October 29, 2026 Breakfast - Granola with yogurt, milk, and raspberries Lunch - Monroe’s with Book Club. Dinner - Crab Souffle, Salad, and Bean Soup

October 29, 2026 Breakfast - Granola with yogurt, milk, and raspberries Lunch - Monroe’s with Book Club. Dinner - Crab Souffle, Salad, and Bean Soup

I woke up around 6:00 and ate breakfast and worked at my desk until 10:30 when I got ready for book club. I ate granola with yogurt, milk,band fresh raspberries again, as some of them are beginning to show signs of mold.

I picked up Peter at 11:10 and drove us to Monroe’s for lunch with the book club. Several people ordered a bowl f green chili. I ordered the breakfast of two eggs over easy, two enchiladas filled with carne adovado and cooked squash and lettuce and tomato with extra onions.

The prices have gone up and my dish was $12.95 and is now $15,95 plus $1.00 for the carne adovado.

We then drove to Charlie’s house for our discussion. Susan had bought a bottle of Precision Cabernet Sauvignon but no white so I drove home and fetched a bottle of Llegado de Farro, a blend of 80% Verdejo and 20% Godella from Castillo and Leon.

We discussed The Persian by McCloskey until around 3:00 and then drove Peter home.

When I returned home at 3:30 I rested until 5:00, when Suzette and I started cooking dinner. We had invited our old friends Wayne and Elaine and Nancy and Cliff for dinner.

The menu we selected was crab soufflé and a chopped salad of Napa Cabbage, tomatoes, and cucumbers.

Nancy brought a white bean soup and Fruit tartlets from Whole Foods. Elaine brought a tossed green salad that we combined with the cabbage salad for which I made a tarragon vinegar, mustard, and Chateau Ott olive oil dressing. So we had a complete menu of soup, crab soufflé, salad, and dessert.

We followed the Julia Child recipe for Fish soufflé as we usually do and Suzette cooked it in the steamer oven and it turned out perfectly.

Here is the recipe.

It is a little complicated but with both of us prepping, it went rather smoothly.

I minced Swiss cheese and buttered and dusted the souffle dish with cheese.  I minced a shallot that Suzette cooked in white wine. Suzette whipped the egg whites and separated the yolks and started the Bechamel sauce by cooking flour in butter and heating a cup of milk. I took over at the stove to add the milk to make the Bechamel sauce and then off the heat whisked in the egg yolks and cooked the shallot.

We then combined the cooked minced shallot with the Bechamel and stirred in the crab meat.

Then then we folded the fluffy whipped egg whites into the combined ingredients and Suzette poured it into the dish and set the steamer oven to the setting for soufflé, as Wayne and Elaine arrived around 6:20.

Nancy and Cliff arrived around 6:45. Suzette set the dining room table with the Rosenthal China with its black on white soup bowls and heated Nancy’s bean soup and we ate a first course of soup and I toasted slices of Bosque Bakery Rustic baguette and South Valley Sourdough to go with the soup and salad.

Then Suzette served the souffle and the combined salad with more bread.

I opened the chilled bottle of Red Newt Dry Riesling that arrived this week and after we drank it Suzette fetched a bottle of French Vielles Vignes Sauvignon Blanc from the garage and we filled glasses with it.

I was amazed that the souffle was sufficient to serve seconds and thirds.

After we finished the soufflé Nancy and Suzette served the fruit tartlets on dessert plates.

Suzette’s organization of China and the table was flawless and the combined efforts of everyone made for an elegant meal.

                                           Here are the plates left after dinner

We talked in the living room a bit and around 8:30 Wayne and Elaine left. Then at 9:30 Cliff and Nancy left and we went to bed.

It was a lovely day of food and social interaction that tired me but made me feel better, if those two are compatible.

Bon Appetit

October 28, 2026 Breakfast - Granola with milk, yogurt, and fresh raspberries. Lunch - leftover Spaghetti, hamburger, and spaghetti sauce. Dinner - Crab Cake Sandwiches with bread and butter pickles and lettuce

October 28, 2026 Breakfast - Granola with milk, yogurt, and fresh raspberries. Lunch - leftover Spaghetti, hamburger, and spaghetti sauce. Dinner - Crab Cake Sandwiches with bread and butter pickles and lettuce 

Suzette awakened me at 8:00, I filled a bowl with granola, milk,vanilla  yogurt, and fresh raspberries that I ate at my desk as I read mail.

Then I edited the draft of my motion until 10:30 when I went to the garden and cut three roses and ate a plum.  When I finished editing the motion at 1:00 I heated the leftover Spaghetti, Ground beef, mushrooms, and homemade spaghetti sauce from dinner last night and drank 1/4 glass of  Johal’s Cabernet Saugivnon with it.

Then i watched the market close and discovered my portfolio suffered a  .2727% loss.  The futures for tomorrow look much worse as there seems to be an impending sell off again of high tech stocks.

Suzette arrived around 3:00 as I renewed my professional liability insurance.

At 4:00 we drove to El Super to buy ingredients for enchiladas. We bought yellow squash and zucchini, a large bag of tomatillos, a Pasilla chili, onions, a cucumber, requeson, grated mozzarella and milled cojita cheese, warm blue corn tortillas, and hamburger buns.

