I awoke at 7:00 and made the BBQ sauce. I puréed the onion and garlic in the Cuisinart and then cooked that in a sauce pan in olive oil. After about five to ten minutes I started adding a T. of Grey Poupon , 1 T. Of apple cider vinegar, And the other ingredients and cooked the sauce for ten to fifteen minutes. Here is the recipe
Suzette had to go to volunteer for Senior Olympics today, so I made a quick breakfast for us a bit after 8:00. I diced and marinated a boneless pork steak in Chinese cooking wine and cornstarch. I sautéed the pork and then added the PPI vegetables to the wok and in a few minutes finally added three farm fresh eggs beaten with the excess cornstarch mixture. I cooked the mixture until it congealed and we ate a delicious breakfast.
I went to the basement to fetch our roasting pans and we placed racks in them and lay two racks of pork ribs in each, covered them with aluminum and placed the two pans with two sides of ribs each in a 250 degree oven at around 9:30.
I tried to relax today, but consequential TV and cooking dinner took over. I Watched the TV news until 10:00 and then the U.S. women beat Chile 3-0 in World Cup play n France to advance and the world Cjhampionship game for under 20 between South Korea and Ukraine, which Ukraine won.
I rested for a few minutes in the chair in the TV room after the matches, but was under strict instructions to remove the aluminum foil from the ribs at 2:00, which I did and rotated top to bottom to equalize temperatures, since the bottom was 140 degrees and the top meat registered 160 degrees.
I ate the remaining vegetables, pork, and eggs left from breakfast for lunch.
When Suzette came home around 3:00 I started peeling and cubing potatoes for the potato salad, then onion, celery leaves and chives, while Suzette hard boiled and sliced eggs, and made her secret sauce for the potato salad and we combined all the ingredients in the large teak salad bowl.
At 4:00 we coated the ribs with BBQ sauce and turned the oven heat to 200 degrees.
At 5:00 Suzette went to the garden and picked bunches of fresh basil.
I then made the Caprese salad with slices of tomato, onion, basil, and fresh mozzarella cheese I bought at Trader Joe’s yesterday.
I brought in the ears of corn and two bottles of wine, a Sagnol Cotes du Provence and a Tavel. At 5:45 everything was ready. Suzette set the table in the garden and I poured water in cups and filled the pitcher with ice and water.
Charlie and Susan arrived at 6:00 with a lovely carrot cake with the traditional cream cheese icing.
Soon Diane and Jim arrived bearing lots of Marble brewery beer, a lovely bottle of Pinot Grigio and a platter of grilled asparagus wrapped in prosciutto.
Suzette put ears of corn on the grill and I served glasses of chilled Sagnol Rose from Provence and we sat for a few minutes in the living room. Since all the food was ready, I soon suggested that we eat. Suzette had put all the food on the table in the TV room along with a stack of her green and brown heavy Franconia wagon wheel plates and I had put matching glasses filled with water and ice on the table.
We filled our plates with ribs, potato salad and grilled asparagus. As we took our plates and glasses to the gazebo we placed an ear of corn from the grill on our plate..
We have been neighbors and known each other and raised our children together for nearly thirty years together so the conversation came easily. We caught up on the comings and goings of children and medical conditions. The usual older person conversings.
Here is a picture of the group.
Suzette had filled the steel long jardiniere with ice and Jim had filled it with beer and I brought out a chilled bottle of Tavel bought at Trader Joe’s for $7.99?.
I opened the bottle of Tavel and poured a few glasses, while others took cans of beer. When I said I was not sure if Tavel was the best choice of wine to accompany ribs, Diane read the label on the bottle that said that Tavel went well with white meats, fruit, and soft cheese. After thinking about it I think I can say that the Tavel complemented the rib meat because Pork is a white meat and the ribs were very tender white meat, although at the time I was thinking about chicken.
After we ate we rested for a few minutes and talked. Then Suzette and Susan cleared the table and went to the kitchen to prepare plates of dessert. Soon small wagon wheel plates with a square of Susan’s carrot cake and vanilla ice cream were served.
We all discussed with Susan her recipe. Susan said the cake ingredients included walnuts and crushed pineapple.
Willy arrived around 8:30 and joined us at the table, but soon the mosquitos started their attack, so we retreated to the safety of the house.
Susan and Suzette made every couple a plate of food to take home with lots of ribs and potato salad and carrot cake.
I bought and cooked four five to six pound racks of ribs and we ate about 1 2/3 racks, so after giving each couple ½ rack, we still had over a rack left.
Susan and Charlie left at 9:00 but Diane and Jim stayed for a while to talk to Willy. Diane and Jim are very good friends with our City Councilman, Ike Benton, and are involved in many of the City’s planning initiatives, so there was a lively discussion about the recent adoption by Albuquerque of Vision Zero standards, which is exactly what Willy advocates and studied in Dublin for his master’s degree. Since Willy is now the person at MRCOG assigned the bike and pedestrian planning function there is every reason to think that Vision Zero thinking will become established policy in Albuquerque. Vision Zero is a concept that was developed in Sweden in the 1990’s that shifts thinking that responsibility for fatal pedestrian traffic deaths lies with the pedestrian and says that with proper traffic planning pedestrian traffic deaths can be avoided or brought down dramatically. For more information on Vision Zero see http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/topics/visionzero.cfm
At 9:45 Willy and Jim and Diane left and we did a quick clean up and were in bed before 10:00.
Bon Appetit
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