August 12, 2026. Breakfast - Granola Lunch - Mary and Tito’s Dinner - Grilled Rib Steak with roasted new potatoes and Cucumber, tomato, and onion Salad

August 12, 2026. Breakfast - Granola  Lunch - Mary and Tito’s  Dinner - Grilled      Rib Steak with roasted new potatoes and Cucumber, tomato, and onion Salad

I worked from 3:00 until 6:00 and went back to sleep until 8:00.

I ate granola with milk, blueberries and yogurt around 8:30.

Then dressed and drove to a meeting at the Utton Center in the Law School building.

After the meeting I drove to Mary and Tito’s for lunch. I arrived a couple of minutes after 11:00 when it opened and there already were diners at almost every table. I ordered my usual, corn tortillas with beef and an egg, double beans, red chili, and extra chopped onions. 

After lunch I finished editing the Reply and thawed a rib steak and checked the market after it closed at 2:00. I gained .75%, about 1/2 of what I lost yesterday. 

I called Willy to tell him packages had been delivered for him and invited him to dinner. I then lay down until 4:00, when Suzette arrived.

We watched the news and discussed dinner and Suzette filled a tray with fresh figs cut criss cross at the top and inserted with dabs of goat cheese and sprinkled with chopped pinon nuts, doused with balsamic vinegar that we ate as appetizers, during the meal, and for dessert.

 We decided quickly to grill the steak with several of the larger new potatoes from the garden, but we lacked any green vegetable. Since we had a bag of lovely ripe fresh tomatoes from the Center and our garden, Suzette suggested a tomato, cucumber, and red onion salad. I prepared the salad while Suzette grilled the steak and potatoes that she had sliced and doused with olive oil and homemade basil salt and wrapped in aluminum foil.

Willy arrived at 7:00 as the grilled steak was resting and Suzette was dressing the salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

I sliced the steak and Suzette divided the roasted potato slices and salad among three plates and I sliced the steak and we each selected slices of steak.

Suzette selected one of the bottles of merlot Johal gave us when we visited the family in Fairfield produced from grapes grown on their property. It had a rich taste and appealing flavor but a slightly acidic finish. As we ate and after the meal when we sipped with squares of the artisanal Ecuadorean dark chocolate Willy and Luke gave me for my birthday in July, the finish smoothed out and it tasted better.

Willy then helped us in two important ways. My Iphone was not charging well, so Willy cleaned out the collected dirt from the opening in the phone in which the charger fit with a wooden toothpick, which allowed the charger to make proper contact. As Suzette said, “Many what appear to be malfunctions can be fixed by cleaning.” She gave the example of the microwave on which the sensor reheat function stopped. Rather than buying a new microwave, she cleaned accumulated food and grease from the top of the cooking compartment and the microwave has worked perfectly since.

Then the second wonderful help from Willy provided was when suzette was trying to access the Hulu series Murders in the Building with Martin Short and Steve Martin. He helped us activate our Disney TV service that was part of the bundle of channels that are included in our Comcast package, but we have been unable to access because we did not understand the activation procedures.

After Willy left around 8:30 we watched the first episode of Only Murders in the Building and at 9:30 went to bed, with the happy knowledge that we will be able to watch its first five seasons in France.

Bon Appetit

 

August 11, 2026 Breakfast - Pain au Chocolate. Lunch - Leftover Chirashi. Dinner - Mapo Dofu and Rice

August 11, 2026 Breakfast - Pain au Chocolate. Lunch - Leftover Chirashi. Dinner - Mapo Dofu and Rice

Not as elegant as yesterday, but really delicious dishes, especially dinner.

I got up at 6:00 and copied tax records and worksheets and sent them to Shahin.

Then at 7:20 I brewed a latte macchiato and microwaved a pain au chocolate for breakfast and then rode around the neighborhood with Suzette.

She then drafted a complaint to send to the Consumer Fraud Division of the NM Attorney General’s office and I helped edit it and I completed the real estate transaction I have been working on.

