January 6, 2026 Breakfast - Granola. Lunch - Leftover Chirashi. Dinner - Julia Child’s Fish Soup

January 6, 2026 Breakfast - Granola. Lunch - Leftover Chirashi.  Dinner - Julia Child’s Fish Soup

Another pleasant day of food and a rough day in the market.

I awakened about 7:40. Nvidia and AMD were up but soon trailed off into losses for the second day. By the close my portfolio was down about .5%. 

I started the day watching the market while I ate a bowl of Granola. 

Then I read a new New Mexico water case.

At Noon I ate the leftover Chirashi from yesterday’s lunch with Henry at Crazy Fish. 

Then at 1:00 I watched and napped while Nottingham beat West Ham 2 to 1 until 3:00. From 3:25 until 3:55 I meditated with the group.

 I looked at Julia Child’s recipe for fish soup and then drove to Smith’s and bought Gruyere cheese, heavy cream, bagels, ice cream, cherry preserves, and four fish soup ingredients, 1 lb. each of rock fish, and sole, and 1/2 lb. each of shrimp, and mussels. In the produce area I bought a green bell pepper, red grapes, and a bunch of leeks.

When I returned home I put a chilled bottle of Nobilo New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc into the fridge. 

 

Dinner - At 6:00 Suzette read the recipe and then went to the garden and picked two fennel bulbs, about. 1/2 cup of parsley, and about 8 stalks of lemon thyme.

I sliced one leek and 1/2 onion that Suzette then sautéed. I then minced four cloves of garlic and two tomatoes that she added to the vegetables with a tsp. of the basil salt she made this year and 1/2 tsp. of white pepper and added those ingredients.

Suzette diced the lb. each of Rockfish and Dover Sole and heated the crab and lobster broth while I minced four dried orange slices, the parsley, the fennel, and a T. of lemon thyme.

She then added the herbs, orange and stock to the large casserole and sautéed for a couple more minutes.

Finally she added the fish and shrimp to the soup and we simmered the soup for 30 minutes.

While the soup simmered I sliced and toasted six slices of baguette.

The aroma of the cooking seafood soup was intoxicating.

Finally, Suzette put the mussels into the slowly simmering soup and cooked the soup about another five minutes until the mussels opened and their flavor merged with that of the soup.

Suzette ladled soup into large bowls and I poured glasses of wine and we peeled the shrimp and shelled the mussels and ate a delicious French version of Seafood Soup.

This the first time I have prepared Julia Child’s version of fish soup although I have owned her cookbook for over sixty years.

Preparing and eating the soup felt like reacquainting with an old friend after many years and old memories welling up into your throat with every bite. Clearly, having fresh fennel, thyme, and parsley from the garden helped make the recipe successful and made me anticipate our trip to France planned for September even more.

We dipped crusty bread into the soup and sipped the wine whose slight lemony flavor enhanced that of the soup.  Suzette said the most interesting and unexpected flavor in the soup were the small pieces of dried orange peel.

Now I am interested in seeing if there are any other recipe gems in the book. I may have missed.

After dinner we watched the last three episodes of the new season of Emily in Paris as we sipped cognacs and ate a bit of chocolate and then went to bed around 10:00.

Bon Appetit