I had the usual breakfast and we then rode to Montano and back. I worked until 11:30 when I got a hankering for sashimi, so I drove to Azuma and ordered my favorite, Chirashi Donburi with 12 pieces of sashimi on a bed of sushi rice plus egg omelet and a stalk of asparagus and several slices of omelet plus Miso soup and green tea. I only ate one half of the pieces of sashimi and ¼ of the rice and took the rest home for lunch tomorrow.
Then I drove home and worked until 5:00.
I took a lb. of 16 to 20 count shrimp out of the freezer at 5:00. When Suzette arrived at 6:00 with a bag full of fresh tomatoes and squashes from her organic garden at the Center for Ageless Living we decided to make Shrimp scampi with tomatoes, squash noodles, capers, onion, and basil for dinner. We have become very fond of substituting strips of squash for pasta in our endeavor to avoid needless carbs and to enjoy the bounty of Summer. Suzette brought home a long yellow squash and we had two pieces of a large green squash from our garden. The large green squash had a thick skin that I removed with a knife. Then I used a vegetable peeler to cut thin strips of the squashes until I had sliced the yellow and green squashes into about 1 lb. of slices, which Suzette put into a Pyrex baking dish with a bit of water and covered with Saran so it could be cooked in the microwave when we were ready to eat.
Shrimp Scampi
We then turned our attention to the shrimp scampi.
Suzette placed the half frozen shrimp in a colander and ran water over the heads off shrimp until they thawed. Then she removed their shells. They had been split open at the top of the shell and an incision made to remove the vein of excrement at the top of each shrimp, so they were perfect for Scampi because you want an incision on the top of the shrimp so it will butterfly open when cooked.
Suzette chopped two tiger tomatoes and two red tomatoes while I diced ½ of a medium onion and minced three medium cloves of garlic.
Suzette started sautéing the onion and garlic in butter and olive oil in a large skillet after fetching me the PPI basil I had picked last night in the garden. I removed the leaves and chopped them roughly into about 2 T. and added them to the skillet that Suzette had added the tomatoes to and then I added 2 tsp. of capers to the skillet.
Suzette said there was a chilled bottle of wine in the garage, so I fetched it. It was a bottle of 2010 Toulouse Rose’ of Pinot Noir from Anderson Valley, Mendocino County, California that we had bought at the winery when we visited during the Pinot Festival five or six years ago. Suzette was thrilled when I reminded her and she remembered Tasting and buying the wine, which was shipped to our home by the winery and had gotten lost among the cases of wine in the cellar until I found it recently. Suzette opened the bottle of chilled rose’ and poured us small glasses of it. It tasted fantastic. It had lost much of its youthful edginess and fruitiness but had developed a deep clarity of Pinot Noir flavor that we both found profoundly pleasing.
Suzette then added the shrimp to the skillet and put the squash noodles in the microwave and cooked them both for a couple of minutes until tender while I shaved several slices of Pecorino Romano cheese with a cheese slicer and we were ready to eat.
We decided to eat inside because it had recently rained and because it was a bit after 6:00 and we enjoy watching Shields and Brooks on the PBS Newshour on Friday night, although this evening it was Ruth Marcus and David Brooks, both of whom have lovely self deprecating personalities that drive their opinion home softly rather than with the usual high pitched rant of so many other news commentators.
So we ate inside.
Suzette plated a pile of squash noodles on each of our plates and we each scooped the shrimp scampi
mixture onto the noodles.
This was a great meal. We both loved the succulent fresh steamed squash noodles far better than pasta. The shrimps were also were succulent with a slight chewiness and yet tender. The mixture of capers and basil in the tomato and squash sauce created the perfect flavor matrix for the shrimp. We loved the dish, especially with glasses of the rose’.
rose’ wine, except in rare occasions, when I prefer red Pinot, like with French cheeses or red meat dinners such as Boeuf Bourguignon in the winter.
I have two favorite Pinot growing areas, Anderson Valley in Northern California and Burgundy in France. They are remarkably similar. They both have mild cool microclimates and regular and abundant rainfall. This produces a light elegant Pinot Noir. As one of the winery owners in Anderson Valley told us, “Most of the Cabernet Sauvignon growers have gravitated to Napa and Sonoma and the Pinot growers have gravitated to Anderson Valley.”
I know there are those who prefer a huge heavy Pinot Noir with lots of assertiveness prefer pinots from the Willamette Valley, especially from the Dundee Hills, but I prefer a lighter more delicate and fruity Pinot. Anderson Valley vineyards were actually carved out of a Coastal Redwood forest in a valley wide enough to create large fields with most of the best growing area located less than twenty miles from the Pacific Ocean, so it has the redwood microclimate that is due in part to the cooling fog that rolls in almost every evening from the ocean. The climate is almost the same in Burgundy, long days of light drizzling rain that the Pinot grapes love.
After dinner I fell off the wagon and sipped a grappa and then a Trimbach Grande a Reserve Plum Brandy with a couple of oz. of milk chocolate flavored with candied orange peel as we watched episodes of recent Bill Maher and John Oliver shows.
Bon Appetit
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