Around 10:20 Suzette went to her exercise class and I drove to my dentist appointment. After the appointment I went home and ate the leftover chirashi from yesterday’s lunch with Japanese pickled cabbage and daikon and some leftover sushi rice.

 I finished lunch around 3:00 I checked the market and my portfolio was down slightly by a little over .1%. After two or three negative days the NASDAQ may be turning positive.

I meditated from 3:30 to 4:00 and then filed notices of non-availability in my two water cases. I rested from 4:30 to 5:30 when I started peeping dinner.

Dinner - I made Mapo Dofu. I cubed two Ichiban eggplants, 3/4 of a Vidalia onion, 1 lb. of pork loin, 1 1/2 T. of garlic, and 3 1/2 T. of ginger and cooked those ingredients in 2 T. of peanut oil with a dash of sesame oil.

Then I added 1 cup each of fresh shiitake mushrooms and wood ear, and 2 T. of holy basil from our garden.

Then I added 19 oz. of soft tofu and 2 cups of water to just cover the ingredients and cooked them 30 - 45 minutes to stew and blend their flavors.

Then I added a seasoning and thickening mixture containing about 1 T. of cornstarch, about 2 tsp. of sesame oil, 1 - 2 T. of rice cooking wine, and 1/4 cup of water.

After another ten minutes of cooking a sauce developed and the dish was ready.

We heated leftover rice and each of us ladled Mapo Dofu onto a pile of rice.

We drank beer with the meal.

 

Around 8:30 Aaron left and we watched an episode of Finding Your Roots. archived on You Tube until 9:30 when we went to bed.

This was a great day of food and we have enough rice and Mapo Dofu left for another meal.

Bon Appetit

August 10, 2026 Breakfast = Men on an Island. Lunch - Crazy Fish Dinner - Grilled stuffed bacon wrapped Pork loin with buttered new potatoes and snow peas,

August 10, 2026 Breakfast = Men on an Island. Lunch - Crazy Fish Dinner - Grilled stuffed bacon wrapped Pork loin with buttered new potatoes and snow peas

I am eating so well these days I can hardly stand it. Due in large measure to the abundance of fresh produce.

The day started with one of my childhood favorites, men on an island,, an egg fried over easy dropped into a hole in a slice of skillet toasted bread. What made today’s version special was the use of country whole wheat loaf bought from Le Quiche Bakery at the farmers’ market on Saturday for the bread slices. 

I drank my usual latte macchiato with collagen and sugar.

Actually, I called Neelish in Bombay at 3:00 a.m. to see if I could complete dematerializing my bank shares by zoom. Unfortunately he said “No”.

I got dressed by 10:00 and worked at my desk until 11:30.

Then I drove to Crazy Fish to meet Aaron for lunch.  He introduced me to a unique appetizer called Monkey balls that is a mushroom cap stuffed with ground Aji tuna, battered and fried and drizzled with a pink spicy sauce. I liked it a lot. We also ordered miso soups. I was quite filled by the time my chirashi arrived and I barely ate a 1/3 of it.  Aaron did better with his teriyaki chicken bowl.

After lunch I drove home and checked my portfolio that gave back most of what it gained Friday.

I then made an appointment with Shahin to do my taxes and copied and sent tax records and schedules to him until 5:30 when we started dinner.

Dinner - the pork tender we thawed was a large 5 1/2 lb. pork loin, not two small tenderloins, so we came up with a different menu. We decided to butterfly the pork loin and stuff it with some of the peach, fig, and quince preserves we cooked yesterday. Suzette suggested wrapping the stuffed loin with bacon and I suggested wrapping it with aluminum foil so it would retain its juices. After thirty minutes on the grill Suzette opened the aluminum to allow the fire to brown the bacon. I sliced the pork roast into 1/2 inch slices and found that it was perfectly cooked, juicy and still slightly pink on the top half that was away from direct flame.

