we went significantly off the diet when Suzette made Bananas Foster by sautéing banana chunks in a sauce of brown sugar and butter and then flambeing it by adding a dousing of cognac and lighting the mixture. I scooped several scoops of vanilla ice cream into a bowl and Suzette ladled the banana mixture over the scoops of ice cream.

I had to drink three cups of hot tea to wash down the dinner and dessert, but I loved every bite of it.

Bon Appetit

April 22, 2019 Lunch – Salad with Liverwurst and Ham sandwiches, Dinner – BBQ Pork Stuffed Baked Potato with Calabacitas

April 22, 2019 Lunch – Salad with Liverwurst and Ham sandwiches,  Dinner – BBQ Pork Stuffed Baked Potato with Calabacitas

I worked all day today

I squeezed a galas of fresh orange juice at 8:30.

At 10:00 I ate a bowl of granola with fresh tropical fruit salad and yogurt, biodynamic heaven.

I finished the letter I was working on at 1:30 and decided to make a salad with lettuce from our garden.  There are plants poking their heads up.  I was gratified that we had spent the Sunday before Easter planting seeds.  I picked a basket full and cleaned it and spun it.  There is a variety of at least seven or eight different types of lettuces in the garden.

 I then diced and added six stalks of PPI roasted asparagus and a slice of eggplant, plus three radishes sliced, two small pieces of PPI grilled rib steak, and some slices of yellow onion. I freshened the Cesar dressing with lemon juice and Spanish olive oil and dressed the salad.

I then sliced Jarlsberg cheese slices and toasted two slices of rye bread and melted the cheese slices on the bread and then added slices of ham on one slices and slices of liverwurst on the other and garnished the open faced sandwiches with several slices of bread and butter pickles Suzette made last year.

I ate at the table in the table in the TV room until 2:00 and the market closed on an up tick for my portfolio.  Then I moved to the table on the patio so I could see the garden and smell the last of the blooming wisteria flowers.

After lunch I checked my portfolio and was pleased that on a day that the Dow lost ground my portfolio gained almost ½% in total value. A really good day in the Market, especially since I have pulled almost 15% out of stocks and am holding it in cash.

I worked on an emergency for a client until after 4:00 and then dressed to ride but the weather was
windy, so I watched Mad Money and some of the Business News Report.  Suzette arrived around 5:30 just as I was going out to ride.  I decided to ride the short circle but when I turned south at Central I faced a sustained 20 m.p.h. wind out of South, so I turned for home at 14th rather than continue to Marquez.  So my normal short ride of 40 minutes changed into a 25 minute ride.

When I got home Suzette was ready to start cooking dinner.  We had decided to make a PPI dinner of BBQ Pork Stuffed Baked Potatoes with Calabacitas.  I took too long changing apparently, because when I returned to the kitchen, Suzette had fetched the calabacitas from the garage fridge and the BBQ Pork from the indoor ridge and was heating them on the stove and had heated two previously baked potatoes.  The only thing left to do was to decide what to drink.  We decided to drink a chilled bottle of French Pear Cider from Normandy ($4.99 at Trader Joe’s) that was in the fridge.

Suzette constructed interesting bowls of food. Tthey looked ugly but they were delicious, especially with the pear cider.

Willy called and we planned on Suzette bringing home a roasted chicken, that we would eat with steamed string beans and a bottle of Trader Joe’s 2017 Willamette Valley Petit Reserve Pinot Gris I bought last Friday.

The baked potato was garnished with butter, then stuffed with BBQ and then garnished gain with calabacitas, sour cream and chopped chives.  Here is a photo of the ingredients and the finish dish.

The dish was so filling that Suzette could not finish her dinner and I was stuffed and felt no desire to eat anything else.

We switched between the Democratic Town Halls on CNN, Rachel Maddow, and Antiques Roadshow.  We really enjoyed the Town Hall format and liked all the candidates, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth warren, Kampala Harris, Bernie Sanders, and Pete Bundergeig.

It is going to be an exciting year of campaigning for the Democrats.

My hope is the Party stays united behind whoever gains the nomination.

After the five hour debate Suzette went to bed and I watched the last 30 minutes of a PBS documentary on Eva, who was not only a survivor of Auschwitz but she and her twin sister were survivors of Josef Mengele’s horrible experiments on prisoners.  The theme of the documentary was that she sought to capture Mengele for years, but finally learned to forgive as a means of liberating herself from hating Mengele and the Nazis and Auschwitz.

I blogged after the show ended and then went to bed after two cups of chai.

Bon Appetit

April 21, 2019 Easter Dinner at Amy and Vahl’s House Dinner – Artichoke and cheese sandwiches

April 21, 2019 Easter Dinner at Amy and Vahl’s House   Dinner – Artichoke and cheese sandwiches

I awakened at 7:30, drank a cup of hot sweet lime water, watched the news programs until 9:00 and then showered and dressed and we drove to a Willy’s apartment.

We took the  rhubarb and blueberry clafoutis I made yesterday and three bottles of Gruet wine, a 2017 Chenin Blanc, a 2017 Pinot Noir, and a Brut Rose Champagne.

Willy drove us to Santa Fe in his car and we arrived at about 11:30.  Soon Rick and Lee arrived and finally Joe and Deanna.

Amy made her traditional Easter dinner, a swirl cut ham, garlic grits, and asparagus.


