This morning we discussed our dinner menus for today and tomorrow. We decided to grill steak tonight and pork steaks tomorrow night. We went shopping today for food. Suzette went down the alley and picked four white figs. She wanted to replicate the salad we ate at the Atlantic Brewing Co. in Bar Harbor several says ago.
The first place we went to was the Farmers’ Market this morning. We bought one each of four types of tomato, a pint basket of purple Peruvian potatoes, and ½ pint of shishito peppers. Cloud Cliff Bakery was selling bread and I bought a loaf of its Nativo whole wheat bread made with sprouted wheat for $6.00.
We then drove to Sprouts on Lomas at San Mateo and bought milk. A bunch of Spinach, and romaine lettuce. We then went across the street to Heights Lock and Key and replaced the keys we misplaced on the trip to the house and the shed.
It was lunch so we returned home and Suzette discovered something wonderful the fresh bag had kept the butter lettuce in perfect condition during our two week absence. Suzette made a salad like the one we had in Bar Harbor with romaine lettuce, butter lettuce and spinach leaves with goat’s cheese, dried cranberries, and the last of the Marcona almonds we had bought in Camden, Maine chopped, plus the four figs quartered. I made a simple fig balsamic and olive oil dressing.
I sliced two slices of the fresh Nativo bread, toasted them and buttered them. The salad was wonderful with the toasted bread and just cool water. We ate outside in the garden and noticed many things that needed to be corrected. We started by placing the fallen aquatic plants back on their pedestals.
After lunch we watched the last half of the first football game of the season as Texas lost to Maryland 51 to 41 and then watched the Polish rider named Majka win a mountain stage of the Vuelta de Espana riding up a 12 kilometer mountainside with an average gradient of 12 degrees, an unreal feat, judging from the difficulty we had biking up the rolling hills of Acadia National with 3 to 4 degree gradients.
At 3:00 we drove to El Super and bought, radishes, Mexican Green onions, parsley, avocados, limes, Negra Modelo beer, Mushrooms, yogurt, apples, onions both yellow and red, and broccoli.
We went home and Suzette worked in the garden cleaning up the chard bed and picked a basket full of patty pan and green squashes from our garden while I read my Alexander Hamilton biography and rested.
We now had fresh lines, so at 5:00 I fetched the last bottle of Fever Tree Tonic from the garage fridge and Suzette made her favorite Gin and tonic with the Back River Gin we bought at Sweetgrass Distillery in Union, Maine and the Fever Tree tonic. I made a rum and tonic with Bacardi and Lowe’s Surefresh tonic and watched the news while Suzette showered. Then at 5:30 we began cooking.
I sliced two or three slices from the red and the green tomatoes, leaving half of each tomato because Suzette wants to make a dish of shrimp and a simple tomato sauce with slices of squash into a sort of Pasta primavera with squash slices instead of pasta.
I went to the garden and picked nine leaves from our basil plants and fetched the still good sliced fresh mozzarella from the fridge and made a simple dressing with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, salt and pepper.
I then cleaned and sliced the purple potatoes and Suzette boiled them them. Then we heated olive oil and butter in a medium skillet and sautéed twelve shishito peppers. We removed the peppers to a paper towel and added the purple potatoes and tossed them in the oil still left in the skillet then returned them to the pot and tossed them in the oil.
Suzette asked to drink a good red with dinner so I went to the basement and found a 2002 Beaulieu Vineyards Tapestry Reserve from the Napa Valley that Debbie and Darryl gave us for my 60th BD in 2006, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petite Verdot, Cabernet Franc, and Malbec grapes from Napa Valley. We opened the bottle and let it stand for about fifteen minutes and then poured it. It was in good shape, incredibly rich and yet smooth with a fruity flavor of dark fruits like blackberries. Suzette loved it. I thought it went well with the food, even the caprese salad.
We decided to finish the bottle after dinner because it was going a bit flat. As we poured it out I noticed a fair amount of light sediment had settled out of the wine, so I did not drink my entire glass of wine.
It was such a great meal I felt compelled to eat a few pieces of chocolate and drink a few glasses of after dinner drinks. I drank a Calvados, a grappa, and finally a cognac to celebrate our first great meal at home as we watched episodes of Father Brown and Death in Paradise on PBS. We fell asleep at 10:00 in front of the TV and went to bed after another full day of activity.
Bon Appetit
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