May 24, 2026 Snack - Pain au Chocolate Brunch - Eggs Benedict. Snack - Herring Sandwich Dinner with Monica and Aaron - Grilled T-bone, Roasted Potatoes with Mint and Roasted Asparagus

May 24, 2026 Snack - Pain au Chocolate Brunch - Eggs Benedict. Snack - Herring Sandwich  Dinner with Monica and Aaron - Grilled T-bone, Roasted Potatoes with Mint and Roasted Asparagus

I awakened around 6:30 and watched the news and drank a latte macchiato and ate a pain au chocolate.

Then at 9:00 Willy arrived with his computer and we watched two of the ten PL Final day matches, mainly Tottenham’s match and West Ham’s match to see which would be relighted. Both won their match so West Han was relegated because it was 2 points below Tottenham in the standings.

Then we made brunch at 11:00. I made Hollandaise sauce using Julia’s  recipe but with three sprigs of tarragon to give it a slightly tarragon flavor and fried four slices of bacon and toasted three slices of the fresh Country style loaf we bought from Le Quiche yesterday at the Farmer’s Market. Suzette poached eggs in a boiling pot of water and white vinegar. The resulting combination of poached eggs on buttered toast garnished with fried bacon, covered with tarragon flavored  Hollandaise was magical. 

Willy then dug a hole for the Spanish broom plant in the back yard and left.

We napped until 1:30. 

At 2:00 I made a herring sandwich. I toasted a slice of the Country style bread and smeared it with sour cream and the garnished it with thin slices of red onion and Vita in Wine Sauce that I bought at Walmart Neighborhood Market.

I then completed the tax worksheet for the Florence Simon Trust and sent a copy to Billy.

At 4:00 we started cooking dinner. I sliced a pile of chestnut, shiitake, and oyster mushrooms and sautéed them in a pot until lightly cooked. Then Suzette added about 2 cups of the Cream of Mushroom Soup we made Friday and simmered the combination to reduce it into a sauce.

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I then diced seven or eight Yukon Gold potatoes and placed them into a Pyrex baking dish to which Suzette tossed them in olive oil and roasted the diced potatoes in an oven for an hour.

Suzette then rinsed the two bunches of large organic asparagus I had bought at Smith’s last week when I bought the T-bone steaks.  We snapped the rough ends off and Suzette rolled them in olive oil in a baking pan and roasted them in the oven to insure their even cooking, rather than cooking them over the propane grill flame.

At 5:30 we decided to make a canapé of Gravad lax on baguette smeared with goat cheese. As I was cutting the lax and Suzette was toasting the baguette slices, Aaron and Monica arrived with a bottle of Gruet’s Zozobra sparkling wine from the Memorial Day Wine festival at the Balloon Park. 

Monica then went to the garden and picked a basket of fresh mint. We destemmed the leaves of mint and I minced about 1 cup of mint that Suzette tossed with the warm roasted potatoes.

The Zozobra wine was warm so Suzette took it to the fridge in the garage and brought back a chilled bottle of Juve’ and Camps Reserva Cava. Suzette filled glasses of the light bubbly cava and we toasted to a happy Memorial Day Weekend and sipped cava and ate a lax canapé for the 20 minutes  it took to broil the 1 1/2 inch steak on the propane grill.

After I de-boned and sliced the steak we filled our plates with slices of steak covered with mushroom sauce and a pile of minted potatoes and I served each plate four roasted asparagus.

I then opened a bottle of Kirkland Bordeaux Superior red wine and we took the wine and our plates to the table in the garden under the gazebo and ate a lovely meal  with lots of pleasant conversation of cross-cultural aspects of Monica’s life in Romania and our American lifestyles, such comparing family gardens.  

After we finished our dinners I sliced andn toasted three slices of country style bread that I cut in half and put on a board with a wedge of Affinois cheese, a wedge of Manchego cheese and a wedge of Iberico cheese and opened another bottle of Bordeaux Superiore wine and we ate a cheese course in the garden until 8:30 when the mosquitoes arrived.

We said goodnight around 9:00 and after cleaning the kitchen a bit and putting up the leftovers and watching Las Vegas win the third game of the NHL Western Playoffs for the Stanley Cup, we went to bed around 10:00 after a day with two good meals.

I realize that we love good food and we enjoy cooking good food.

While we were prepping tonight’s dinner Suzette was preparing a pot of beans with onion, carrots, chorizo, and chopped country style pork ribs that she cooked while we were cooking dinner. So we often cook future meal ingredients while we cook current meal ingredients. That allows us to plan meals sequentially. For example, the beans will probably be eaten with the leftover BBQ ribs and BBQ sauce from last night and the roasted asparagus from today’s meal for our Memorial Day dinner tomorrow night.

Bon Appetit

May 23, 2026 Breakfast - Lax and Bagel Snack - Avocado Toast. Snack - Costco Chocolate Ice Cream Sundae. Lunch - Pinto and Fava Beans Dinner - BBQ Country Pork Ribs with Peas and Cole Slaw

May 23, 2026 Breakfast - Lax and Bagel  Snack - Avocado Toast. Snack - Costco Chocolate Ice Cream Sundae. Lunch - Pinto and Fava Beans Dinner - BBQ Country Pork Ribs with Peas and Cole Slaw

I woke up at 7:00 and watched the last 1 1/2 hours of Stage 14 of the Giro.

