March 4, 2025 Lunch - East Ocean Dinner - Sautéed Trout, steamed Asparagus, and PPI Couscous

March 4, 2025 Lunch - East Ocean  Dinner - Sautéed Trout, steamed Asparagus, and PPI Couscous

I worked from 1:30 to 6:00 on a Response in the LRGA and then slept to 8:45.  Luckily I went to bed early, around 9:30 last night.

I ate a bowl of granola with curdled milk, yogurt, and Tropical fruit salad.

I worked on an edit of a pleading until 12:30 and called Mike to see if he wanted to go to lunch. He was finishing a run in a week of runs totaling 33 miles. We decided to meet at East Ocean at 1:15.  I was a few minutes early and told our favorite waitress we were two and she asked if we wanted our usuals, deep fried tofu with stir fried Chinese vegetables for me and Kung Pao Chicken for Mike. Then then the waitress surprised me and asked, “Lemonade for your friend and hot tea for you?” Before Mike even walked into the restaurant.  

I uttered the only response I could, “Of course.” Since that seemed right.

She brought the lemonade and hot tea and shortly after Mike came.

Then a few minutes after I poured tea and had a sip. Then a bowl of rice and small bowls of egg drop soup was served. I love the egg drop soup at East Ocean because it tastes like the broth is real chicken stock.

Then in a few more minute large platters, one filled with a pile of chicken and cubed vegetables covered with red pepper flakes. The other was a pile of vegetables cut in longer strips. The vegetables included zucchini, broccoli, onion, bamboo shoots, snow peas, mushrooms, water chestnuts, bok Choy, celery, and baby corn.

We talked until 2:00 and got to see what the cooks were eating, a soup and a pile of beef short ribs in what looked like a BBQ sauce.

I drove to Smith’s and bought a discounted wedge of a cheese called robusto that is a Gouda style cheese aged 12 months. I also bought 18 eggs for about $9.00 or $.50 per egg, a large fresh trout, a lb. of thick cut bacon, two packages of chicken thighs that were buy one get one free, a bunch of Italian Flat leaf parsley, a baguette, a gallon of milk, and strawberries on sale for $1.50.  It was a good day of shopping.

It was 4:00 when I arrived home and I was tired from my all nighter, so I rested until 6:30, when we began cooking.

I rinsed and then cut the head and tail off the trout while Suzette put some flour, salt, and pepper into a gallon freezer bag. I put the trout into the freezer bag and coated the entire trout with flour.

I also snapped six large asparagus and fetched the PPI Couscous. I put the asparagus into the steamer with water and onto the stove.

I put the couscous into its plastic container into the microwave.

Suzette sautéed the trout in about 1/4 inch of canola oil and then when it was almost turned on the heat under the steamer and heated the couscous.

When the floured skin of the Trout turned a golden brown I filleted the trout and discovered that the top was undercooked so Suzette microwaved the two halves for a few seconds to cook the meat thoroughly. We also made tartare sauce by combining Mayo, pickle relish, lemon juice and horseradish.  Luckily the extra cooking in the microwave did not destroy the juiciness or tenderness of the trout’s delicate flesh. Suzette plated each plate with a trout filet, three steamed asparagus, and for me, some couscous.  Suzette has eliminated almost all carbs.

We sauced our trout liberally with tartare sauce and opened a bottle of Kirkland Pinot Grigio to drink with dinner. Its fruitiness went well with the citrus in the tartare sauce and the mild flesh of the trout.

After dinner Suzette watched President Trump’s speech and I took a glass of Pinot and three cookies to the bedroom and read for an hour.

We went to bed as soon as Trump ended his speech around 9:00.

Bon Appetit 

March 3, 2025 Lunch - Bologna and cheese sandwiches and Potato Chips. Dinner - Baked Tandoori Chicken with Rice and broccoli with cheese fondue sauce

March 3, 2025 Lunch - Bologna and cheese sandwiches and Potato Chips. Dinner - Baked Tandoori Chicken with Rice and broccoli with cheese fondue sauce

I ate granola with yogurt, milk, and tropical fruit salad for breakfast.

Then at 10:15 I drove to DHL and sent credit cards to Willy in Kuala Lumpur.

I returned home and sent a check for taxes to Wink - Loving ISD and some more paperwork.

At noon I made three small sandwiches on rounds of baguette spread with mustard and Mayo and slices of Lebanon Bologna and Racalette and washed them down with a glass of Kirkland Saint Emillon.  

