September 2, 2014 Lunch La Salita Dinner Salmon Roulade with spaghetti with fresh pesto and cucumber salad

Suzette’s niece, Karen, who was visiting us for the weekend from San Diego, California, really liked chili and New Mexican food, so on Labor Day we went to the Chili Connection and Sprouts and at Sprouts, she bought a thirty pound bag of green chili for $19.95.  We also bought three 6 oz. salmon fillets for $1.99 each.

At our Labor Day evening meal with Mike and Kathryn and Cynthia and Ricardo, I suggested that we all meet at La Salita at noon the next day to eat chile rellenos.  Mike ordered his favorite, stuffed sopapilla and I ordered my usual lite bite swiss cheese stuffed chili relleno with beans and extra garnish and onions on a bed of stewed turkey meat.  Kathryn and Karen ordered the chili relleno plate it one cheddar cheese stuffed relleno and one guacamole stuffed relleno.  They both loved their dishes.  I believe that La Salita makes the best chili relleno in New Mexico, soft in the inside and crisp on the outside with good refried bean or whole beans and the best green chili sauce, made with chicken stock in the traditional Mexican style.  

La Salita's Chili Rellenos Plate with beans and rice

Karen went to her friend, Amy’s, Mom’s house for dinner, so we decided to make the recipe for rolled salmon fillets from the California Wine Country Cookbook.  Suzette started boiling water and cooked spaghetti and then tossed it with some of the fresh pesto she had made last week.  She also pounded the salmon filets until they increased somewhat in size and could be rolled and held in a roll with a bamboo skewer.

Suzette then sautéed the salmon and when it was ready served it with the spaghetti and some PPI pickled cucumber, tomato and onion salad for a quick and easy dinner.  The wonderful secret with this method of cooking salmon, is that the filet is cooked on the outside and soft and tender in the center.

  

We drank glasses of Banfi Pinto Grigio and 2010 Leese-Fitch Sauvignon Blanc with dinner.  

Bon Appétit

September 7, 2014 Dinner   New Recipe   Salad Nicoise

Saturday morning we bought an assortment of fingerling potatoes, four large stalks of rhubarb and three beautiful tomatoes ($3.00/lb.) at the Santa Fe Farmer’s Market.  When we returned to Albuquerque on Saturday afternoon we went to Costco and bought a piece of fresh deep red Aji tuna ($13.99/lb.), a box of strawberries and a 1 lb. box of organic greens, with the intention of making Salad Nicoise.

Sunday morning we ate our usual bacon, lettuce, and tomato salad in the garden.  Suzette had used only one-half of the beautiful yellow and red tomatoes because she wanted to save the rest for our Salad Nicoise.

In the afternoon I spoke to Billy while Suzette walked to the Arts and Craft show at Robinson Park near our house and then walked down the alley and picked a bowl full of green figs.

When she returned around 3:30 she took a little nap.  At 4:30 Suzette started making her rhubarb and strawberry compote for the cobbler we decided to make on Monday night, while I made a fruit salad with the papaya, pineapple and oranges we had bought at Pro’s Ranch Market last week. Suzette sliced and added the rest of the strawberries she did not need for her rhubarb and strawberry compote into the fruit salad.

After the rhubarb and strawberry compote was cooked and the fruit salad made, around 5:30 we decided to start the Salad Nicoise, so it would be ready to eat by the beginning of 60 Minutes. 

Suzette started preparing the Salad Nicoise by bringing to a boil, a handful of fingerling potatoes and two eggs.  Then she heated peanut oil and seared the tuna filet until just the outside was cooked and the inside was still red.  She sliced the yellow and red tomatoes into wedges and she peeled a cucumber and made long cucumber wedges.  I fetched some PPI string beans from last Monday’s meal and she re-heated them with the tuna and garnished the salad with the tuna and string beans, tomatoes, cucumber slices and egg slices.  I wanted olives so I fetched the container of Kalamata olives and placed about eight or nine on my salad.  

   

Salad Nicoise 

1  4 oz. Tuna filet per salad

1/2 cup of fingerling potatoes (cut into slices)

1 egg per salad (cut into slices)

Sliced tomatoes cut into wedges

Cucumber sticks

1/2 cup of string beans boiled and sautéed and cut into 1” pieces

1 cup of salad per bowl

Olives:  traditionally, small Nicoise olives are used, but since we had none, I added pitted Greek Kalamata olives from Costco.   Suzette did not add any olives to her salad, so they are optional.

