December 15, 2024 Breakfast - Granola, blueberries, milk, and yogurt. Lunch - Vietnamese Duck Soup Dinner Party - Pistachio fig roll, tapenade, salad, Spanish baked fish, pannecotta with raspberries

December 15, 2024 Breakfast - Granola, blueberries, milk, and yogurt. Lunch - Vietnamese Duck Soup   Dinner Party - Pistachio fig roll, tapenade, salad, Spanish baked fish, pannecotta with raspberries 

We first set the table with Silver ware and glasses. I put out the Baccarat white wine glasses and my family silver and Suzette’s fancy plates and salad bowls.

We ate yogurt and blueberries for breakfast, except I added granola and milk to mine.  Then around 10:00 I ate a chocolate croissant with a cup of chai.

I watched an amazing soccer match, a cross town rivalry between Man City and Man Union. Man City was in control of the game and ahead 1 to 0 until the last few minutes of the game, when a Man City player fouled a Man Union player that resulted in a penalty shot for Union that leveled the score 1 to 1.  Aroused, Union played harder and scored again in overtime to win the Match 2 to 1 and City’s hope of going into the top four of the PL fizzled.

At 12:30 I rejuvenated the leftover duck soup left from my lunch at Vietnam 2000 on Thursday while we watched Chelsea beat Brentford 2 to 1.

I added water, a duck pho seasoning cube, a loaf of vermicelli rice noodles, about 1 oz of diced shallot, the white part of three green onions, and about a cup of broccoli.

When the noodles and broccoli had cooked we each ate a bowl of soup with a squirt of hoisin sauce and fresh cilantro. For a really delicious lunch.

After lunch I rested and watched the Cowboys beat Carolina and then napped from 3:00 to 4:00.

Suzette put the kalamata and green olive tapenade and surrounded the fig, pistachio, cream cheese, and cranberry log on a tray with crackers.

I brought the Mar de Fades Finca Valinas and the Godella from the garage.

I sliced Yukon Gold potatoes and two onions, and quartered five or six vine ripe tomatoes Suzette had dunked in boiling water to remove their skins and parboiled the potato slices.  Suzette then sautéed the onion and then lined a large deep copper baking pan with the onion and potato slices and added the tomatoes plus sweet pimenton and saffron and cod fillets and baked the dish for 30 minutes until it was fully cooked.

We invited Barry, Crystal, Megan, and Janis and Tom. We served Spanish vermouth and a Aperol, club soda, and Prosecco spritzer with the appetizers In the living room and then moved to the dining room where Crystal served a lovely salad and Suzette served the baked fish and I poured glasses of Mar de Frates Finca Valinas Albariño, the wine that won best white wine in the world at the International wine competition in Brussels last year. It was a very balanced wine with not discernible rough edges, incredibly smooth without the usual Albariño high acidity.

After the meal Janis served a dessert of pannecotta with whipped cream and fresh raspberries and we served cordial glasses filled the latest batch of limoncello we made a couple weeks ago.

It was a lovely evening of old friends gathering for good food and conversation.

Everyone left at 8:30 and we watched Sound of Music with a young Julie Andrew’s and Christopher Plummer until 10:00 and then went to bed.

Bon Appetit