October 2, 2025 Breakfast Latte Macchiato with a Chocolate Croissant Lunch - Vietnam 2000 Bun Bowl with Peter, Dinner Party - Grilled Lamb Chops, Tzatziki, Tabouleh, Israeli Couscous with dried fruits, toasted cheesy pita, and Green Sala

October 2, 2025 Breakfast Latte Macchiato with a Chocolate Croissant Lunch - Vietnam 2000 Bun Bowl with Peter, Dinner Party - Grilled Lamb Chops, Tzatziki, Tabouleh, Israeli Couscous with dried fruits, toasted cheesy pita, and Green Salad

What a lovely day of friendship and food.

I worked on my pleading in the morning and got it filed before noon. At 10:00 I ate a Chocolate Croissant with a latte Macchiato.

Then I submitted my pleading for filing and then went to the garden and picked a basket of mint and Oriental basil and made tzatziki by peeling, seeding, and dicing a medium cucumber from our garden and salting the cubes. I then de-stemmed the Mount and basil and minced the leaves and added them to the cucumbers. I then added the pulp and juice of three cloves of garlic, 1 cup of homemade yogurt, and juice of 1 lime. The result was a bit acidic, so later I added 1/2 cup of sour cream to reduce the acidity.

I also minced about 2/3 cup of mint for mint tea, since Wayne and Elaine no longer drink wine.

Then at noon I called Peter to ask if he was available for lunch. He was and suggested Vietnamese noodles and egg-rolls, so I called our favorite Vietnam Restaurant for egg rolls, Vietnamese 2000, and ordered two No. 30’s to go.

When I arrived at the restaurant at the corner of Zuni and San Mateo about 20 minutes later they were ready.

I drove to Peter’s house and we ate lunch in his bedroom since he is still mostly in his lounge chair. Since I had recently eaten breakfast, I could only eat about 1/3 of the dish. Peter did not finish his dish also, so I put his styrofoam box into his fridge and drove home. 

It was 2:30 so I checked my portfolio and had a modest gain. Many of the high tech stocks had been up moderately all day and closed up, even though the government was shut down; further evidence that many investors trust their money with safe harbor stocks such as, Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, and Meta over more speculative stocks.

I then revised another pleading for a different case until 4:00 when Suzette arrived.

We watched some of the news and sipped a glass of Kirkland Vacqueyras red. It seems like we are creating legal history every day as Trump slashes through all the norms of government and legal guard rails. 

We had invited Wayne and Elaine and Nancy and Cliff for dinner at 6:00 to 6:30, so we started getting ready at 5:30. I fetched a couple of Cotes Du Rhône reds, my favorite wine with lamb other than a great Rioja

Wayne and Elaine arrived a bit after 6:00 with a lovely large tossed salad of several lettuces and tomato slices and two bottles of Pellegrino.

Then Cliff and Nancy arrived with an assortment of three different cookies, a lemon bar, a chocolate brownie and pecan balls dusted with powdered sugar, plus a bowl of Israeli Couscous mixed with chopped dates, apricots, and cherries plus a bag of grated Parmesan cheese.

I served Wayne and Elaine mint tea, Nancy a glass of Kirkland Italian Pinot Grigio and Suzette served Cliff a glass of Portuguese Eau d’ Vie.

Nancy and I buttered two large Iraqi pitas the size of a medium pizza crust and the sprinkled them with the grated cheese and I broiled them in the oven until the cheese melted and hardened into a golden brown crust on the pita that was soft from being basted with butter. I very tasty bread.

Everyone congregated in the Moroccan styled patio.

When Suzette started grilling the lamb chops I broiled the pitas melted. We put the tabouleh, the tzatziki, the couscous, the salad, and finally the grilled lamb chops with some of our homemade mint jelly on the patio table.

We served ourselves and then took our plates to the table under the gazebo in the garden and I poured a Kirkland Cotes Du Rhone Village that was very pleasant. Costco’s wines are getting better. I now buy many of the wines we drink daily at Costco, although Trader Joe’s wine selections have also improved and Trader Joe’s runs Costco a close second.