Suzette placed organic salad greens in two large pasta bowls and then laid the other ingredients on the greens.  Suzette used an egg slicer to cut slice uniform slices of potatoes and egg.  By the end the process the surface of the lettuce was covered with all the array of ingredients and then garnished with the seared tuna.

Basil/ Balsamic Dressing:

I wanted to emphasize the tomatoes, so I went to the garden and picked

8-9 large basil leaves and sliced them crossways into thin strips.  I then added finely minced

5 – 6 small cloves of garlic and added about

1 ½ Tbsps. of red Balsamic vinegar and a

dash of pepper and salt to taste, and whipped the vinegar and oil, as I drizzled in about

½ cup of olive oil (we considered and rejected the addition of Dijon mustard),

to make a very simple dressing.

We each dressed our salads and I fetched the PPI bottle of 2010 Leese-Fitch Sauvignon Blanc from the fridge and we carried our bowls of salad and glasses of white wine to the table in the TV room and watched 60 Minutes.  

After 60 Minutes at 7:00 p.m. it was twilight and the solar lights surrounding the pond had come on and a nearly full moon had risen in the eastern sky and the setting was quite beautiful.

We had heard Dr. Gupta discuss the horrors of sugar on Fareek Zacharia’s Sunday morning show on CNN, so Suzette made dessert by cross cutting two cuts into each of 6 figs and putting a dab of creamy French Le Delice (Costco $10.99?/lb.) cheese into each and poured out the rest of the Fonseca Bin No. 27 fine reserve port into small port glasses (Good port often is unfiltered, so there will be a large amount of sediment that is thrown off in the bottle.  Traditionally one decants the port, leaving the sediment in the bottom of the bottle.  Otherwise, someone will usually get a small amount of sediment in their glass, as I did this evening.)

We took the plate of figs and the glasses of port to the gazebo area in our garden and listened to the sound of summer insects and watched twilight turn to nigh and the nearly full moon and the moon’s reflection on the surface of the pond for a while, as we enjoyed the end of our leisurely day spent at home.   We both commented on what an enjoyable weekend it had been.

Bon Appétit 

September 6, 2014 Lunch Harry’s Roadhouse Dinner Calabacitas with a grilled pork sirloin chop. A day in Santa Fe

We awakened at around 8:00 a.m. at Amy and Vhal's and had tea with spoonsful of Suzette’s new crop of honey she gave Amy and Vhal when we arrived late last night.  Vhal had a tennis match in Albuquerque at 8:00 so we missed him in the morning but Amy told us about their recent trip to Scotland and their visit with Dela and Willy, showing us pictures of the Loch Ness and other notable sites like the Isle of Skye, which is the McCrimmon's ancestral homeland. 

We planned to meet for lunch at Harry’s Roadhouse and drove to the Farmer’s Market in Santa Fe and bought rhubarb, delicate squashes, beautiful yellow and red tomatoes, green chili for Vhal and okra for Amy.  We then went to the Trader’s Market north of the opera and Suzette was successful in finding the gauzy white embroidered Indian shirt she wanted and also found a lovely black and grey layered cotton shirt.

At around 11:30 we drove to Harry’s Roadhouse for our noon rendezvous with Amy and Vhal.  They arrived a couple of minutes after we did.  Vhal had won his doubles match in Albuquerque and when pressed announced that his is the top seated doubles pair in his age category in New Mexico.  We discussed his trip planned for Tuesday when he travels to Washington to play Tom Udall in a match and his planned visit to the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia. Vhal and Suzette ordered a daily special of fried Mahi Mahi sandwich with fried plantains and black beans and a mustard dressing, which was very crisp and delicious.  Amy got her favorite New Mexico breakfast, Huevos Rancheros, which we discovered is served all day long.  I ordered vegetable couscous, which was described as a pile of couscous covered with a vegetable stew including an assortment of butternut squash, raisins, potatoes, cauliflower, and garbanzo beans served with harissa and charmoula sauces.  

