May 22, 2020 Lunch – Take out a No. 21 from Vietnam 2000. Dinner – Sautéed Hamburger with Sautéed onion, Potatoes and mushrooms and steamed broccoli.
This was a good food day that started and ended with blueberries. It started at 8:30 with a bowl of granola, yogurt, milk, and blueberries.
At 12:00 I drove to the bank and afterwards decided since I was near Vietnam 2000 to see if they were open for take out. I called and ordered No. 21, just like I was sitting in the restaurant. I was told to expect it to be ready in 15 minutes. I had my I Pad so I read my book Educated for ten minutes under the shade of an overhanging tree on Richmond St. and then drove to the restaurant. When I arrived at the restaurant there was an SUV sitting in the parking lot in front of the restaurant with two persons waiting in it, so waited In a few minutes the young man who had taken my order walked to my window with several slips of paper in his hand and asked what I had ordered. I told him No. 21. He said, “ That will be $9.17, your order will be ready in a couple of minutes.”
I handed him a $10 bill and he returned to the restaurant. In another minute I called the restaurant and when he answered, I asked, “can you please include an extra sauce so I can dip my egg rolls in sauce.”
His answer was, “Of course.”
In another couple of minutes after he delivered the SUV folks their food he returned with a takeout box tightly secured in a take out plastic bag emblazoned with several thank you’s and a $1 dollar bill.
Here is a picture of the take out order.
I drove home and opened the bag and found a small plastic container filled with the extra fish sauce sitting on a plastic take out box embossed with a happy face and the words “Have a nice day”. I was feeling better about my purchase.
When I opened the box I was thrilled to see it was filled with all the usual ingredients, pieces of char grilled marinated pork and two fried egg rolls cut into eight sections laying on a bed of boiled fresh vermicelli rice noodles underneath which were slivers of cucumber, thin slices of green onion, and mung bean sprouts with two containers of sauce and one small container of sriracha.
There were no pieces of shredded lettuce or cilantro or Oriental basil, but that was okay because we had Romaine lettuce and a fresh bunch of cilantro. I fetched the lettuce and cilantro and de-stemmed several leaves and sprigs and tore them into bite sized pieces and tossed them onto the top of the boxed dish.
Here is a picture.
I enjoyed eating my favorite Vietnamese summer dish with chop sticks and a glass of cold water and swore to myself to make a take out of No. 21 a weekly event. I am beginning to understand what Governor Grisham means when she says, “We need to learn how to live in a Covid 19 world.”
I was full and happy day as I watched the Market close. This was one of those days that are occurring more frequently in the market where the tech heavy NASDQ is positive and the DOW is negative. The result, as occurred today, is that my portfolio increased in value, mainly due to increases in Apple, Nividia, and Moderna.
I had a clue that that would happen in the morning when Dr. Fauci was interviewed extensively on “Squawk on the Street” and I was thrilled when he described in detail the progress Moderna and other companies were making in testing possible candidates for a vaccine. Fauci said that the early phase 1 results indicate that the Moderna vaccine produces no harmful reactions. In his words, it satisfied the CDC’s hurdle of efficacy and that is why it was the first US company approved for Phase 2 testing that will involve thousands of healthy people.
I bought 1000 shares of Moderna in early March when it was announced that Moderna was teaming up with the NIH to produce a vaccine and it was the first company in the US to be approved for Phase 1 testing. By the end of the day my Moderna investment was up a couple of dollars, which helped my portfolio go positive .5%. Voila.
I was talking to a client when Suzette arrived a bit before 5:00. When she came into the bedroom a second time five minutes later, I ended the telephone call. Suzette was in a grumpy mood.
Apparently she was having trouble getting her kitchen staff oriented toward planning and pricing take
out meals of BBQ pork ribs while she was distracted by helping a new client move in. I had promised to go with her to Left turn Distillery for hand sanitizer. We finally left a bit after 5:00. I waited in the car while she stood in a socially distanced line of three or four other customers. We drove home after she bought 2 gallons of 60% alcohol sanitizer. She told me that 60% is the
minimum percentage allowed to meet sanitizing standards. She had previously bought 70% alcohol sanitizer for twice the Left Turn price at another distillery.
I had had a stellar day after servicing two clients and booking an hour of billable time, so when Suzette would not cook, I offered to cook. She did not object when I suggested sautéed hamburger steaks, steamed broccoli, and roasted potatoes.
As she watched the news, I went to the kitchen and energized by my day of work and miraculous result in the Market, I destined about six or seven Broccoli flowerets and pit them into the Pyrex loaf pan with eight small blue, red, and white potatoes Suzette had bought at Costco and added water to a depth of ½ inch and covered the pan and microwaved it for 3:34 minutes in the microwave oven. While the veggies were cooking and steaming I formed 2 ½ lb. hamburger patties, and sliced two 1/3 inch thick slices of yellow onion and sautéed them in a skillet with a bit of heated canola oil.
I then went to the garage and fetched a ½ lb. container of white mushrooms and sliced three large mushrooms and put them into a medium skillet with butter and olive oil. When the potatoes were finished cooking I added them to the mushroom skillet and turned them to coat them in the heated butter and olive oil. In a couple more minutes I flipped the hamburgers and onion slices and reduced the heat a bit to slow their cooking and then did the same for the mushrooms.
I then went to the wine rack and grabbed and opened a bottle of Trader Joe’s 2017 Knight’s Ridg Sonoma County Platinum Cabernet Sauvignon ($14.99 at Trader Joe’s). Platinum is Trader Joe’s highest grade of wine. The wine was full bodied, dark fruity, and jammy. A real taste treat, although more of a fruit bomb than we are used to drinking ? We prefer the cleaner more feminine elegant wines, such as French Pinot Noir. I searched Knight’s Ridge and found a website offering very expensive wineries for sale, one of which was on Knight’s Ridge Road near Healdsburg, CA which made me think the wine was sourced from an independent producer. Alternatively, I found a website for Knight’s Bridge Winery that also owns Arrowhead Winery that produces a complex dark fruit cab on the east side Sonoma County that would fit the bill for the wine we drank.
In about 20 minutes I had everything ready and we plated our plates and I poured the wine and we watched the news and ate a lovely dinner.
Suzette’s temperament brightened as she ate dinner and she said being hungry may have added to her grimy mood.
The hamburgers were cooked to perfection for Suzette to rare. The potatoes were cooked like the French like them. They are usually called buttered potatoes. The French usually boil them first and then sauté them in butter. I think I improved on the recipe by steaming and blanching them so there was no residual water in them as there often is with French style buttered potatoes. The thing I did not do was to remove. A portion of the potatoes’ skin. Perhaps next time.
The sautéed mushrooms were firm, which is the way Suzette likes them and the onions were soft and slightly caramelized, so they became a sort of saucy accompaniment for the hamburgers. I opened a new bottle of Heinz catsup , which we liberally dipped the lovely dark pink meat into.
I was pleased with the result. It was a perfect meal and it revived Suzette’s spirit.
The reason I know that is because a little later after the meal she went to the garage and fetched the ½ gallon container of Blue Bell Vanilla ice cream and made us sundaes with a scoop of ice cream covered with the sliced strawberries we had brandied and chocolate syrup. Voila.
A two voila day and a successfully cooked dinner. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Bon Appetit