After we ate, drank, and kibitzed through dinner, we returned to the house and made coffees and tea and moved to the living room where Nancy served a tray with the three gorgeous cookies and Suzette and Wayne filled parfait glasses with pistachio and chocolate gelato.

We briefly discussed the state of our democracy and all agreed that we were incredibly lucky that we are no longer facing the day to day rat race or the threat of losing our job to AI.

At 9:30 Wayne and Elaine said goodnight and a few minutes later Wayne returned with a gift bag for each of us with a large jar of Peach Salsa that looked very edible.

Nancy and Cliff left a little later, leaving some couscous and cookies and the gelato in spite of our rather weak objections.

I then watched Foyle’s War until 11:00 and then blogged and went to bed at 12:30.

Bon Appetit

October 1, 2025 Breakfast - Lax and Bagel. Lunch - Leftover Chirashi. Dinner - Leftover Penne Pasta with Mushrooms, Ground Beef, Pesto, and Lamb Shish kebab

October 1, 2025 Breakfast - Lax and Bagel. Lunch - Leftover Chirashi. Dinner - Leftover Penne Pasta with Mushrooms, Ground Beef, Pesto, and Lamb Shish kebab

Another day where each meal was from a different Cuisine and dinner combined two Cuisines.

Breakfast was Eastern European Jewish. I toasted two bagel slices, spread them with cream cheese and garnished them with onion slices and Gravad lax, and capers and ate them with a cup of Earl Grey tea.

For lunch I ate the Chirashi left from lunch at Crazy Fish two days ago. It was just wonderful. I ate a fresh leave of Korean Basil and several pickled ones.  The albacore had toughened and became rather tasty. I cut the salmon, escarole, Aji tuna, yellowtail and squid salad into 6 to 8 small bites and savored each with a small speck of wasabi and a small slice of pickled ginger dipped into soy sauce, which intensifies the impact of the wasabi.

I enjoyed eating lunch in the garden with its bright array of colors.,

I walked around the block in the morning at 9:30 ampnd walked home from the bank at 3:00 when I went with Aaron, so I clocked about 3500steps and my back is feeling better.

I napped from 4:30 until 5:30 when Suzette made a one skillet dinner by reheating the leftover hamburger helper dish from last night’s dinner and adde the leftover lamb Shish kebab from yesterday’s lunch at Arianna.

I opened the recently acquired bottle of Kirkland Vacqueyras that was really good and held its flavor for and hour so we sipped it while we watched several documentaries about Tokyo restaurants. 

Then we ate the last two baked apples with cream and sips of Calvados while I watched the Humans documentary on Nova at 8:00.

We went to bed at 9:00, I to blog and read and Suzette to sleep.

I made a breakthrough in my LRGA case today, so I am happy.

Also the market was up again today with Nvidia hitting an all time high of $186.00 and gold hitting an all time high of over $3885.j

Bon Appetit

September 30, 2025 Breakfast - Leftover Egg Foo Young. Lunch - Lamb Shish kebab with Rice and mint chutney and yogurt sauce and Mediterranean salad. Dinner - Trout soufflé with cucumber, tomato, and onion salad.

September 30, 2025 Breakfast - Leftover Egg Foo Young. Lunch - Lamb Shish kebab with Rice and mint chutney and yogurt sauce and Mediterranean salad. Dinner - Trout soufflé with cucumber, tomato, and onion salad.

What a diverse menu of Chinese, Afghan, and French cuisines today.

It started with leftover Fried Rice Lamb Egg Foo Young for breakfast with green tea.

I worked until 11:30 and then drove to my dental cleaning appointment at 12:00.

After the appointment at 1:00 a drove to Arianna Market and restaurant at 1401 San Mateo NE, where Sharief, my client, owner and an Afghan, made me lamb shish kebab for lunch with rice, mint chutney and yogurt sauce (made with homemade yogurt) with a yogurt drink. Sharief prides himself on serving the type of lamb raised in Afghanistan. Cooked to medium, it was firm and chewy, but not sinewy. I liked it a lot, especially when dipped into the mint chutney or yogurt sauce. The lamb was served in a double row on a platter around a pile of flaky basmati rice dusted with a golden colored dust that was slightly sweet.  I was also served a small Mediterranean salad before the meal that I ate with the meal as my vegetable. I could only eat 1/2 and Sharief provided me a box to carry the other 1/2 home. 

