We picked the last of the green tomatoes yesterday
morning and today Suzette decided to make them into Green tomato chutney, so in
the morning we went to see the African American and Miniatures Exhibits at the
Albuquerque Art Museum and then drove to Ta Lin and purchased Shiracha, bamboo
shoots, lobster mushrooms, shallots, onions, ginger root and green bell
peppers. Then as we were leaving we
decided to buy a baguette of Vietnamese bread.
We stopped in the small bakery on the south side of the parking lot that
is owned by one of the daughters and we bought a pork chaud foid puff pastry
that was still warm and delicious so we ate that immediately, and two cakes of
fried tofu, one with onions and one plain and small plastic container of
Vietnamese fish sauce.
We then drove home and after a nap Suzette started
making the Green Tomato Chutney. Here is the recipe: 
I cleaned and
chopped the green tomatoes and then rode my bike to Rio Bravo. When I came home I chopped ginger root and the apples.
As the chutney was cooking I chopped up five kinds
of tomatoes for the tomato sauce for dinner: red, yellow pear, yellow cherry,
red cherry and chocolate grape shaped tomatoes.
Suzette chopped garlic and onion and picked oregano, and cooked the
sauce for about one hour while we watched 60 minutes, while Suzette and I
de-stemmed the last two cups of sugar snap peas.
I went to the cellar to fetch the bottle of 2011
Réserve D’Autrefois Pinot Noir from Pay D Oc, from grapes grown in the
Landgedouc-Rousselin area of southwest France and bottled as a monopole by and
for Total Wine. Apparently there is
regular one and a reserve. I bought this
one at the Cottonwood store of Total Wine several months ago for $14.99. So I opened it and poured Suzette a glass of
it. I drank the last of the Trimbach
Hommage white wine as an aperitif.
Suzette then grilled the steak and steamed the
vegetables and boiled penne pasta while I watched the Cowboys lose to New
Orleans. Suzette asked if I wanted to
heat some of the Vietnamese baguette on the grill and when I said yes, we mixed
a large Tablespoon of her homemade pesto with about ¼ cup of olive oil and
brushed it on pieces of halved baguette and wrapped those in aluminum foil and
she placed them in the grill to heat.
Finally at around 8:00 we plated up the steak, sugar
snap peas, penne pasta and tomato sauce and poured more pinot noir and put the
bread on the table for a lovely dinner.
The wine was very smooth, perfect with the meal, but without a lot of
character. The best part of the meal was
the fresh tomato sauce, very runny, coating the tubes of pasta.
After dinner Suzette stirred the blackberries I
bought at Sprouts ($.88/pint) into the brandied strawberries and added some confectioners’
powdered sugar and served them over some European yogurt from Trader Joe’s.
During the night I woke up and read the obituaries
to Lou Reed in the new Rolling Stone.
The one by his wife, Laurie Anderson, was particularly intimate and
touching (I never knew that these two cultural icons had married). I was amazed to find out that I was one of
the last persons to see the Velvet Underground play in August 1970 at Max’s
Kansas City. According to the main
article their last performance was August 23, 1970 and I recall that that was
when I saw them while I was attending a Main Lefrantz auditor training session
in New York in anticipation of my employment as an auditor at Karlgrens Revisionsbyra in Gothenburg,
Sweden.
That made me recall that I was also one of the last
persons to see John F. Kennedy alive on November 22, 1963, at his last public
speech in the parking lot of the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth, Texas.
A lot of memorable and wonderful lasts that seemed very fresh and alive at the time.
Bon Appétit
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