May 11, 2026 Breakfast - Lax and Bagel. Lunch - French Onion Soup. Dinner - Pasta with Snow peas, Ricotta, and leeks

May 11, 2026 Breakfast - Lax and Bagel. Lunch - French Onion Soup. Dinner - Pasta with Snow peas, Ricotta, and leeks

I woke up at 6:45 and watched a few minutes of pre-market activity that did not look promising, which made sense after the monster day on Friday, but as the day progressed the risk on attitude prevailed. Although the NASDAQ was up only 27 points at the end of the day, there a surge of buying in the high tech part of the market by mid day that slackened a bit by the end of the day. My portfolio ratcheted up another .92% today. This rally is inexplicable, except to say that the critics who criticized NVIDIA for its circular investing have changed their critique to praise as all of NVIDIA’s investments are part of this high tech rally. Mid day Nvidia was up $6.00 and it closed at $219.44, up $4.22.

Suzette left early for an appointment and I helped fix breakfast for Billy and Elaine. I toasted bagels and sliced red onion and Gravad lax. Billy wanted to make a sandwich and breakfast with the bread he bought in Santa Fe. He smeared the bread with cream cheese and piled it with  slices of Gravad lax.

Elaine ate granola with strawberries.

I sliced 1/2 of a bagel in half and toasted each thin slice and spread cream cheese and garnished with slices of red onion and Gravad lax.

I ate about 2/3 and drank about 3/4 of a latte macchiato by 8:45 when Billy announced it was time to leave for the airport.

When I returned I finished my bagel and coffee as I watched the market rise on TV until about 9:45.

I then finished reviewing two documents for Earn.

At 11:00 my new client arrived and we spent a bit over an hour on his case.

I then called Karim and Rahim about dematerialization and documents Karim needed notarized.

Then at 1:00 I walked to the bank. I accumulated over 2800 steps today, so a bit above average

At 2:30 discussed my comments on the Earn documents with Aaron.

When we finished around 3:45 I had still not eaten any lunch. As I was heating a bowl of French Onion Soup with croutons and melted Jarlsberg cheese.  Suzette arrived and grabbed a bowl of grapes and went to her office to work.

Finally at 4:30 I was able to watch some news until 5:30 when Suzette wanted to fix dinner.

Dinner - I chopped the We went to the garden and picked a handful of snow peas from our vines plus some basil leaves and parsley.

I chopped the parsley and basil while Suzette snapped the snow peas and chopped some leftover chicken and fetched the jar of fresh ricotta we bought at the Santa Fe farmers’ market on Saturday and combined all the ingredients into a lovely mixture. garnished with fresh grated Parmesan cheese.

 We drank glasses of Archery Summit Vireton Pinot Gris.

Later we watched the Antiques Roadshow and ate Danish cookies and I made a chai. The second hour was another Santa Fe Session from the plaza om Museum Hill.

We went to bed at 9:00 and watched Tucci in Italy for a few minutes but  went to sleep when we saw that it was about the cuisine of Tuscany that we had seen previously.

Suzette went to sleep and I blogged for a wjphile and the watched Rachel.

Bon Appetit

May 10, 2026 Breakfast - Lax and Bagels. Lunch - Almond Croissant Dinner - French Onion Soup

May 10, 2026 Breakfast - Lax and Bagels.  Lunch - Almond Croissant Dinner - French Onion Soup

I ate a lot of snacks but no meal today.

I started with a bowl of granola, milk, yogurt, and strawberries as I watched Newcastle tie Nottingham Forest and Fareed Zacharia.

Then Willy came over and we watched Arsenal beat West Ham.to push West Ham toward relegation and keep Arsenal at the top of the PL and we made Lax and bagels.

The girls went on a garden tour at 11:00.

I worked at my desk a bit and around 1:00 turned on La Liga El Classico, the annual match between Barcelona and Real Madrid to determine the winner of the Spanish Liga. This year Barcelona won.

When Billy arrived around 2:30 I finished eating the almond croissant we bought at the Farmers’ Market yesterday.

we joined Suzette and Elaine on the Downtown garden tour and went to five homes. The last one was owned by a young couple and had a Barbero print. They seemed nice so I invited them to see my art collection.

When we then returned home I made a beef stock with some of the leftover steak and the bones from last night’s dinner plus carrots,, celery, and a little onion.

Then Billy showered and I napped until 5:30 when I sliced three onions into thin slices and sautéed them. I followed the Julia Child recipe and Caramelized the onions in olive oil and butter plus salt and sugar until they took on a golden brown color. I then added 3 1/2 T. of flour and sautéed the onions another 3 minutes to cook the flour. Then I added 2/3 cup of dry Marsala and about 2 1/2 quarts of the hot beef stock and 1 T. of Better Than Bouillon beef stock with some pieces of steak and simmered the soup until we finished watching an episode of Eva Longoria Discovering France.

Willy joined us at around 7:30.

I opened a bottle of 2012 Chateau du Retout Haut Medoc that I had chilled slightly since the evening was warm and we opened some windows and the doors.

I sliced Manchego and toasted slices of bread and suzette fetched and Suzette filled brown ceramic soup bowls with soup, croutons and cheese and melted the cheese in the oven. I put the cheese biscuits Susan brought us last night to eat with the soup. We all liked the soup. 