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The most fun was the arrival of Shahin, his wife, and daughter after lunch. I have not seen his wife in many years and it was fun to get reacquainted.  When I told her I was blogging, she immediately joined as a follower, so I hope she enjoys my adventures in food.

After Shahin’s family left I bought a lb. of medium, No. 2 bulgur, a jar of the fresh homemade yogurt, and a small jar of tahini in case Suzette needs some for the hummus she intends to make for dinner Thursday night. 

I then drove to Walmart Neighborhood Market to buy Vita Herring in Wine Sauce and discovered they had none, so I bought a gallon of milk and drove home.

When I arrived home around 2:45  I checked the market and discovered that the early surge in Nvidia mostly held up until the close with Nvidia closing up $4.70 to $186.58, even in the face of the government shutdown, which tells me that Nvidia is considered a safe harbor for the rich to park their money in troubled times.  Apple, the other stock I consider a safe harbor with a strong international market was volatile today swinging from a high in the morning of $255.92 to a low in the afternoon of $253.11 but managed to recover to $254.63, for a $.20 gain by the close.

These are remarkable stock performances in this troubled economic time. Microsoft also gained $3.35 per share to confirm its universal appeal and market dominance.

I then drafted a pleading for one of my cases until 5:30 when Suzette fetched me to cook dinner.

We had decided to use the two grilled, smoked trouts to make a fish soufflé. Suzette followed the recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of lFrench Cooking. I affectionately refer to it as my bible for French cooking since I used it to learn to cook French Cuisine.

Here is the recipe.  

While I filleted and boned the trout and added the butter, green onion, and lemon thyme stuffing from the trout stomach cavity and sliced and added the cooked Korean Basil leaves Suzette had wrapped around the trout, Suzette separated 6 egg yolk from the whites. She added the yolks to the fish mixture and whipped the whites into stiff peaks in the Kitchenaid mixer.

After seasoning the fish mixture we folded it into the egg whites and poured the combined mixture into a large buttered soufflé dish dusted with grated Jarlsberg cheese. Suzette then covered the top of the mixture with grated Jarlsberg cheese (our substitute for the recipe’s French or Swiss Gruyere) and Italian parsley picked fresh from our garden and Suzette baked the souffle in our steam oven for 40 or 50 minutes at the designated settings for soufflés.

We served the soufflé with a pile of cucumber, onion, and cherry tomato salad I made with a cucumber and cherry tomatoes from our garden.

I fetched a bottle of Kirkland Pinot Grigio from the garage, which is my favorite under $5.00 bottle of wine and perfect for a light fish dinner, such as soufflé and poured glasses.

We also drank a glass of Italian red wine before dinner while the soufflé was cooking.

After dinner we were both tired and went to bed at 8:00 after watching my beloved Finding your Roots.  I love its discovered family histories and tonight was no exception. One of the two guests was Ruben Blades, the Panamanian musician. He discovered that he was the illegitimate grandson of Panama’s most famous poet named Miro and also related to Panama’s most famous female poet. Seen in perspective with those discovered lineages, it is obvious where he got his talent for writing and performing his music.

I awakened at 1:00 and finished this blog and drank a cup of Earl Grey tea with milk and 1/2 tsp. of sugar.

I love cooking with Suzette because she will tackle any recipe and loves to use PPI’s such as the smoked trout as ingredients in new and different dishes like using the fish meat to make a fish soufflé or yesterday’s dinner, when instead of making pedestrian hamburgers, she sautéed fresh mushrooms until golden browned and then sautéed the ground beef and added PPI Penne pasta and homemade pesto to make a rather elaborate and tasty hamburger helper concoction dusted with grated Reggiano Romano cheese.

We can take on such elaborate recipes such as fish soufflé because we prep and cook together, which reduces the time and effort required of each of us.

We are lucky that we have good food to get us through these trying times. Many are not so lucky. I probably will make another donation to the ACLU soon.

Bon Appetit