Unfortunately, when it arrived it had lots of potatoes and no butternut squash.  I complained to the waiter and sent it back to be re-done.  When it was returned it had four or five pieces of butternut squash and only one or two pieces of potato and I enjoyed it very much and offered it to the others to try.  I liked the charmoula sauce and harissa sauce, that seemed to be freshly made at the restaurant.  I got a very direct recollection/hit of Morocco.   Here is a recipe for charmoula sauce, which can be used with many dishes, either as a sauce or a marinade:   

Servings:

Servings 2

2-3

Servings

·                    

Update

·                     1/2 tablespoon paprika

·                     1/2 small dried red chilies, crushed or 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

·                     1 teaspoon ground cumin

·                     2 cloves garlic, finely minced

·                     4 tablespoons lemon juice

·                     1 tablespoon dried parsley

·                     1/4 cup chopped cilantro

·                     1/3 cup fruity olive oil

·                     salt and black pepper

After lunch we returned to Santa Fe and visited Zaplin-Lambert Gallery where we were pleasantly surprised that Richard had sold Suzette’s consigned George Catlin drawing for a price of $14,400.00 to the director or one of the curators for the Peabody-Excess Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.   She was happy that it had found a good home.

We then went to visit with Aaron Payne at his gallery and admired his Cady Wellses and especially his catalogs.  Aaron gave us a great tip about how to find rare publications by going to bookfinder.com.

True to Nat Owings' word on Friday, Owings’ Gallery was closed, but we could hear the music from the Santa Fe Fiesta street festival still going strong a block away.  I came to the conclusion that buying art requires silence and contemplation and street fairs are not conducive to buying fine art.  

We decided to leave downtown Santa Fe and look for hinges for a shelf for the new mud room we had constructed where the utility room used to be in our house in the architectural furnishings galleries along Cerrillos Road.  I read the New Yorker while Suzette shopped.  She did not find any hinges but she did find a nice newly made Mexican wrought iron garden hose rack for $45.00.

We then drove back to Albuquerque. 

When we arrived in Albuquerque, we drove to Costco and bought 10 boneless sirloin pork chops, a piece of tuna, a box of organic lettuce, white fish salad and few other items.

We drove home and made Calabacitas, using one of the pitty pan squashes we bought at the Chile Connection the other day, the kernels from the last 2½ ears of corn boiled for Wednesday’s party, four green chilis that had been bought and roasted at Chili Connection, and an onion.  When the calabacitas were cooked we grilled two of the pork chops and opened a bottle of 2013 D'Autrefois Pays d'Oc Pinot Noir Rosé ($9.99 at Total Wine).

After dinner we each ate a fudge brownie left from Suzette's girls' group birthday party with scoops of vanilla ice cream and spoonfuls of whipped cream.  I really liked the combination of whipped cream and ice cream together.

Bon Appétit

September 5, 2014 New Recipe: Goat cheese and herb stuffed bacon wrapped chicken breast with sautéed squashes Dinner at T.R. and Linda’s house

We drove to Santa Fe around 2:00 to attend the opening of the Florence Pierce resins show at Charlotte Jackson’s Gallery.  We first stopped at Stephen’s Consignment, but did not see anything of interest.  Then we went downtown and tried to go to Aaron Payne’s Gallery and Nat Owings Gallery and both of them were closed.  We saw Nat but he was going to the gym at around 4:00 and said he may be open Saturday morning.  We both got the feeling that they did not think the folks who came to celebrate the Santa Fe Fiesta were very good customers and that the folks who came to Fiesta kept their customers away.  We walked around the square and looked at the booths, but did not see anything very interesting.  I got the same feeling about the Santa Fe Fiesta crowd and scene that I got at the Albuquerque street fair scene.  A decidedly different crowd that the one I am used to and not very appealing culturally to us.  We then drove to the Railyard and visited Jacqueline at Tai Gallery and found out she had recently bought a house in the Osage at Agua Fria area, so we were happy for her. 

We walked next door and saw the resin pieces at Charlotte Jackson’s which were impressive because you could see Pierce' transition from white resin with manipulated surfaces in her resin pieces to pure colored resin without any manipulation.  There was a pure resin piece that was 20"X20" that must have been one of the first pure color resin pieces that shimmered that looked like it may have been one of the breakthrough pieces that I liked a lot but it was priced at $20,000.00.  We were not expected until 6:30 and it was 5:15, so when Suzette found a Pasatiempo and we saw that the Chirascuro Gallery was having an opening, we drove to Canyon Road, parked and stopped at Ernesto Mayans Gallery for a bit, but he was closing so we walked across the street to Chiaroscuro Gallery and saw the show there, which did nothing for us because no Fonseca's.  We then walked up Canyon Road to New Concept Gallery that was also having an opening and I was amazed that it was showing new work by Jane Abrams and Aaron Karp.  I looked at Aaron Karp’s new work for a while and decided to not buy anything.  When when I turned the corner to go to another part of the gallery, I saw and instantly fell in love with a Tim Prythero model of the local Dairy Queen that had stood at 15^th and Central, just two blocks from our house where we used to take the kids for ice cream, until recently demolished.  I have always felt a strong appeal for Prythero’s work ever since I saw Bea Torgerson’s Prythero piece twenty-five years ago but this was the first piece I have felt an immediate urge to have one.  Prythero's Dairy Queen piece was exact to the last detail including the electrical box on the western wall of the building.  Thank God it was priced at $2,250.00.  After a little bargaining I bought it for $2,000.00.

