September 8, 2016 Lunch – PPI Beef Miso Pho Soup, Dinner – Lasagna, Cesar Salad, fresh berries and whipped cream
I have regained my appetite and am beginning to eat larger portions and snacks in the afternoon.
Wednesday September 7, I went shopping. I first went to Talin, New Mexico’s largest fancy food store, where I bought Vietnamese rice noodles and bean thread noodles, Vietnamese chile sauce for fried egg rolls, Chinese cooking wine, pho bullion cubes, three leeks ($2.49) for potage, oyster mushrooms, shallots, and 1 lb. of Pink Grouper.
I drove to Sprouts and bought 1 lb. of portobello mushrooms, 3 lb. of salmon and two packages of fresh dill for gravad lax, 4 avocados, a pork loin ($1.99/lb.), a 2 lb. package of hamburger meat ($2.77/lb.), 1 gallon of milk, 2 lb. of sauerkraut for the pork roast, and green grapes ($.77/lb.). I was starving, so I bagged about a lb. of chocolate almond clusters ($5.99/lb.) and ate a couple as I shopped.
When I got home after meditation, I made gravad lax.
Tuesday, September 6 we were invited to dinner at Richard and Anna’s house to meet Gloria and Kerry, who are appraisers and employees of Skinner, which is the fourth largest auction house in the the U.S. Richard’s mother was an antiques dealer in New York and amassed a fabulous collection, including several pieces of Art Nouveau and Art Deco estate jewelry. To make a long story short, Anna took a set of Art Deco jewelry to the Antiques Roadshow in Albuquerque in 2014 and Gloria appraised it at $70,000 and they became friends. Gloria and Kerry stopped for dinner on their way to Santa Fe to deal with an estate.
We invited Gloria and Kerry to dinner on Thursday evening on their return from Santa Fe.
Anna made a lovely dinner of roasted honey glazed chicken breasts, rice with threads of basil, and blanched green beans sautéed in butter. She served a nice Argentinian Cabernet Sauvignon, a Chardonnay, and later a nice Italian Pinot Grigio before and with dinner. There were two appetizers, guacamole with those lovely thick, salty curved Fritos dipping corn chips and small square wheat crackers spread with an onion dip and garnished with a small slice of pimiento. Dessert was really wonderful; vanilla ice cream, warmed Smallwoods Chocolate Sauce and freshly baked biscotti.
Jonathan came with Amy’s family jewelry collected by her, her mother, and her aunt. We brought some pieces mother had collected. After dinner, Gloria appraised all the jewelry. Jonathan had a number of nice old pieces that he was considering Skinner auctioning. Our pieces were not nice or worth much, mostly mass produced pieces from the 70’s.
After Gloria appraised the jewelry, Richard showed us his gun and pistol collection, which was very impressive. Richard’s gun collection is proof that a passion for collecting can be hereditary.
Just to mention two items: as we walked into the house I saw a lovely small portrait of an Indian by J. H. Sharp probably worth over $100,000 and a wonderful small ink sketch of two mounted Indians riding down a buffalo, a very vigorous action picture, by Alfred Jacob Miller dated 1837 that had been appraised at $35,000.
On Wednesday Suzette shopped for the Greenhouse Bistro and bought us a package of six heads of Romaine lettuce and a package of slices of Italian Prosciutto at Costco.
Last Sunday I made my usual meat and mushroom spaghetti sauce with fresh oregano from the garden and fresh Roma tomatoes from El Super ($.50/lb.).
Getting back to Thursday dinner. We invited Cynthia and Ricardo and Anna and Richard and Robin to join us and Gloria and Kerry for dinner. Anna, Richard, and Robin has a conflict that prevented their joining us.
I also invited Willy to join us.
Suzette asked Cynthia and Ricardo to bring dessert, so at 5:15 they arrived with a large bowl of fresh strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries, plus a pint of heavy cream, and a bottle of Korbel brut champagne.
Suzette had brought home a lovely melon that had been grown in the Center’s garden. It was a hybrid of a honeydew and a cantaloupe with thick green outer flesh and orange inner flesh, very lovely. We decided to serve pieces of melon with pieces of the prosciutto Suzette had picked up at Costco on Wednesday as the appetizer and lasagna and Cesar salad as the main course.