There was a breakaway of 17 riders that almost a 4 minute lead on the peloton but Visma put in a chase that gobbled up all of the leading group by they got onto the final climb of the day, an over 7 km. mountain road at a 7+% gradient. At which point Vinegaard took off and put over 2 minutes between him and the leader in the Pink Jersey. That plan of coordinated attack put Vinegaard into the GP standings in the race. It was as compelling an example of bike racing strategy as I have ever seen. It also made me wonder how exciting the Tour de France will be this year when this Visma team comes up against UAE and Tadej.

At 8:00 I toasted two slices of bagel and spread cream cheese on them and garnished them with Gravad lax and red onion slices.

Suzette got up around 8:00 and exercised in the hot tub and then worked in te yard. At 9:30 she toasted slices of baguette and spread avocado on them and we snacked on avocado toast.

A bit after 10:00 we drove to the Farmers’ Market which was very crowded. We bought a 1/4 lb. of mushrooms, a lb. of fresh fava beans, and a loaf of country bread and then drove to Costco that was also crowded. We bought a package of country style pork ribs, a bag of Yukon Gold Potatoes, a fancy bottle of olive oil, pain au Chocolate, and six bottles of wine, a Cotes de Provence rose, a Kirkland Pinot Grigio, two bottles of Spanish Crianza and two bottles of Kirkland Bordeaux Superior red wine. All were less than $8.00 per bottle.

We then shared a chocolate sundae made with chocolate ice cream and chocolate syrup.

When we returned home around 1:00 Suzette shucked half of the fava beans and blanched them and added them to the black eyed peas she had previously cooked and added some chicken breast and heated that mixture for a delicious lunch.

Dinner - Suzette filled a Pyrex baking dish with about six or seven pork ribs and began baking then in a 300 degree oven. 

We then napped until 3:30.

When we got up from my nap at 3:30 I made a BBQ sauce in the Ninja blender by combining 1 cup each of brown sugar and catsup, about 1/3 cup of fresh pineapple and about 1/4 cup of the liquid from the tropical fruit salad, about 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar, 2 T. of yellow mustard, 1 T. of Worcestershire sauce, and 1 heaping T. of ground Aleppo chili. The resulting BBQ sauce was tangy but very pleasant. I was amazed by the appealing flavor of the BBQ sauce without either salt or black pepper, that the recipe called for. I felt like this sauce was a breakthrough in the low salt diet.

We spread the sauce on them and added ribs and baked them for another hour.

At around 5:00 we went to the garden and picked a basket full of three or four different types of peas. 

Suzette then made a German style of cole slaw by chopping Napa cabbage and grating carrot and dressing it with apple cider vinegar and sugar. I fetched a bottle of Kirkland Cotes de Provence rose.

We snapped the green peas and Suzette blanched a handful and enriched them with butter for our green vegetable for dinner.

We took the ribs out of the oven around 5:30 and brushed them again with the BBQ sauce and Suzette plated a rib,a slice of onion, some cole slaw and several green peas on plates for dinner while I opened and poured glasses of Cotes De Provence rose.

We ate a lovely Memorial Day weekend BBQ dinner.

Then we watched the second game of the Western finals of the Stanley Cup between Montreal and the Carolina Hurricanes.

At 8:00 we got in bed and Watched an episode of Father Brown but I fell asleep. At 9:00 we went to bed and I slept until 11:00 when I got up and blogged and watched a bit of SNL

I went back to bed at 1:00.

Bon Appetit

May 22, 2026 Breakfast - Granola Lunch - Leftover Spring Roll Dinner - Cream of Mushroom Soup and Lobster Salad

May 22, 2026 Breakfast - Granola  Lunch - Leftover Spring Roll Dinner - Cream of Mushroom Soup and Lobster Salad

I woke up at 7:00 and went back to sleep until 8:00.

I ate a bowl of granola with milk and tropical fruit salad at my desk.

At noon I made a tall glass of iced Vietnamese coffee, a cup of coffee infused with a heaping T. of condensed milk and filled with ice cubes.

I took the iced coffee to the garden table and ate a spring roll from Coda Bakery and read several pages of The Lover by Duras.

At 2:00 I checked the market and my portfolio was up .18% even though Nvidia was down $4.18.thanks to Apple, Cat, and AMD.

I then napped until 3:30 when I walked around the middle circle that helped me accumulate 3700 steps for the day.

When I returned home at 4:30 I made a stock with the leftover steak, steak bones, and chicken and chicken circus

Dinner - When Suzette arrived at 5:00 we decided to make cream of mushroom soup as we had discussed yesterday.  Suzette found this recipe.

I chopped two shallots, a head of garlic, and a lb. of portobello mushtooms that Suzette then sautéed with some flour in mutter and olive oil and then added Marsala wine, cream, and some of the stock.

Suzette picked a handful of lemon thyme and parsley that I minced for a garnish.

Then Suzette picked lettuce in the garden and we made a lobster salad  with lettuce, cucumber, and radish slices. I butterflied the South African  lobster tail and Suzette sautéed it.

I made a light Dijonnaise dressing with Spanish sherry vinegar, a heaping tsp. of seeded Dijon mustard, a squeeze of lemon juice and a tsp. of minced parsley and thyme.

I cut the tail in half and removed the two halves and we sliced them into segments and marinated them briefly in the dressing and then dressed the salad.

I fetched a bottle of Kirkland New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

We enjoyed the soup and then the salad with its chunks of warm lobster.

At 8,00 we watched Washington Week and then Firing Line.

Around 8:30 we watched Colbert’s final show.and James Coburn drive around Liverpool and singl

At 10:30 we went to bed.

Bon Appetit