Then at 1:00 I went to Bill Turner’s office and worked for 3 hours revising a complaint and affidavit.

At 4:00 I returned home and  brought in the chicken leg quarters and broccoli.

Suzette was resting on the Crystal heating pad.

I ate a cookie with a cup of tea and rested until 6:00.

The news is terrible. Trump said today he was going to implement the tariffs and that sent the markets tumbling over 2%. I keep thinking something will happen to correct the trajectory toward catastrophe but then this evening it was reported that Trump has cut off American aid to Ukraine. It keeps getting worse.

I heard an interesting theory by a commentator this evening. That Trump was so afraid of going b to jail that he sought the aid of Russia and Musk and others. He really does not want The responsibility of governing so he is letting Musk and the Russians take over governing. 

We will see tomorrow night when he speaks to the nation what his governing principles will be.

At 6:00 we started dinner.

Dinner - I separated the legs from the thighs and fetched the tandoori seasoning and cut the flowerets from the clusters of broccoli and fetched the saffron basmati rice left from our dinner at Mazaya Saturday night.

Suzette then took over and dusted the chicken with tandoori and sautéed the chicken in canola oil and then baked the chicken in the oven for about twenty minutes. I blanched the broccoli in a pot of water with a little salt.

Suzette decided to make a cheese sauce so I cubed about 1/4 lb. of Racalette cheese while Suzette made a butter and flour roux in a sauce pan. She then added milk and 1/2 of the cheese. It took a few minutes for the sauce to heat to the point that the cheese melted. Then we added the rest of the cheese and some white wine and I stirred the sauce until all the cheese melted.

While I was stirring the sauce Suzette heated some of the rice in the microwave and opened a bottle of chilled Kirkland Pinot Grigio and poured glasses of it.

Suzette then plated the plates. She did not eat any rice but poured sauce over a plate full of broccoli and put a leg and a thigh on the broccoli.

For me Suzette placed a pile of rice beside some broccoli and a thigh on top of the rice and I sauced the broccoli.

It was a great dinner I loved the Swiss fondue sauce on the broccoli that I ate with bites of rice and chicken. I even ate the crisp part of the chicken skin covered with tandoori seasoning.

I went bed to Blog this entry at 8:00 and read Baumgartner by Asher.

Bon Appetit  

 

March 2, 2025 Early Breakfast snack - Latte Macchiato and Chocolate Croissant. Later Breakfast snack - Gravad Lax on bagel garnished with sliced red onion, Gravad lax, avocado, tomato, and capers. Lunch - Three Berry Salad Dinner - Salad Nicoise

March 2, 2025 Early Breakfast snack - Latte Macchiato and Chocolate Croissant. Later Breakfast snack - Gravad Lax on bagel garnished with sliced red onion, Gravad lax, avocado, tomato, and capers. Lunch - Three Berry Salad  Dinner - Salad Nicoise 

I was a little weak when I awakened around 6:30 and after we discussed the trip in bed, we got up at 7:30 and I ate a Chocolate croissant and my first latte macchiato of the year. 

Then at 10:00 Suzette washed and dried the two slabs of Gravad lax. I had cured this batch 36 hours, 18 hours per side using my standard 1 1/2 times the Swedish recipe, being 1 cup of salt, 3/4 cup of sugar, and 1 tsp. of ground black pepper for three to 4 lb. of fresh salmon and a bunch of dill.  Here is the picture of the fully cured (Gravad) salmon (lax).

Suzette sliced and toasted a bagel in three slices. I spread them with cream cheese and Suzette sliced a tomato and an avocado and I sliced slices of Gravad lax and red onion 

and we layered them onto the bagel slices. I drank a cup of tea with mine and Suzette drank coffee with hers.

I watched the news and then showered and got dressed.

At 11:30 Peter came to pick me up and we picked up Charlie and drove to the Indian Cultural Center’s Harvest Restaurant. A wide range of dishes were ordered. The best one I thought was a Fry Bread Dip Sandwich made was a pile of sautéed chopped rib eye nestled in the middle of a fry bread  served with a a jus dipping sauce seasoned with red chili; a really creative dish with superb ingredients and execution. Others ordered bowls of red chili, blue corn enchiladas, and a sampler with small bowls of red and green chili, and a vegetable soup.  I already had eaten two snacks so was not very hungry, so I ordered a three berry salad, a bed of Gourmet greens garnished with strawberries diced and whole blackberries and blueberries with crumbled feta cheese and toasted pinon nuts with a raspberry vinaigrette dressing.

