I went shopping in the morning. I bought tomatoes ($.69/lb.), oranges for
$.25/lb. and Mexican squash $.50/lb. at
Pro’s Ranch Market, but they were out of mangoes for 5 for $.99. Then I bought Rib Eye steaks at Smith’s ($7.99/lb.)
and then to my main destination, Albertson’s where I bought Steellhead/Keck salmon for
$3.99/lb. I took my food home and returned to Pro’s for its Saturday Posole
lunch. There was a lady standing behind
three large buckets filled with posole and menudo. I ordered and paid for a medium bowl (chica)
for $3.69 and said posole. When I got to
the table where the food was served there was a bowl filled with posole and pork I
ate a few bites and asked for some menudo and the lady took a large ladle and
added a small mound of menudo to the top of the already filled bowl of posole,
which made the bowl over flow and forced part of the liquid back into the pot. I then added lime juice, onions, fresh cilantro
and oregano to the posole and enjoyed a wonderful bowl of posole and menudo. The color of the posole was dark red, which
made me think that there was a lot of tomato paste in the posole.
I went home happy and made a recipe of teriyaki sauce with 7
Tbsp. each of sake, aji mirin and soy sauce and 1 Tbsp. of sugar and poured it
into a freezer bag with the fish and placed the bag in the fridge to marinate.
We started cooking dinner at 4:30 p.m. by cutting and
picking baby greens from the garden for the salad. Suzette also picked a bunch of turnips and
black giant leaves and a small basket of pea pods. I then shucked the peas and added the peas to
cut the peas we have been picking for the last few days to make about 1 cup of
peas. Then I de-stemmed the kale and black
giant mustard greens and diced the turnips into small cubes and sliced
several garlic scapes into long thin
slices. I picked a handful of basil
leaves and Suzette added orange juice and the basil and a bit of honey to
mayonnaise to make a dressing for the salad, while I sliced and the cut the
gravad lax salmon into bite size pieces. Suzette organized the salad onto glass salad
plates and put them into the fridge to keep cool.
We then made 1/ ½ cups of rice and picked kale and mustard greens
to cook into the rice. After Suzette finished the salad dressing , she cut
cedar planks for the fish and soaked the planks in water and I de-stemmed the
kale and was dicing the small white turnips at around 5:45 when Darryl and Dorothy
arrived. We then got a call from
Jennifer and Dale saying that they were running late because they were waiting
for Costco to install new tires on their vehicle. Darryl and Dorothy brought a lovely chocolate
cake from Flying Star and a bottle of Kendall Jackson 2011 Grand Reserve
chardonnay. They said they loved
chardonnay so Suzette went to the basement fridge and fetched a bottle of 2000 Domaine
Luc Pirlet chardonnay from Languedoc. The
wine had a deep golden color that tasted of age, which Darryl loved and I
thought was pretty special, but Suzette would not drink her glass, because the
wine had that decidedly chardonnay flavor.
So she suggested that I fetch the Murphy-Goode Fumé Blanc and I went to
the basement and got it and the cobbler.
By this time Jennifer and Dale had arrived with a bottle of
2010 La Crema Chardonnay and a ½ gallon of vanilla ice cream. The Murphy-Goode turned out to be a 1999 Reserve
Fumé barrel fermented Sauvignon Blanc from Alexander Valley that tasted
fabulous that also was a deep golden color.
I am beginning to think that golden color is a good thing for old wine. We
talked and drank for a while and then sat around the table on the patio and
Suzette served the salads and I poured more chardonnay. 
After a few more minutes I went to the kitchen to sauté the turnips in the wok. I added about 1 Tbsp. of peanut oil and 1 tsp. of sesame oil and as it heated I chopped ½ of a large shallot and threw that in with the turnips when the wok had heated. Then I cut up about 1 tsp. of pickled ginger. Suzette came in with several salad plates as I was throwing in the ginger and said, “It needs liquid.” We decided to add aji mirin and I suggested that we add the PPI pickled red onions that Rose had given to us with the Cochinita Pibil and we did that and then added the greens and covered the mixture to cook and steam. After a few more minutes we added the peas and heated them for a minute and then I added three large scoops of rice to the mixture and turned and mixed the rice and peas into the vegetables to give it a fried rice effect. I then plated a large scoop of the stir fried rice on each plate and Suzette cut large pieces of salmon off the planks of grilled teriyaki salmon and laid them on the piles of stir fried rice.
I poured glasses of La Crema and we ate our entrees. All were good drinkers, so I opened the 2011 Kendall
Jackson Grand Reserve and poured it and more of the Murphy-Goode for Suzette
and me and a bit for Jennifer to taste.
After a while the wind started blowing but we decided to
brave the outdoors and remain on the patio.
About 20 minutes after we finished our dinners, all the
chardonnay was finished and we started talking about dessert and I said, “Since
you are all good drinkers, I am going to get a bottle of sauternes for dessert.” I went to the basement and found a ½ bottle
of 2005 Kendall Jackson late harvest chardonnay from its Arroyo Seco
vineyard. It had a syrupy sweetness and
a nutty flavor that was very pleasant. I
fetched a ½ bottle of Chevaliers sauternes.
Suzette and one or two of the guests had gone to the kitchen and heated
the mango, blueberry and nectarine cobbler and cut mall pieces of the chocolate
cake and put scoops of vanilla ice cream on dessert plates and served those
while I opened and poured the Kendall Jackson Late Harvest chardonnay.
Darryl said he had been to a tasting where
they served this wine and everyone approved of the wine and drank it. When we finished the chardonnay I opened the
sauternes and served it. Finally at
around 10:00 we were all done and said good night to each other after 4 hours of
drinking and eating wonderful food d wine. Amazingly, I was not stuffed. We are
enjoying the food we are picking from our garden and the dishes we are
preparing that are so satisfying and light on the tummy.
Bon Appétit
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