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