August 5, 2019 Lunch – Chicken Salad. Dinner – Eggplant in Garlic Sauce, Brown Rice and Pickled Vegetables

I did something very brave this morning.  I walked 2/3 mile with Suzette without breakfast or a sugar pill.

When I got home i ate a bowl of granola with milk, yogurt, and blueberries.

At noon I made a large salad with Romaine lettuce, chicken, a tomato diced, kalamata olives, ½ of a Granny Smith Apple diced, a diced Persian cucumber, and two thinly sliced green onions dressed with a Cesar salad dressing revitalized with olive oil and lemon juice.  I loved the fresh ingredients.

The film crew for the TV series Briar Patch came at 1:00 to decide on the shooting location.  Here is a photo of the director looking in the bushes for a shot location.  The program involves placing a listening device next to the house of one of the characters.

After they left I watched amazed as the stock market imploded 676 points, as the triple whammy of the failure of Trump’s trade talks with a China and his threats of more tariffs and his racism left the market in a sell off mood.

I read my book and napped in the afternoon.  My portfolio dropped 3.5% today to the level it started at 1 ½ years ago.  And if futures are any indication the sell off has not stopped.

It reminds me of the inability to govern displayed by George Bush as the recession hit in 2008.  We will see if Trump can rise above his personality defects to unite the country and lead it in the next few weeks. Blaming institutions within our country or foreign countries will probably not help as he did today labeling a China as a currency manipulator will not work or help.  China is not manipulating it currency.  China simply withdrew its market support for the yuan and its currency fell against the dollar.

When Suzette came home I suggested we make her favorite Chinese dish, Eggplant in Garlic Sauce from the Mastering the Art of Chinese Cookbook.  Here is the recipe.

I cut a small eggplant into 2 to 3 inch strips, and the de-boned the meat from three BBQ pork ribs and diced three cloves of garlic, and sliced fives leaves of Savoy cabbage, while Suzette made the seasoning sauce and heated the wok with about ¼ cup of peanut oil.  She the fried the eggplant strips and removed them to a colander lined with paper towels to drain their grease.

I cooked a cup of brown rice.  For 1 cup of brown rice I heated 2 ½ cups of water and cooked it about an hour.  It was a little mushy but most kernels popped open.

Suzette then sautéed the garlic, pork, and cabbage and returned the eggplant to the wok and added the seasoning sauce.

It took only a couple of minutes for the eggplant sauce to thicken and the dish was ready to serve.

We piled rice in bowls and covered the rice with the eggplant in garlic sauce.

We drank beers and watched the Antique Roadshow in Memphis and then an episode in Milwaukee and then went to bed to blog for me and sleep for Suzette.

I chopped shallot, two Persian cucumbers and two leaves of a Savoy cabbage to the Japanese pickling medium and added more rice vinegar and Mirin before retiring to bed.

Bon Appetit