I prepared a platter of melon pieces and a bowl of pieces of prosciutto, while I was also finishing and filing a Reply in my water case from 3:00 to 4:00. After I filed the Reply at 4:00 I revitalized our Cesar Salad dressing by whisking in an egg and adding some Spanish olive oil and ¼ tsp. of salt to reduce the citrus bite of the fresh lemon juice I added yesterday.
I then cut three heads of Romaine into bite sized pieces and grated about 2/3 cup of Pecorino Romano cheese onto the lettuce and threw the bag of croutons onto the lettuce and chilled it in the garage fridge.
Lasagna
Suzette made our favorite lasagna. I skinned and removed the hard ends from some cipollini onions she bought at the farmers’ markets several weeks ago and shallots we had bought at Talin. When I got busy with my Reply she took over, slicing oyster and portobello mushrooms and sautéing them with the onions and shallots. She went to the garden and picked a basket of fresh chard and de-stemmed it.
Then Suzette made fresh pasta and rolled it into sheets for lasagna. She coated the bottom of a large 9x13 inch baking dish with olive oil and then lay a layer of pasta on the bottom of the baking dish. Then she lay a layer off chard and coated that with spaghetti sauce. Then another layer of lasagna on which she lay Mexican Requeson cheese, which is like ricotta cheese, that we had bought at El Super on Sunday, when we hatched our plan to make lasagna. Then more sauce and then the sautéed onions, shallots, and mushrooms and another layer of lasagna and more sauce and then grated mozzarella cheese Suzette had bought on her way home today.
She baked the lasagna for 45 minutes at 250 degrees at a convection setting.
Soon after Ricardo and Cynthia came, we received a phone call from Gloria telling us they were delayed by traffic and would not arrive until 6:00ish, so Ricardo made us Gin and tonics with Ironworks Gin Suzette bought in Nova Scotia last week and Fever Tree tonic and lime juice and we sat and talked in the living room.
Gloria and Kerry arrived about 6:15 and joined us in the living room and ate some melon and prosciutto. Soon Suzette and I showed them the house and art work but we interrupted the tour because Willy arrived and we decided to eat. Willy and Suzette dressed and tossed the salad, while I continued the tour, but that soon ended when Suzette began plating Lasagna and I had to serve Cesar Salad. Suzette had set the table outside in the gazebo, so everyone carried their plates and a wine glass out to the garden. I followed with two bottles of Italian Riserva Chianti ($5.99 at Trader Joe’s).
Dinner was perfect. The emphasis on freshness that is so characteristic of Italian cuisine started with the juicy fresh melon and tangy prosciutto and continued with the entrée with the fabulous baked lasagna filled with its fresh ingredients and the crisp chilled Cesar Salad with its slightly tangy citrusy Cesar dressing and salted preserved Spanish anchovy filets that I had washed to remove most of the salt.
I loved dinner and I think everyone else did also. The conversation flowed easily. Gloria and Kerry live and work in Boston, so they had lots to talk about with Ricardo, who attended graduate architecture school at MIT.
The food was as good as it could be. Suzette’s use of whole sautéed cipollini onions and rough chopped oyster and portobello mushrooms was brilliant and took the dish to another level beyond even wonderful.
The Chianti was light enough to not interfere with the fresh flavors and actually complemented the lasagna, which is all you can hope from a wine.
I counted dinner a success by the end of the entrée, but that was just the beginning, because we still has dessert. Cynthia and Ricardo stepped up to do their course. They whisked heavy cream and flavored it with granulated sugar and some of the vanilla we bought with them at the fancy food shop in San Miguel de Allende about a month ago. They filled bowls with the fresh berries and garnished them with a dollop of whipped cream. We gathered champagne glasses and Ricardo opened and poured the Korbel champagne and we ate dessert under the gazebo.
At around 9:00 Gloria and Kerry and Willy had to leave so after a fun evening of developing friendships and eating great food, we all said goodnight.
I later sipped a grappa with some chocolates and helped Suzette with the dishes and glasses.
I suspect that we are near the peak of the growing season when the profusion of fresh delicious ingredients is at it most flavorful, when every mouthful of food brings joy. I love it.
Bon Appetit
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