After dinner we moved into the living room to talk and hang the 1969 Shleeter I bought at last week’s Santa Fe Art Auction. It looks even better than I remembered it and is an interesting addition to the collection now that I have two Shleeters.

Willy left around 9:30 and we soon all went to bed.

I sipped a cognac and ate a Danish Lemon cream cookie and blogged in bed until 11:45 when I went to ned.

Bon Appetit

May 9, 2026 Breakfast - Pastries at Santa Fe Farmers’ Market Lunch at Amy’s. Dinner - Grilled Rib Steak, Roasted Yukon Gold Potatoes, Sautéed Mushroom Medley, and sautéed Leeks, Fennel, and red onions

May 9, 2026 Breakfast - Pastries at Santa Fe Farmers’ Market  Lunch at Amy’s. Dinner - Grilled Rib Steak, Roasted Yukon Gold Potatoes, Sautéed Mushroom Medley, and sautéed Leeks, Fennel, and red onions

We got up and at 8:00 Billy, Elaine, Suzette and I drove to the Farmers’ Market. There was not a lot of produce but there were lots of plants for sale.  We bought three red peppers we were assured woul taste like a pimiento.

Suzette and I then went through the bakery line. We bought a regular croissant for Suzette, an almond croissant for me and then when I saw a Boston creme filled donut, donut. Suzette took a coffee and I took a bottle of fresh squeezed orange juice.

We sat at a table and soon Billy and Elaine joined us.  Billy bought a baguette of campagne (whole wheat and White flour mixed) bread and did not eat his sweet roll. Elaine ate a fruit Danish.

We then split up again. Suzette and I went around the inside of the market  and bought some beautiful orahge oyster and shiitake mushrooms. 

Then Suzette went to the craft building where she bought another dress made from rice sack fabric. We also bought an award winning ricotta goat cheese.Billy and Elaine bought a lovely bunch of leeks and then visited the craft booths along the railroad tracks north of the water tower and Billy bought a poem from a poet sitting at a typewriter next to the train tracks. I sat near the water tower and listened to a marimba band. 

We all met at 9:45 and drove to Stephen’s Consignment for the big semi-annual sale. Billy and Elaine bought a Sandsein wood block of trees on the Missouri and I bought a Clinton Adam’s early Tamarind print.

Then we drove to Amy’s for lunch at 11:30.  It was wonderful for the three generations of our small extended faintly to gather, Amy, Elaine, and Rebecca, me, Billy, Willy, and Mickey and of course the third generation, J.P.

Amy had her usual wonderful buffet of asparagus and egg baked flourless quiche, toasted buttered biscuits, and fresh fruit with all the condiments from red chili to Marguerite’s apricot preserves. I covered one 1/2 biscuit with the preserves and the other with vanilla flavored honey.

Wee poured a bottle of Gruet Sparkling rose and then a Gruet Brut plus iced tea.

The day was cool in the shade and quite warm and sunny in the sunlight. I took on a bit of color as I sat on the patio talking mainly to Mickey about his funds and the direction of Finance and other service providers, such as Earn, as they adopt AI.  For example, soon, if not now exchange rate charges will disappear as most cross border payments will be made by crypto stable coin accounts instantaneously.

Earn has created a system to gather hydrocarbon transmission data in verified block chain envelopes and report it to a buyer instantly. What used to take weeks of manual tracking is now is available instantly in an AI programmable, auditable envelope.

After lunch Amy served a lovely pink vanilla cake with a raspberry coulis filler for dessert.

Around 2:00 we all left except for Willy who stayed to help Amy clean up. Rebecca and Mickey went to their wedding and we parents drove back to Albuquerque.

Dinner - We invited Charlie and Susan to dinner at 7:30, so when we arrived at 3:30 we took three rib steaks out of the freezer to thaw in water and then I rested and Billy started prepping his fennel, red onion, and leek sauté. He harvested a large bundle of fennel from our garden plus a red onion and the bunch of leeks he bought in Santa Fe and then sautéed them.

At 4:30 I returned and cleaned, dried, and wrapped the two filets of Gravad lax that had cured in the fridge in our 1 1/2 day absence.

At 5:30 I returned to the kitchen and diced four or five Yukon Gold potatoes that Suzette then tossed in olive oil and roasted in the oven.

I then sliced portobello, orange oyster, shiitake, lobster mushrooms and a handful of fresh wood ear plus two garlic from the garden and Suzette and I sautéed them as she grilled the three steaks and steamed snow peas and sugar snap peas.

Willy arrived at 7:00 and Charlie and Susan arrived at 7:30.

I poured glasses of dark heavy Puna Malbec and when Suzette brought in the steaks, I sliced them into 1/2 inch thick pieces. Suzette plated the potatoes and peas and then each served themselves steak, mushrooms and fennel and leeks.

We ate under the gazebo until several felt mosquitoes.

We then moved inside and served vanilla I’ve cream with the strawberry/rhubarb coulis and I poured cordial glasses of Vara Late Harvest Albariño.

Charlie, Susan and Willy left at 10:00 and after a quick cleaning, we went to bed.

Bon Appetit