September 24, 2015 Lunch – East Ocean Scallops in Lobster Sauce

September 24, 2015 Lunch – East Ocean  Scallops in Lobster Sauce

In the ebb and flow of food events there are big food event days and low food event days.  Yesterday was an extremely high food event day and today was an extremely low food event day.

Suzette is going to Santa Rosa tomorrow so I decided to go out to lunch today for my new favorite lunch, which is scallops in Lobster Sauce at East Ocean.  I have become infatuated with this simple dish that combines egg drop soup, ground pork, and scallops into a thick sauce, which when combined with fried rice makes an incredibly delicious meal.

   Beginning the process of integrating rice and sauce

Tonight was Book Club which means no prepared dinner.  Luckily, a couple of days ago I Sautéed the two Italian sausages I had bought at Sprouts Farm Market last week and combined the with the shrimp and spaghetti cooked with Suzette’s fresh from the garden tomato Sauce and sugar snap peas.  The combination of Italian sausage, tomato sauce, vegetables, and shrimp was delicious.  At 6:00 I mentioned to Suzette that I was hungry and would have no dinner at Book Club and did she want to heat up the PPI pasta dish.  Suzette agreed and since I had bought a fresh baked Fano baguette after lunch, Suzette suggested we make the pasta dish into tapas by toasting slices of baguette and making open faced sandwiches by putting the pasta on the slices of bread.

Suzette diced several slices fresh mozzarella into cubes and put the into the bag of pasta. I heated the pasta and put it into a pasta bowl while Suzette sliced and toasted slices of baguette which she put on a plate.  I did not want any sandwiches, although I think it was a great idea, so I ate pasta with a fork from the bowl and Suzette made open faced sandwiches on the fresh bread by piling pasta onto the toasted slices of baguette.  I did eat bites of bread with my pasta and it was a delicious combination of flavors.

So we invented a new dish tonight out of necessity, the lack of time to prepare a meal and the availability of a PPI and a fresh baguette.

After we finished the pasta, there was still some tomato sauce infused with Italian sausage flavor, so I cut another slice of baguette, rubbed it in the remaining sauce to coat it with a thin layer of sauce and then took the round of brie cheese from the fridge and placed slices of brie cheese on the bread and sauce.  This combination of flavors was the best of the night, tomato sauce and brie and sausage is a winner.

I opened a bottle of Epicuro 2010 Primativo produced in the ancient wine area of Apuglia in the heel of Italy, which still had a lot of tannins, but went well with the hardy meal of bread, sausage and pasta in tomato sauce.

Then to book club and Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan Iliyitch.

Bon Appetit