January 23, 2016 Bocce and Lunch with Cynthia and Ricardo, Dinner at East Ocean

January 23, 2016 Bocce and Lunch with Cynthia and Ricardo, Dinner at East Ocean

I left home at 9:30 and stopped at Zen Coffee where I bought a 12 oz. bag of fresh roasted coffee beans.  The beans were from Costa Rica and they were roasted to medium dark, which is the darkest roast produced by Zen Coffee.  I guess everyone knows by now that coffee is like wine.  It is a combination of the climate and soil in which it is grown.  All coffee we consider quality coffee is the arabica species of coffee.  The other major component is the manner and degree to which it is roasted. Generally the best quality control and consistency is achieve by roasting in small lots of less than 200 lb.  My guess is Zen roasts in lots of less than 40 lb. so they can heat and cool all the coffee very uniformly.

I then drove to Birdland for a meeting and when I returned at 11:30 Cynthia and Ricardo had arrived with lots of snacks, including olives, foie gras, crackers, goat cheese, and a large pot of vegetable soup. They also brought their patenk balls, six steel balls and a wooden marker ball.

 

  Bocce balls, patenk balls and snacks

Suzette made them Bloody Mary's and I grabbed a beer and we went took the snacks to the bocce court and played one game of patent and then a game with our bocce balls.

Around 1:30 we came back inside and heated Cynthia’s soup and toasted pieces of Fano Baguette.  The soup was a delicious vegetable soup with lots of curly kale, 

ITalian sweet sausage, and tomatoes.  We decided we needed some Northern White Beans, so Ricardo and I drove to Lowe’ and bought a 15 oz. can of beans.  When we returned Cynthia put them into the soup and we cooked the soup for an additional ten minutes to integrate their flavor.  We opened a bottle of Famille Perrin Cote du Rhone Reserve red wine (total Wine $7.99 less 15%) and sipped wine and ate buttered toast with the soup.

Finally around 2:30 to 3:00 we al decided we were tired and ready for naps and said our goodbyes.

At 6:00 Suzette and I decided we did not wish to cook dinner and decided we wanted roast duck, so we drove to East Ocean and ordered ½ Roasted duck for $10.95 and a platter of baby Bok Choy cooked in a garlic sauce with fried tofu.  The fresh vegetables are priced at market price.  Baby Bok Choy was $9.95 and the fried tofu was $3.00.  Suzette ordered a Tsingtao beer and we both started with hot tea.

Dinner was heavenly.  We sat by the window with a view of the full moon.

After dinner we went home and soaked in the hot tub.

Bon Appetit