A picture of the DQ is at http://www.newconceptgallery.com/prythero_portfolio.html

TIM PRYTHERO

Albuquerque’s Tim Prythero has been working in his distinct miniature style for over 20 years, sculpting buildings, churches, old adobe structures, gas stations and eateries. He works in great detail to document the history of a past era. He describes his passion for such subject matter: “I’ve always been fascinated by the sculptural beauty of old adobe structures and the more formal Colonial architecture… Many buildings of Northern New Mexico are disappearing due to neglect and weather and I think it is important to document these subjects before they disappear.” Tim has shown extensively in the US including New York, Washington DC, Santa Fe, Dallas, and Los Angeles. His work is held in numerous collections such as Chase Manhattan Bank and The New Mexico Museum of Art.

Happily we drove to T.R. and Linda Lawrence’s home on Old Pecos Trail high up on the hill across from John Gaw Meem’s designed Baptist Church.  Thanks to Suzette and her new gardener, Jefferson, who is a bee keeper, we presented T.R. and Linda with the perfect house gift, a bottle of fresh local honey from Suzette’s new bee hive.  When we arrived we met their house guest Paulo, who is an Italian chef and teaches yoga,  We had drinks and appetizers on their patio behind their house. 

  We then moved inside for a light meal of chicken stuffed with goat cheese and herbs with sautéed squashes. Linda had pounded the chicken breasts out and after stuffing them had wrapped them in bacon strips to hold them together and give them a bit more flavor and then grilled them.  I found the dish to be very simple and one of the most appealing ways I have ever experienced to prepare grilled chicken breast.    

T.R. and Linda do not do dessert, which was fine with us, but when they offered us additional drinks after dinner, I asked if they might have an after dinner wine, Linda rummaged through their liquor cabinet and found an unopened bottle of Fonseca Bin No. 27 fine reserve port. 

I could not see any vintage year listed on the label of the Fonseca Bin No. 27.  Perhaps the reason is that it is a blend of several year’s ports.  Here is some information on Fonseca’s Bin No. 27:

Winemaker's Notes

Fonseca Bin No. 27 was created over a century ago for family consumption, and only released commercially in 1972. It is produced primarily from wines from Fonseca's own quintas in the Cima Corgo and thus shows an exceptional quality and consistency from year to year. Blended from reserve wines selected for their intense fruit character and depth of color, Fonseca Bin No. 27 spends four years in large wood vats prior to bottling. Although it may improve slightly with bottle age, Bin No. 27 is ready to consume when bottled. It does not require decanting, as a cold precipitation prior to bottling prevents any "crust" from forming. Its well-knit structure, rich, velvety full body and luscious blackcurrant and cherry flavors, also evident in the nose, carry into an intense, lingering finish. Bin No. 27 should be served at room temperature either alone or with simple, classic last courses and desserts. It is best consumed within two weeks after uncorking.

Critical Acclaim

"Fresh and grapey, with plenty of grip and power behind dark plum, chocolate and berry flavors that feature slate and pepper notes."
90 Points Wine Spectator

 Linda and T.R. graciously offered to open the port even though they did not want any of it, so Linda offered us cognac sniffers and I poured glasses of port and we moved back out to the patio where they had built a fire in their metal fire pit on the patio and we sat and talked and fed the piles of wood T.R. had gathered from the trees in their yard and talked until after 10:00 when we had exhausted the pile of wood and the fire finally died down and we all got sleepy. The slightly cool weather made the fire on the patio feel even more welcome, even though it told us that the seasons were changing with Fall and Winter soon arriving.

       

We thanked T.R. and Linda for a lovely evening and took the rest of the bottle of port they offered and drove to Vhal and Amy’s house in Eldorado.  Amy had waited up to welcome us and Suzette gave her a bottle of honey and we talked for a few minutes and then went to their downstairs guest bedroom to sleep.

