April 30, 2026 Breakfast - Granola Lunch - Trail Rider Restaurant Dinner - Leftover Salmon, Rice, and Broccoli with Scallop in Lobster sauce

April 30, 2026 Breakfast - Granola  Lunch - Trail Rider Restaurant Dinner - Leftover Salmon, Rice, and Broccoli with Scallop in Lobster sauce

I slept badly but awakened finally at 7:45 and saw Cat was up $80.00. I immediately sold 5 shares of Caterpillar at $878.24 and then took a shower.

After I dressed I saw that CAT was up to $891.65, so sold 6 more shares.

I then ate a bowl of granola in our garden that is full of blooming plants.

I then worked at my desk until 10:45 when I walked down Charlie and Susan’s house. Martha was visiting so I talked to her for a minute.

We left for book club at 11:00 and picked up Peter and Charlie drove us to Trail Rider Restaurant in Cedar Crest that has taken over the large Greenside space.

We were joined by Karl, Pradip, Paul, and Jeff for lunch and then book club at Karl’s house. The menu was extensive with lots of sandwiches and pasta dishes. I settled on Spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread. The spaghetti sauce had a noticeable black pepper flavor but was otherwise mild. The meatballs were firm ground beef and the star of the dish was the pile of fresh linguine. The melted mozzarella covering the dish was inedible, so I pushed it to the side.  Everyone enjoyed their meal.

The book was Fer de Lance by Rex Stout. After the meeting we all enjoyed the Margarita Bundt ca ke and Chocolate Fudge Bundt cake and chocolate chip cookies Joanna made using recipes from Susan’s The Best of Bundt Cookbook.

Charlie returned me home at 4:00 and I rested until 5:45 when I went the garden and picked chives and thinly sliced them but we decided to heat the leftover salmon, rice, and broccoli instead and sauce the dish with the leftover Scallops and Lobster sauce left from lunch yesterday at East Ocean. The lobster sauce was a perfect sauce for the salmon.

I drank the last glass of New Zealand Scott Family Sauvignon Blanc

We watched Midsomer Murders during which we drank limoncellos and I ate the last of the last bit of quince, fig, and apple cobbler.

After Midsomer Murders Suzette went to bed and I watched George Gently and then blogged this entry.

Bon Appetit

April 29, 2026 Breakfast - Gravad Lax, Red Onion, and Goat cheese omelet with toast. Lunch - East April 29, 2026 Breakfast - Gravad Lax, Red Onion, and Goat cheese omelet with toast. Lunch - East Ocean. Dinner - Grilled Lamb riblets with sautéed Zucchini and Vichyssoises

April 29, 2026 Breakfast - Gravad Lax, Red Onion, and Goat cheese omelet with toast. Lunch - East April 29, 2026 Breakfast - Gravad Lax, Red Onion, and Goat cheese omelet with toast. Lunch - East Ocean. Dinner - Grilled Lamb riblets with sautéed Zucchini and Vichyssoises 

I finally slept 8 hours last night and began editing my Reply at 6:30.

At 7:30 I made a Gravad lax, red onion, and goat cheese omelet and toasted three slices of baguette and brewed a fresh cup of Earl Grey.

I then continued editing until 11:30 when I drove to East Ocean to meet Mike for lunch. I was pleasantly surprised when I was able to order Scallops in Lobster Sauce without salt. It tasted funny at first but I quickly got used to the absence of salt and enjoyed the dish.i swallowed down my wind pipe that caused my to gag and throw up some of the dish until my esophagus cleared, so I took about 1/2 home.

Mike ordered his usual Kung Pao Chicken and ate most of it.

I stopped at Lowe’s grocery on the way home and bought two small avocados and a small eggplant for the Mapo Dofu stew we will make tomorrow evening for dinner.

When I returned a bit after 2:00 I checked the Market close and my portfolio was down about .82%, but still it’s all time high.

I then continued editing my reply and finished all 18 pages by 4:30.

Suzette came home around 5:00.

Dinner - We decided to grill the rack of 8 lamb riblets and sauté the two zucchini we had with 1/3 Vidalia onion and three cloves of garlic. I went to the garden and picked six or 7 stalks of chives a handful of parsley and about ten stalks of oregano. I then chopped the chives and parsley and Suzette chopped the oregano.

