Suzette stayed home so we could go to Café Miche for my
birthday lunch. Klaus was in attendance
and I asked if he had made herring and when he said yes, I knew that was what I
wanted to eat. Suzette had a little more
trouble but settled on the daily special of Crepe Bolognese, which was two
crepes filled with a thick meat and tomato sauce served with a Milanese salad.
My herring plate contained two large herring fillets, one pickled
in wine sauce and the other in spices.
Klaus mentioned juniper, cayenne, allspice, and few others. He said he orders the herring from Denmark
and soaks them in milk for three days and then water to leech the salt out of
them and then he pickles them and that the whole process takes ten days.
I ordered a bottle of Carlsberg beer and was extremely surprised
to find out that the restaurant served Carlsberg Green. I guess they make it in the U.S. now, because
in 1968 when I lived in Denmark, all Carlsberg beer was made in Copenhagen and
they could only export the Gold Label Export beer, with its higher alcohol
content. The Green is a very delicious
beer and made the experience of eating a plate of fresh made herring even
better. I tried a bite of Suzette’s
crepe and it was delicious. The crepe
was a little thicker than usual and held to the thick meat and tomato sauce
nicely. My herring was served with a
scoop of potato salad that had a lot of cream and chopped egg in it, which was
delicious with the herring but unfortunately did not mix so well in my stomach. I had loose bowels the next day until lunch. But that would probably not stop me from
eating the same dish again. I loved the wine
flavored herring the best because it reminded me of Denmark and Sweden. The dark spicy flavor of the spiced herring
was a little different and not as pleasant.
The herring was served with slices of pickled carrots and rugbrøt (Dark Danish rye bread)
smeared with duck fat mixed with dried apples.
I loved my Birthday lunch.
After lunch I went by Pro’s Ranch Market for some of the weekly specials
and to buy ingredients for Willy’s coming home party on Saturday. We decided to
make vegetarian lasagna and an enchilada casserole, so I bought tomatillas and
green chilis for the enchilada sauce and Mexican Los Altos cottage cheese, and 2
lb. bags of mozzarella and longhorn/monterrey jack shredded cheese for the
lasagna and enchiladas. Then I saw that of
71-90 count shrimp were on sale, so I bought 1 ½ lb. at $3.97/lb. and a few
tomatoes (3 lb. for $.99) and 10 avocados at 5 for $.99.
Suzette and I discussed at lunch what to make for my
Birthday and decided that I would pick my dinner main dish and I chose lobster,
which is my favorite birthday food. I
called Ta Lin and found out that they had no lobsters, but were expecting some
to be delivered in the morning, so we decided to eat the same meal that we had
served on Sunday, which was a bowl the PPI cold vegetable and a salad of Gravad
lax on fresh greens, garnished with orange slices and poached fennel with an orange/basil
mayonnaise dressing. So we went to the
garden and harvested three stalks of fennel and I sliced it into long thin
slices and poached it in water while Suzette cut six slices of gravad lax (smoked
salmon). Then I went to the garden and
picked a handful of basil leaves and chopped them up and added that to the PPI orange
mayonnaise dressing and peeled and section an orange in one long concentric
slice which is a little messy because it causes orange juice to spill onto the
cutting board. So I decided to pour the
puddle of orange juice on the cutting board on one of the salads. What I discovered was that little bit of very
fresh orange juice made the salad come alive with orange flavor.
Suzette then ladled soup into bowls and garnished it with
fresh crema con sal from Pro’s Ranch Market.
The contrast of the red/purple soup with the white crema created
a delightful color contrast. Suzette
accentuated the colors by using red/purple napkins. To continue the red/pink color theme we
decided to open a bottle of rosé wine, so I went to the basement and fetched a chilled
bottle of 2002 Chateau de Flaugergues La
Méjanelle, Cuvée Sélection (Appellation Coteaux de Languedoc, $9.99 at
Quarters); a beautiful bottle of rosé made from syrah, mourvéde and grenache grapes
grown in the rocky soil of Southern France near the Mediterranean. My recollection is that we bought this bottle
five years ago to serve with cheeses at Suzette’s 20th Anniversary
celebration of her Center. It had an
elegantly light flavor that was so French. 
Dinner was delicious also. It was like a fresh air dinner party in the garden
with an elegant wine course. We swirled
the crema into the soup to create rivulets of white in the sea of red/purple turnip,
carrot and beet soup. The salad had its
usual wonderfully fresh flavor with the addition of the fresh orange juice that
created a fruity boost to the flavors.
For dessert we heated up the last of the peach/mango cobbler
and put vanilla ice cream on it.
A very happy birthday
Bon Appétit
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