After lunch we drove to Charlie’s house for the book club meeting.

Their corkscrew broke so I fetched one from my house plus some Gravad lax for Paul and a bottle of Calstar 2020 Nelson Hill Pinot Noir that was wonderful.

The book was Lefthand of Darkness, an award winning sci fI novel.

After the meeting Charlie served us Sara Lee cheese cake.

I then went home with Nick and gave him a slice of Gravad lax.

It was 4:00 when I walked around the block to reach a total for the day of around 4200 steps.

When I returned home I worked on picking wineries and restaurants for the Argentinian trip until Suzette came home.

Suzette had not eaten anything since the lax and bagel in the morning lax, so she was hungry.

We decided I would make a Salad Nicoise with the leftover grilled teriyaki salmon. I followed Julia Child’s recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It is a composed salad comprising potato cubes, lettuce, tomato, a sliced hard boiled egg, black olives, blanched green beans, and white anchovies plus teriyaki grilled salmon and for me two thin slices of red onion. I made a French Dijonaise salad dressing with Dijon seeded mustard, red wine vinegar, a pressed clove of garlic, good Spanish olive oil, and dried tarragon plus the oil from the anchovies.

It was a delicious salad and quite filling. We drank the rest of the bottle of Pinot Gris we bought at Death Valley and I toasted several rounds of baguette.

After dinner we watched the Oscar presentations. The big winners were Anora, Brutalist, Wicked, and Dune 2.

We went to bed at 9:00 when the Oscars ended.

Bon Appetit 

March 1, 2025 Breakfast - Leftover Mary and Tito’s Enchilada. Lunch - Leftover Crazy Fish Chirashi. Dinner - Mazaya Cafe

March 1, 2025 Breakfast - Leftover Mary and Tito’s Enchilada. Lunch - Leftover Crazy Fish Chirashi. Dinner - Mazaya Cafe

This was a good day of work and food. At 3:30 I awakened and sorted tax documents and flipped the Gravad lax and went back to bed at 5:45.

I woke up again at 8:00 and worked at my desk and

the Florence Simon Trust tax schedule.

I drove to DHL but it was closed.  When I returned at 10:30 we drove to El Super and shopped for groceries. 

After we returned home and put away the groceries, Suzette went shopping at the thrift store and I ate lunch.  I ate the leftover 1/3 of the Crazy Fish Chirashi I ate on Thursday for lunch plus the belly slices of fresh salmon I bought at Smith’s on Thursday.  It was an awesome lunch with a few added pickled daikon slices. The fresh salmon tasted better than the two day old slices of Aji tuna, ultra white tuna, yellowtail, salmon and octopus and the sushi rice coagulated from being fluffy.

I made a cup of green tea.

After lunch I napped from 2:45 until 3:45.

Then I showered and dressed and at 5:20 we drove drove to UNM for the NM Symphony program. The first piece was Samuel Barber’s Adagio for strings and the second item , Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 played by Michelle Cano blew everyone away. It was among the best programs of the year. We stayed for Copeland’s score for Billy the Kid ballet but did not care for it.

After the concert we walked to Mazaya Cafe on Harvard that rates a 4.6 rating.  It was a Greek cafe. Suzette ordered a beer and I ordered a black cherry cider. Then Suzette ordered a Chicken Shawarma Platter and I ordered a Gyros Platter. Then Suzette platter included a large pile of saffron flavored basmati rice, a pickle and pickled turnip, and a slice of tomato and cucumber with a bowl of tzatziki on my gyro platter and a Mayo and yogurt garlic sauce on Suzette’s platter   We asked and were served an additional bowl of pickles and pickled turnips and when we asked for to go boxes the waiter brought each a small container filled with sauce. The service and hospitality was wonderful. 

We arrived home at 9:21 in time to watch Bill Maher who had Fareed Zacharia and Rahim Emmanuel as his guests and wonderful insights into Trump.

Then at 10:00 we watched Have I Got News for You, which is our new favorite show.  Tonight’s guests included US Congresswomen Jasmine Crockett from Texas. They worked in a question about her. What did the only democrat to comment on Elon Musk say? The answer was Jasmine Crockett who when asked , What would like to tell Elon Musk? Said, “Fuck off.”

We went to bed at 11:00 after a lovely day of food and music.

Bon Appetit