When we returned home around 5:00 we started preparing the enchiladas for tomorrow night’s meal. We divide our effort when cooking. I chop and prep and Suzette cooks. That usually produces a completed meal in less than half the time it would take one person to cook it.

I diced a large onion, six cloves of garlic, and 1/2 of the Pasilla chili that Suzette started sautéing. Then I quartered the tomatillos that Suzette then cooked in the pork broth we made when we boiled the roasted boneless pork ribs and added the sautéed onion, garlic, and chili to the tomatillos. I then sliced two zucchini and one yellow squash into the rounds and diced a medium onion that Suzette sautéed. I then sliced the rest of the mushrooms, about 1 lb. 

                               The sliced Mushrooms, requeson, and shredded mozzarella

Suzette then pureed the cooked tomatillo, onion, garlic, and chili with an hand held emulsifier and heated the bag of shredded roasted and boiled pork in the microwave.

We were then ready to assemble the enchiladas. 

Suzette ladled a small amount of tomatillo sauce and water into a small skillet that was just a bit larger than a corn tortilla and sautéed six blue corn tortillas to soften them and then laid them to cover the bottom of a large Pyrex baking dish. Then she covered the tortillas with the shredded pork, 2/3 of the requeson and some sauce. Then she sautéed six more blue corn tortillas to cover the pork layer and covered them with the sautéed squash, onion, and zucchini and the rest of the requeson and some of the shredded mozzarella. Then she covered the squash layer with another layer of blue corn tortillas and spread the mushrooms and some cojita cheese on the tortillas. We ran out of blue corn tortillas so Suzette sautéed six yellow corn tortillas to cover the mushroom layer and covered them with top layer of tortillas with the rest of the shredded mozzarella and cojita cheese. She the poured the rest of the tomatillo sauce on top of the top layer and pushed it down into the sides of the stack of tortillas and ingredients and baked the enchiladas in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

While the enchiladas baked we ate dinner. Suzette fetched two chilled Negra Modelo beers and heated the two leftover crab cakes and tore lettuce and fetched the jar of home made bread and butter pickles snd the leftover tartare sauce. I toasted two hamburger buns and then assembled the sandwiches. She spread tartare sauce on the toasted hamburger buns and added a reheated crab cake, some bread and butter pickles, and torn lettuce to each and opened the beers and we had one of the best crab cake sandwiches I have ever eaten. Crab cake sandwiches are a Pennsylvania traditional sandwich that is served at almost every seafood restaurant and large outdoor market in central Pennsylvania. We always eat one when we go to the vast Routs market on Thursdays.

We then watched game five of the World Series that the Brewers won to win the Series.

I ate seven pieces of Halloween candy during the game and I and my muscles are feeling good as I write this entry at 10:30.

We invited Nancy and Clift for dinner tomorrow evening.

Bon Appetit

October 27, 2026 Breakfast - Bagels with smoked trout Lunch - Beans, Pork, Onion, and Manchego cheese. Dinner - Spaghetti, hamburger, and spaghetti Sauce.

 October 27, 2026 Breakfast - Bagels with smoked trout  Lunch - Beans, Pork, Onion, and Manchego cheese. Dinner - Spaghetti, hamburger, and spaghetti Sauce.

I awakened at 6:00 and read mail until 7:20. The most interesting was a New Yorker article about the Democratic candidate for Senate from Alaska, Mary Peltola, who is a Upik Native and a Salmon fishing conservation advocate.  Over fishing has become the major issue in the Senate contest. There is a conflict between Pollack trawlers and Native people who traditionally rely on Salmon for their winter sustenance. The trawlers scour the bottom and catch other fish, such as salmon, other than Pollack in their huge nets, thus depleting the salmon populations ion by as much as 90%.

Then I toasted two slices of bagel and smeared them with cottage cheese and garnished with thin onion slices and the Leftover trout from several dinners ago and watched the market open.

Suzette started a pot of beans cooking with onion and carrots that I stirred and watched until 2:30 when they were ready.

At 10:30 I ate a plum and edited a pleading until 12:30, when I heated a bowl of beans, shredded pork, onion, and Manchego cheese slices and toasted a flour tortilla for lunch.

After lunch I worked on the motion until 2:30 when I checked the market and was surprised that my portfolio had a good day, increasing 1,166%.

I then drove to the bank and withdrew some of the money Sammy sent me and drove to Halflife and talked to Nikelle and David about our trip to France and earlier trips to Galicia Spain and picked up a rent check.

They are going to invite me and Suzette to a Scottish fiddler recital at their cottage.

I then drove to the transmission shop and delivered money for Scott’s truck’s transmission repair. I had a long conversation with Greg the owner about his family history. His father escaped from a Nazi concentration camp.  He is Jewish, with his father’s family from Germany and his mother’s from Russia. They met at Ellis Island in 1947 and married.

At 5:30 I drove home and drank a gin and tonic with lime juice while Suzette fried leftover spaghetti, ground beef, and spaghetti sauce for a perfect dinner for me.

We drank the last bits of wine in three open bottles with dinner.

We then watched the World Series and Finding your roots and went to bed at the end of the ninth inning without watching the game as it went into extra innings.

Bon Appetit