I sliced the zucchini and onion, and garlic and Suzette sautéed the vegetables in a large cast iron skillet with butter and olive oil.  When the zucchini and onion had cooked for a while I squeezed juice of 1/2 lemon onto the sautéed vegetables and stirred in the minced parsley and oregano.

At 6:00 willy arrived to join us for dinner.

Suzette simultaneously grilled the riblets with Willy”s assistance and stirred cream into bowls of Vichyssoises.

I opened a 2018 Rivavallana Gran Reserva Rioja that was really delicious and poured glasses of it and added several cubes of ice to Suzette and my glasses.

We all loved dinner with the lightly charred riblets, sautéed lemon zucchini and Vichyssoises and a good Rioja.

We talked until 7:45 when Willy left and I lay down to blog. Suzette cleaned up and came to bed at 8:30.

We all agreed that this was another California Cuisine meal mainly due to the absence of salt that allowed the individual flavors of ingredients and herbs to emerge more prominently than when salt and other spices are used to enhance flavor.

Bon Appetit

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April 28, 2026. Breakfast - Gravad Lax on Bagel. Lunch - Leftover Ratatouille, rice, and Korean BBQ Pork. Dinner - Grilled Salmon with Rice and Steamed Broccoli and Carrots

I worked on my pleading from around 2:30 to 7:30 when I toasted two thin slices of bagel cut from 1/2 bagel and spread them with cream cheese and garnished them with thin slices of red onion and thick slices of Gravad lax and watched the Market head down. I then worked until 10:30 when I took a walk around the block.

When I returned I worked until 1:00 when I heated the leftovers ver Ratatouille and rice with some of the leftover Korean BBQ Pork. The combination of flavors and textures turned out to be incredibly interesting and sift and moist to the tongue.

I was tired and could work no more and lay down but shortly after 2:00 Anum arrived with documents for me to notarize.

When she left I gathered the mail and sent a notice of noise violation to Brian, our Old Town Tap Room tenant.

Then I checked the Chase Bil to make sure it was still current and lay down again until Anum returned with More documents to complete the notaries.

I lay down against n and called Willy and invited him for diner of salmon and asked him to bring a vegetable. 

I then mined several stalks of garlic chives. Lemon thyme, and parsley that Suzette brought in from the garden that she combined with butter and heated in the microwave to make a sauce to pour over the cooked fish.

Willy arrived around 6:30 with a bag of broccoli flowerets and baby carrots.

I was watching TV, so Willy and Suzette grilled a salmon filet on a cedar board and steamed the vegetables and heated some of the leftover green rice.

Willy went to the garage and selected a bottle of Faustino Rivera Ulcea Albariño, which is one of our favorite wines and a perfect compliment for grilled fish.

Willy opened the wine and I poured glasses of it and Suzette served us plates of fish, vegetables, and rice. The salmon was cooked perfectly and had a uniquely wonderful flavor with the cooked herb butter sauce and no salt.

It was a first rate California Cuisine dinner.

Willy left at 8:00 and we watched the American Revolution series by Ken Burns and I ate a small bowl of cobbler. I fell asleep at 9:00 and we went to bed.

Bon Appetit

April 27, 2026 Breakfast - Fried Eggs with Steak and Onion Lunch - Egg Salad Salad Dinner - Ratatouille, Lasagna, amd Rice

April 27, 2026 Breakfast - Fried Eggs with Steak and Onion Lunch - Egg Salad Salad Dinner - Ratatouille, Lasagna, amd Rice

I fried a leftover slice of rib steak, with a slice of Vidalia onion and two eggs for breakfast.

Then I worked on my pleading and walked to the bank.

For lunch at 1:00 I made a lovely salad with several romaine lettuce leaves, the remaining egg salad, grape tomatoes, and grapes.

Today was special because the high tech sector rose dramatically again and my portfolio hit a new high unimaginable several years ago.

We are in the midst of a technological revolution never seen before where machines will do more work than humans possibly in the near future in many fields of endeavor, such as agriculture and other repetitive jobs.

Around 4:30 I drove to Smith’s to buy a 1/2 gallon of milk for $1.39 and also bought a two lb. Salmon filet, a lb. of ground pork. Bagels, two packages of bacon on sale, a bag of flour, and two Belgium endive

When I returned home Suzette was tired and did not wish to cook, so we decided to heat up some leftover Ratatouille, rice, and the last piece of the amazing spinach and mushroom lasagna made with tallegio and Racalette cheese.