The large pork loin yielded two additional cuts. Suzette dusted the larger one with salt and pepper and wrapped it in aluminum foil and grilled it also. It will be used for pork sandwiches.

  

The third smaller piece, approximately one lb. will be diced and used as an ingredient tomorrow night in Mapo Dofu.

The high point of the meal was not the grilled pork roast, although it was amazingly delicious, served with a dollop of fresh peach, fig, and quince preserves. The high point were the small new potatoes Suzette raised in our garden and harvested on Saturday.  

I have not eaten really fresh baby new potatoes since 1970 when I lived in Sweden where they are considered an annual delicacy.  We prepared them in the French manner, first boiling them and then sautéing them in sage butter. We also briefly sautéed snow peas with them.

Willy arrived just as Suzette was filling plates with a slice of pork roast, sautéed new potatoes and snow peas, and a dollop of preserves.

I poured glasses of Red Tail Ridge Dry Pinot Rose I had chilled. It was lovely. This was a terrific California Cuisine meal with a clean, elegant rose from New York’s Finger Lakes.

After the meal we sipped another glass of rose with some of the artisanal Ecuadorean chocolate Willy and Luke gave me for my birthday and Range baked cookies that were given to guests at the Valencia County Hispano Chamber of Commerce banquet Saturday evening.

Luke called as we were enjoying dessert to report on his first day at his new job and we thanked him for the chocolates.

Willy left and we watched a British spy thriller titled Black Bag on Netflix and went to bed at 9:30.

Bon Appetit

August 9, 2026. Breakfast - Baguette with cherry jam and Jarlsberg cheese. Lunch - Sautéed Cabbage and Apple with Smoked Pork Cutlet. Dinner - Pasta with eggplant and lamb spaghetti sauce, sautéed Shiitake mushrooms, wood ear, and shallot

August 9, 2026. Breakfast - Baguette with cherry jam and Jarlsberg cheese. Lunch - Sautéed Cabbage and Apple with Smoked Pork Cutlet. Dinner - Pasta with eggplant and lamb spaghetti sauce, sautéed Shiitake mushrooms, wood ear, and shallot

I slept until 8:15.  After Fareed Zacharia I toasted three slices of baguette and spread butter and cherry preserves and garnished wupith slices of Jarlsberg cheese and drank a latte macchiato.

Then we rode our bikes around the neighborhood.

When we returned I rested for a few minutes and then we picked the dozen or so apples from our tree that is looking half dead.

Suzette then simmered figs and cooked peaches from our trees with cooked quince from last year, one vanilla bean, 3 cups of sugar, juice of one lemon, and 2 T. of fresh lemon thyme. After 30 minutes of simmering she filled sterilized jars and processed the sealed jars in a water bath for ten minutes to seal the jars.

At noon while the jam was cooking she also sautéed a smoked pork cutlet and the added tha leftover cabbage and apples we prepared last week.

We then drove to Goodwill and picked up five pants and one shorts to try on to see if they fit.

Then we drove to Total Wine and bought two bottles of scotch for Suzette.

When we returned home we rested until 5:00 when we started preparing dinner.

Dinner - I sliced three shiitake mushrooms, about a handful of fresh wood ear and a medium shallot that Suzette added to the leftover orecchiette pasta mixed with the leftover eggplant stuffed with a lamb, capers, and spaghetti sauce made from fresh tomatoes to which we added three purple tomatoes plus a handful of orange tiny cherry tomatoes, three cloves of garlic minced, 1/2 cup of fresh minced oregano and four larger red cherry tomatoes. I cannot explain how delicious the flavor of fresh ripe tomatoes is, especially joined with grilled lamb and a good Italian red wine.

Suzette opened a bottle of Susemaniello red from Puglia. It was a birthday gift  last month. It was dense, but flavorful, with just a hint of tannins on the finish.

After dinner we watched the last two episodes of season two of Castle Impossible with sips of cognac and a chocolate truffle and went to bed a bit after 8:00.

Bon Appetit