September 6, 2015 Lunch -Dungeness Crab and Dinner –Bocce Party

September 6, 2015 Lunch -Dungeness Crab and Dinner –Bocce Party 

While Suzette infused some officials the gin she bought yesterday at Costco with tea bags of camomile tea, I made an omelet in the microwave for breakfast.  I heated 3 oz. onion and a clove of garlic in a pyrex bowl. Then I added crumbled PPI fried bacon, spinach leaves, and diced tomato and heated the mixture again.  Finally I added four eggs beaten, with salt and a dash of pepper and water and heated about 6 minutes until the egg firmed.

I then rode and then we washed dishes and took a nap until 2:00 when we ate lunch of the Dungeness Crab Suzette had bought at Costco yesterday ($7.99/lb.). Suzette sliced a beautiful yellow and red tomato from our garden and toasted Fano French bread, which we buttered with creamery fresh butter from Old Windmill Dairy and dipped in the mayonnaise sauce I had made yesterday with rosemary infused vinegar, lemon juice, a minced shallot, and mayonnaise, plus slices of yellow and red tomatoes from our garden and a bunch of grapes Barbara Lardner gave to Suzette that she raised in her garden.

Suzette and I had righted the Giant clam shell and she had positioned the fish fountain so the fountain worked well by the pond where we sat under the gazebo.

We drank a rose of Malbec from the Mendoza Valley, which I had bought at Total Wine.  

After lunch I chopped a stalk of lemon grass and Suzette made lemon grass infused simple syrup.

At 5:30 we got ready for the party.  I squeezed the juice of three lemons for the martinis, Suzette puréed artichoke hearts, bell pepper, and green onion and added that to the PPI mayonnaise sauce from lunch and added some sour cream to that to make a dip.  

At 6:00 Cynthia and Ricardo arrived with a bag of ice and a platter of Caprese salad.  We put out potato chips, hummus, and nan bread from Costco and Ricardo made martinis with the infused gin, the lemon grass syrup, lemon juice and slices of lemon peel in a cocktail shaker filled with ice they had picked up on the way over.

Shortly thereafter Bill and Regina Turner arrived with a package of marinated pork tenders.

We played bocce and talked until about 7:30 when it became twilight.  Then Suzette fired up the grill and cooked the pork tenders and several of the mission figs we had picked at the Lamm’s house last night.  

Suzette plated figs, pork, nan and hummus in plates and the lovely Caprese salad Cynthia brought for a lovely dinner.  I poured a Santiago Station Cabernet Sauvignon from the Mendoza Valley in Argentina ($4.00 at Total Wine).  It's soft floral flavor went surprisingly well with the pork.

Unfortunately, three of our ceramic martini glasses were broken as people jostled the rather instable steel table with its folded apron edges.

After dinner we served calvados and cognac and a little before 9:00 the fireworks started at the Albuquerque Country Club, which we could see perfectly from the bench next to the bocce court.

We put out chocolate covered pecans and mixed nuts and watched the fireworks, which lasted about ½ hour.  

Everyone left around 9:30 and  we put up food and watched Sherlock Holmes on Masterpiece Mystery and then the 2014 remake of War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise, which was a bore.

A lovely Labor Day weekend party. 

Bon Appetit