Bon Appétit

September 1, 2014 Labor Day Dinner Party Rib Eye Steak, Mashed Potatoes, Sautéed String beans, Cucumber and Shallot Salad, and Sautéed Mushrooms, onions, and Shishito peppers

Mike and Kathryn and Cynthia and Ricardo came at around 6:30.  Cynthia and Ricardo brought beautifully marbled rib eye steaks, a peach tart, mashed potatoes, and wonderful fresh sautéed string beans picked at the garden Cynthia tends in the North Valley.

Here is the rub that Ricardo put on the steaks:

Chile Rub

1T plus 1 t chile powder
2 t ground cumin
2 t brown sugar
1 t dried oregano 

1 t coarse salt

Cynthia also made a fresh salsa from chilis she had raised in her garden and brought corn chips to eat with them as an appetizer.  We also had made a peach tart with zabaglione and we made a cucumber and shallot salad dressed with Rice Vinegar, Aji Mirin and chili sauce, salt and sugar.  I had also sliced for large white mushrooms and about 3 Tbsp. of yellow onion, and chopped about ten cloves of garlic and had bought a about fifteen shishito peppers at Sprouts ($3.99/lb.)  When the steaks were placed on the grill, I started sautéing the onions in 1 ½ Tbsps. of butter and 1 ½ Tbsp. of olive oil.  I added 2 Tbsps. of fresh basil leaves and a dash of Herbs Provence and salt and pepper and sautéed the mixture until the pepper took on color, which was about ten to fifteen minutes.  Suzette boiled corn on the cob and we set everything on the round table in the TV room in a buffet.

We sat under the gazebo in the garden and had a wonderful meal with lots of friendly conversation and wonderful food and wine for over an hour. 

Cynthia with her perfect plate of food

The gang at the beginning of the meal

Ricardo near the end of the meal

the Wines

Wines - Suzette had been given a bottle of 2010 Gérard Bertrand Corbières by Pierre, a luscious Southern Rhone mixture of Syrah, Grenache and Mouvedré.  Karen brought a bottle of 2012 Fighter Pilot Red, a medium zinfandel with a bit of spiciness made by one of their friends. Mike and Kathryn brought a Belleruche Cotes du Rhone white and a 2012 Elio Altare Barbera d’ Alba.

After dinner I made whipped cream with 2 Tbsp. of powdered sugar and a dash of vanilla and Karen, Suzette's niece who was visiting for a few days, made decaf coffee.  Mike served the peach tortes and I fetched a bottle of 1994 Rozès Late Bottled Vintage Reserve unfiltered port.  Everyone agreed the port tasted very smooth until we got to the bottom of the bottle and hit the thick layer of sediment.

At 9:30 we said good byes and by 10:00 everyone had retired to their rooms for the night.

   

August 30, 2014 Pasta with pesto, shrimp, and fresh mozzarella with white Sicilian Grillo wine

We went to Old Town this evening to hear the music in the band stand and met Steve and Eileen White in front of their stores at 300 Romero and then Cynthia and Ricardo in front of the Aceves Basket Shop on their way to celebrate their first anniversary with a dinner at Antiquities.

We went home without any plans for dinner.  Suzette suggested that we use some of the fresh pesto she had made on the PPI Gemelli pasta and add some fresh mozzarella cheese.  I suggested that we add a few shrimp.  I boiled and peeled ten medium shrimp and cubed them into pieces.  Suzette cubed a squash and 3 Tbsps. of red onion and sautéed them in some butter and olive oil and white wine in a large skillet. When the ingredients had softened and cooked she added 2 cups of pasta and tossed the pasta with some grated Pecorino Romano and then in a large serving bowl with the fresh cubed mozzarella. 

I poured glasses of Sicilian Grillo white wine and we had a delicious and simple meal.

Later, I ate some chocolate ice cream for dessert.

Bon Appétit 

August 31, 2014 Dinner Bobby Flay Chicken with Brussels sprouts, Corn and Asparagus casserole and Braised Cucumber

Suzette’s niece by marriage, Karen, came to visit us for a few days.  Karen is not eating red meat so I thawed out the two PPI Bobby Flay seasoned chicken thighs and two more unseasoned chicken thighs.