April 21, 2019 Easter Dinner at Amy and Vahl’s House   Dinner – Artichoke and cheese sandwiches

Rick, Willy, and Suzette

It was delicious as always.  We started by making mimosas with fresh orange juice and Gruet Brut.  Then Vahl opened the Gruet Pinot Noir, and I drank Pinot with the meal and enjoyed it very much.

Rich and Lee brought a Bourbon cake and Amy had made whipped cream and served a bowl of fresh berries.  I took a bit of each.

The outright winner in the dessert category was the Clafoutis.  There was no separation of the flour and no thick white doughy crust at the bottom, which I attribute to two factors.  One, I used 1 ½ cups each of heavy cream and half and half, so a denser milk component.  Second, the thick rhubarb compote probably kept the flour in suspension. The clafoutis was uniformly dense.  It was terrific.

We drove home at 4:00.

We were not hungry until 8:00, when I ate the PPI grilled artichoke and freshened up the dipping sauce with more lemon juice and mayo, a bit of salt, and about a tsp. of Sorrel Pesto with
 a slice of Dubliner cheddar cheese.  I also drank the rest of the Trader Joe’s 2017 Gran Reserve Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir with three slices of toasted baguette smeared with butter and goat cheese and two more with slices of Stilton.

We watched Masterpiece Theater until 10:00 and then went to bed.

A relaxing and pleasant day of conversation, wine, and food.

Bon Appetit

April 20, 2019 Lunch – Tuna Salad Salad. Dinner – Grilled Steak and Asparagus with Sautéed Mushrooms and Baked Potatoes

April 20, 2019 Lunch – Tuna Salad Salad. Dinner – Grilled Steak and Asparagus with Sautéed Mushrooms and Baked Potatoes

I started by watching soccer at 6:00.  At 9:00 I toasted two slices of an everything whole wheat bagel smeared with cream cheese and garnished with slices of red onion and Gravad Lax and a few capers.

I watched soccer until 10:30 and then rode my bike about eight miles to the Nature Center and back.

When I returned Suzette had just returned home and was heating the leftover enchiladas and beans from my lunch yesterday at Padilla’s.

I chose to make a salad with the last of the tuna salad Suzette made yesterday with the PPI grilled tuna.  I used the last of the red leaf lettuce we bought last Saturday at the Farmers’ Market, diced a tomato, sliced two radishes and several slices of red onion, added six or seven sliced cooked asparaguses.  Suzette hard boiled four or five eggs and peeled and sliced one and lay it on the salad.  I dressed the salad with Cesar salad dressing.

After lunch we lay down for a nap.  After our 1 1/2 hour nap we toured the gardens and saw a few plants beginning to sprout .

Suzette said I should make the Clafoutis, so I scalded 1 ½ cups of heavy cream with 1 ½ cups of half and half.  In a small bowl II whisked three eggs.  In a larger bowl I mixed 10 T. of powdered sugar, 7 T. of flour and ½ tsp. of salt. I buttered a ceramic baking dish and pre-heated the oven to 350 degrees.  I mixed the egg into the dry ingredients and then stirred in the scalded milk. Finally I mixed the rhubarb and blueberry compote and finally 18 oz. of fresh blueberries and poured it into the baking dish and baked it in the oven for 50 minutes.  Suzette Baked seven potatoes while the Clafoutis Baked.

At 5:15 we made dinner.  Suzette gGrilled the steak and the large artichoke that I boiled on Wednesday.  I sliced 4 oz. of red onion, two cloves of garlic, and four large mushrooms and  Suzette started heating butter and olive oil in a large skillet.  We sautéed the diced red onion and garlic and then added the mushrooms. I opened a bottle of Trader Joe’s 2017 Grand Reserve Pinot Noir from the Santa Lucia Highlands that I bought for $12.95 on Friday.  We did not care for it,  it lacked depth and complexity and was slightly bitter.  I was glad I had bought the six bottles of 2017 Platinum Reserve Pinot Noir from Sonoma Valley for $14.99 each on Friday, a superb bottle of wine.

After the mushrooms began to take on color, I added about ¼ cup of Amontillado sherry to make a light sauce.

We then made a quick dipping sauce for the artichoke with ½ cup of mayo, the juice of ½ lemon, a pinch of salt, and three sprigs of dill finely minced.  Suzette has picked the dill and some fresh tarragon and some chives in the garden.  I finely diced three sprigs of tarragon and put it in the mushrooms and Suzette finely diced the chives to garnish the baked potatoes.

When the steak and artichoke were ready, Suzette set the table on the patio.  I sliced the steak and we filled plates with a baked potato and strips of bone-in rib steak.  Suzette put the artichokes on a plate with the dipping sauce and we ate a lovely dinner except for the wine. 

The grilled steak and artichoke and baked potato were all delicious.  We agreed this would be a $50.00 meal at any restaurant and we had quickly and easily created it.  We felt good about the meal and our lovely table with a view of our garden next to the lovely aromatic blooming wisteria.

After dinner we came back inside the house and made cups of tea and shared the plate of desserts Suzette gathered last night from among the large selection of desserts at Buddi’s 80th BD party as we watched Rachel Maddow and other news we had missed Friday night and watched Washington destroy Carolina 6 to 0 in the Stanley Cup preliminary playoff.

We got in bed at 10:00 and watched the local news and then a re-run of Saturday Night Live from 10:30 until 11:15.

Bon Appetit