January 30, 2026 Breakfast - Granola Lunch - Cheese and Coffee Dinner - Grilled Steak with Baked Potato and sautéed Mushrooms and leek

January 30, 2026 Breakfast - Granola  Lunch - Cheese and Coffee  Dinner - Grilled Steak with Baked Potato and sautéed Mushrooms and leek

I have been sleeping better in the last few days.

I woke up at 7:45 and dressed and was ready at 8:20 when the bricks arrived to instruct the Craig to place them on the right side of the garage.

Today I ate granola with a new Lala mango yogurt, with milk, and tropical fruit salad. What a nice change for better flavor.

I then got busy in my office and organized and filed my LRGA exhibits and pleadings to clear my desk and figure out what I had and organize it.

The great wave of response is coming and I want to be ready.

Then when Suzette returned from her exercise session around 11:30 we drove to the bank and each withdrew one half of the cost of the brick installation.

Suzette had seen an interesting menu for Seared and wanted to try Cheese and Coffee for lunch. Seared is the only restaurant I know that is run by one crew for lunch and a different crew for dinner in the same location. That location is in the neighborhood at Alhambra and San Pasquale, so an easy drive from the bank.

We were the only customers eating lunch and we were directed to a corner table by the waitress. The Menu was mostly sandwiches and salads. There was only green chili chicken soup. I ordered the sandwich featured on the chalkboard,yhe Knock Out with sweet potato fries.  Suzette had a more difficult time ordering and finally decided on a chicken salad salad to see how they make it in comparison to the Bistro version which she eats most days.

The reason why Suzette wanted to go to lunch at Cheese and Coffee was to examine its dinner menu, because her Sysco rep had shown her a four item limited entree menu that was a partially table d’hote menu that she was thinking of implementing at the Bistro.

What we did not expect was the complete incompetence of the waitress. Suzette had to ask two times for her to bring the dinner menu and when she served our food we had to ask her to bring us a knife and fork and napkin. I found it laughable, but Suzette is no as amused by incompetence as I am.

When Seared’s dinner menu was delivered we finally figured out that the four item entree menu was weekly special served in addition to a complete menu with most of the lunch sandwiches and salads, plus French Onion Soup and a full complement of entrees with all the meat groups, such as duck breast and ribeye steak.

So we realized that there was no creativity in the menu and there may even be a question of competency in the service. I did enjoy my warm sandwich stuffed with sliced Turkey, salami, black olives, lettuce and tomato between slices of grilled sourdough sandwich bread with a pile of breaded and deep fried waffle cut sweet potatoes ($17.00).

 We traded dishes and I liked Suzette’s chicken salad in a large bowl of greens and diced tomatoes, but reacted to the heavily peppered lemon vinaigrette dressing ($15.00).

Suzette felt sorry for the mostly disoriented waitress and left a $5.00 tip, since it appeared that we were the only one’s showing up that lunchtime.

When we returned home we thawed one of the T bones I had bought recently.

Then at 5:00 Suzette baked five of the russet potatoes I recently purchased.

Dinner - At 6:00 I sliced 1 1/2 leeks and four or five portobello mushrooms and Suzette thawed the steak fully in the microwave.

Then I plucked the stems from a basket of baby spinach.

Suzette chose a bottle of Red Tail Ridge Cabernet Franc for dinner. We opened it and tried it and it was delicious, smooth with the delicate flavor of Cabernet franc.

Then Suzette started sautéing the leeks and mushrooms in butter and olive oil. I took over and she seasoned the steak with salt and pepper and fetched dried lemon thyme from our garden. I added about 1/2 T. of thyme and 1 T. of sherry to the mushrooms and leeks and then after they cooked a bit added the baby spinach.

Suzette grilled the steak for about ten Minutes on each side. Then when she brought it in I sliced the fillet and sirloin strip from the bone and sliced them into slices while Suzette finished the vegetable sauté by adding some cream.

I usually like creamed spinach but tonight’s recipe with the addition of sherry and thyme clashed with the cream in my opinion.

But then Suzette put the Bobby Flay Mint parsley chili sauce on the table to dip steak into and opened a potato with a broad x for each of us and added butter and sour cream.

I sliced a green onion into thin ringlets and added some to each potato.

A refill of wine and we then enjoyed the best steak dinner available in Albuquerque today.

After dinner we watched a Hallmark Valentines movie on Netflix and went to bed at 9:30.

Bon Appetit