We opened a bottle of Spanish Mencia red wine.

After dinner we watched the Antiques Roadshow and ate bowls of Quince, fig, and apple cobbler.

After the Roadshow we went to bed

Bon Appetit

 

April 26, 2026 Snack - Pain au Chocolate Breakfast - Awful, Potato, red cabbage, mincemeat stuffing scrambled Eggs, Lunch - Egg Salad Salad. Dinner - Grilled Rib Steak and Asparagus with Potatoes Dauphinoise

April 26, 2026 Snack - Pain au Chocolate Breakfast - Awful, Potato, red cabbage, mincemeat stuffing scrambled Eggs, Lunch - Egg Salad Salad. Dinner - Grilled Rib Steak and Asparagus with Potatoes Dauphinoise 

I woke up at 2:00 and worked on my pleading until 4:00. Then I turned on the TV and saw that one of the cycling Spring classics, Leige Bastogne Leige was being telecast so I watched that. Tadej won the race by over a minute to a new 19 year old French rising star who finished about 1 minute ahead of the peleton. I think this I was the fourth year Tadej won this race and is now being compared with Eddie Merckx, the greatest cyclist of all time.

I then had a snack of a pain au chocolate with a cup of tea as I watched Chelsea beat Leeds in the semi-final FA match. Chelsea will face Man City for the FA championship and Willy could not be happier because he bet that Man City would win the Premier League championship this year and it looks like he might win his bet.

At 9:30 I made a terrible breakfast with red cabbage, leftover stuffing from the acorn squash, old baked potato slices and eggs. It was really bad but it got rid of some leftovers.

The only good thing about the meal was we ate it under the gazebo in the garden beside the water Irish and roses.

At noon we drove to Costco to buy a mattress cover but there was none. We bought lamb riblets, eggs, pistachios, 15 lb. of Yukon Gold Pitatoes, dirt for the garden, baguettes, coffee, red and green grapes, 5 lb. of Vidalia onions, and baby portobello mushrooms. 

We stopped at Lowe’s hardware on the way home for an extension cord and when we returned home after we put up the groceries, Suzette connected the extension cord to the charger in her BMW to maintain the battery.

When we returned home I minced 1/8 of a Vidalia onion, two stalks of celery, four hard boiled eggs, about 1/3 cup of minced fresh tarragon and several sprigs of garlic chives to which Suzette added a Mayo dressing to create a lovely egg salad that she served on slices of romaine lettuce garnished with grape tomatoes and a bunch of red grapes for a wonderful lunch with a glass of Vouvray and a slice of toasted baguette.

After lunch the wind was blowing in gusts, so we did not garden. I rested and read until 5:00 when we picked a stalk of immature garlic in the garden that Suzette used to rub garlic juice onto the Pyrex pie dish she cooked the Potatoes Dauphinoise in. I peeled and sliced three or four potatoes to which Suzette added 1 cup of heated milk and butter, 1/2 cup of Gruyere cheese, and white pepper and then baked the potatoes Dauphinoise about 25 minutes at 425 degrees.  Here is the recipe.

I had thawed a rib steak at 2:00 when we returned home and fetched a bunch of asparagus from the garage.

I also peeled and sliced six potatoes and three leeks and minced a stalk of garlic from our garden and simmered them in five cups of Suzette’s homemade chicken broth. After an hour of cooking Suzette emulsified the cooked vegetables to make Vichyssoise after dinner.

Willy joined us for dinner. Suzette grilled the steak to medium rare and grilled the asparagus with the steak.

I opened the carton of 6 Calstar 2014 Sangiacomo Pinot Noir that arrived on Thursday and opened a bottle to let it breath about 1/2 hour while Suzette was preparing dinner.

The pinot opened up as it always does and tasted even more fruit forward after 1 hour, which I love about this wine.

We enjoyed dinner. Everything was terrific. The Potatoes Dauphinoise prepared using Julia Child’s recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking was particularly impressive, browned Twisted cake like and full of flavor, a French classic.

After dinner there was some Pinot left so Willy opened several bars of Hawaiian chocolate we brought back from Hawaii and we savored a last glass of wine each with squares of rich 60% and 70% cacao chocolate.

Willy left after dinner and we then watched the final Forsythe Saga episode at 8:00 and went to bed at 9:30.

It was a day with food highs and lows which made us appreciate the highs better.

Bon Appetit