In the morning I had halved and peeled the last ten of the peaches Suzette had brought from the prodigious harvest at her Center in Los Lunas.  They peeled and cut cleanly in half with one knife stroke into perfect circles, so I put them into a pasta bowl and covered them with saran wrap and looked for a recipe for custard.   In the morning we had discovered a large cucumber in the garden that must have weighed three pounds. When Karen came at around 1:30 we discussed dinner and Karen found a recipe for Julia’s braised cucumber that was simple to make.  It called for sautéing cucumber cubes in 1 Tbsp. of butter covered for five minutes and then squeezing 1 Tbsp. of lemon juice into the cucumbers and adding a dash of salt and cooking them covered for another two minutes.

At around 3:00 we decided to go to the Hispanic Cultural Center art museum.  When we arrived we found that admission was free on Sundays.  Besides the permanent collection, there were four other exhibits, three cut paper exhibits and the other exhibit was of prints created by the ASAR collective of revolutionary teachers and artists in Oaxaca that rebelled against the government in 2006. 

Getting Up Pa 'l Pueblo: Tagging ASAR-Oaxaca Prints and Stencils features block prints and stencils from the ASARO (Assembly of Revolutionary Artists of Oaxaca) collection in the University of New Mexico's College of University Libraries and Learning Science, Zimmerman Library, Center for Southwest Research and Special Collections (CSWR). "Getting up" is slang for posting and applying images in public places; generally, the expression refers to street art. ASARO is a contemporary Mexican artists' collective working in block prints, stencils, and graffiti murals. The group was formed in 2006 after riot police repressed annual teachers' demonstrations in the state capital of Oaxaca.  We forget how important an art institution the Hispanic Cultural Center is.  My guess is that it enjoys the same status as the National Gallery when it comes to traveling art exhibits, which is that it has first dibs on all exhibits relating to Latin American/Hispanic/Chicano Art traveling to or originated by museums in the U.S.  So the quality of Latin American Art is of the first order.  It also has one of the best if not the best curatorial staff for Latin American Art in the country, so the exhibits are beautifully hung and documented. We loved the exhibits.  No pictures are allowed.

At 5:00 we drove through the Tingley Beach area and Old Town and returned home.  We made ourselves mojitos and sat in the garden and watched the sun send slats of light through the trees and talked.  We made a Brussels sprouts casserole before watching 60 Minutes peeling and cutting in half Brussels sprouts, the kernels of two ears of corn, and the last of the bundle of asparaguses and doussed them in olive oil and salt and pepper and baked it for 30 minutes in a 350˚ oven.

After 60 Minutes Suzette made her, now famous, Riesling pastry dough.  Here is the recipe:

While Suzette made the pastry dough, I made a zabaglione with 4 egg yolks, 2/3 cups of sugar whipped together and then cooked with the addition of 5/8 cup of Royal tokaji.  Tokaji (Hungarian: of Tokaj) is the Hungarian form for the name of the wines from the Tokaj wine region (also Tokaj-Hegyalja wine region or Tokaj-Hegyalja) in Hungary or the adjoining Tokaj wine region in Slovakia; the traditional English form is "Tokay". The name Tokaji (which is of Protected Designation of Origin) is used for labeling wines from the Hungarian wine district; the Slovakian form is "Tokajské". This region is noted for its sweet wines^[1] made from grapes affected by noble rot, a style of wine which has a long history in this region. The "nectar" coming from the grapes of Tokaj is mentioned in the national anthem of Hungary.

While we were making the pastry and zabaglione Suzette was sautéing  the thawed Bobby Flay chicken thighs in a large cast iron skillet in a bit of olive oil.  One of the coolest steps in the sautéing is the use of a second skillet of slightly less circumference filled with water to weigh down the chicken and make it cook faster, like chicken roasted under a brick.  After about 8 minutes of sautéing on the top of the stove at medium heat, Suzette put the skillet into the 350˚ oven with the Brussels sprouts casserole.  After another ten to fifteen minutes the chicken and the casserole were ready. 

With about 7 minutes left of cooking time for the casserole and chicken, I cooked the cucumbers.  And we were ready to eat.  I served the last of the Grillo Sicilian white.   We then opened the bottle of Southern Rhone white that Mike had brought with its blend of Syrah, Mouvedre and Grenache.

During the meal the timer went off when the peach torte was ready.  The light golden top had turned a dark golden brown, which we put into the fridge for tomorrow evening’ meal.

After dinner as the sky darken we took up our positions in our newly remodeled orhard area and watched the fireworks at the Country Club.

Later we had a slice of the PPI chocolate torte that Charlie had given me after it was served Thursday night at Book Club with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and cups of decaf coffee.

Bon Appétit