November 8, 2024 Breakfast - Granola and Oatmeal Lunch - Cream of Asparagus Soup. Dinner - Poached Salmon in a garlic and Vegetable Mornay Sauce over Tagliatelle Pasta

November 8, 2024 Breakfast - Granola and Oatmeal  Lunch - Cream of Asparagus Soup. Dinner - Poached Salmon in a garlic and Vegetable Mornay Sauce over Tagliatelle Pasta

When I awakened at 7:00 I worked at my desk paying taxes and ate a bowl of granola with milk, diced apple, and yogurt. 

I watched the NASDAQ open down and the Dow up.  My hope was that I would only lose .637% and that is almost exactly what happened by the end of trading, which kept my portfolio near its all time high.

At 10:00 Suzette made oatmeal with brown sugar, milk, diced apples, and raisins.  It was delicious and appreciated because for some reason I was hungry.

This was a cooking day. Suzette wanted to make chicken soup and Cream of Asparagus soup with the bunch of asparagus we froze when we traveled to Delaware and Pennsylvania in October. I chopped 1/2 of a shallot, four or five stalks of celery, and Suzette chopped and cooked several carrots for the chicken soup stock and went to the garage to fetch a packet of 3 frozen chicken thighs for the stock pot.  We also defrosted two salmon fillets to poach for dinner and Suzette started cooking the asparagus. 

Then I went back to my desk and worked until 12:00 when Suzette served us bowls of cream of Asparagus soup garnished with a dollop of PPI pickled red cabbage we cooked for the duck dinner a week ago.

 I worked a little while after the soup until 12:45 when Suzette set up her computer in the TV room and opened a live link to the Santa Fe Auction. Suzette started watching the Auction when it began at 1:00.

At 1:30 my client came and we signed a document and he picked up a document. We were finishing our appointment when Suzette interrupted us to tell me me  that  lot 112, a pastel on paper by Helmuth Naumer had come up for bid. I rushed to the computer and we bid it in as my client let himself out the door.

We like to watch the bidding from our house because we can sit in our big comfortable chairs with the fireplace on, sipping glasses of wine. There is a certain lack of contact with the in person bidding but it is infinitely more comfortable than sitting in a plastic chair in the auction hall, especially since Santa Fe was buried under a record snow this week that made reaching the auction venue difficult and dangerous this year and since we had previewed the Art on Wednesday afternoon. The Naumer pastel was our favorite piece in the auction and so I am happy we bought it, especially because Suzette had already planned to hang it above our bed.

At about 3:30 when the auction ended I napped and Suzette read in front of the fireplace and we had a long telephone call with Luke until 6:00 when we started dinner.

Dinner - Tonight we made one of my favorite dishes, French style poached salmon in a mushroom, garlic cream sauce served over pasta. The pasta Suzette chose to use tonight was one of our favorites, 1 inch wide tagliatelle. Suzette boiled the pasta and I chopped 1/2 shallot, about 1 oz. of mined onion, and two large garlic cloves and sliced four medium portobello mushrooms.. We then destemmed a handful of sugar snap peas and Suzette sautéed the vegetables in butter and then added white wine and some water to make a poaching medium and poached the salmon filets.

Then Suzette made a flour and butter roux while I grated about a cup of Jarlsberg cheese and about 1 oz. of Parmesan cheese for garnish.

When the roux was cooked I fetched the milk and poured the poaching medium into the roux and then milk while Suzette stirred vigorously to make the cream sauce. She then added the grated Jarlsberg to make a Mornay Sauce. When the cheese melted she poured some cream sauce into the skillet with the remaning vegetables that had been in the poaching medium. She then put a serving of the drained pasta in each pasta bowl and drizzled Mornay sauce over the pasta and then placed a salmon filet on the pile of pasta and Mornay sauce and we dusted the pile of salmon, pasta, and sauce with the grated Parmesan cheese.

We had been drinking Acrobat Pinot Gris white wine ($10.00 at Costco) during the auction, so I went to the garage and fetched a bottle of Kirkland Pinot Grigio ($4.99 at Costco), which is the same or almost the same grape as the Oregon Acrobat Pinot Gris and we filled our glasses.

We ate a wonderful dinner while watching two episodes of Netflix’ Chef’s Table on noodles that were inspiring and enjoyable.

After dinner I drank the rest of my wine and ate a couple of pieces of chocolate and then made a cup of chai and ate the last chocolate chocolate chip cookie we made several weeks ago with it.

When the Noodle episodes ended we decided to read and I went to bed at 9:00 and slept until 12:45 when I awakened and wrote this blog entry.

We enjoyed a lot of good food and bought a lovely Naumer pastel today while the snow and cold weather discouraged us from going outside.

Tomorrow I may go to El Super to replenish some produce and other staples like yogurt and smoked pork chops.

Tomorrow I also hope to send a letter to Binswanger and forms to India and watch PL soccer and Texas v. Florida and TCU v. Oklahoma State and the two final sessions of the Santa Fe Auction. It could be a very busy day.

Bon Appetit