September 9, 2017. Lunch – Azuma. Dinner – Grilled Striped Bass, steamed cauliflower and Broccoli sautéed with Shishito peppers and tomato salsa

September 9, 2017. Lunch – Azuma. Dinner – Grilled Striped Bass, steamed cauliflower and Broccoli sautéed with Shishito peppers and tomato salsa

We ate yogurt, blueberries, and peaches for breakfast.

We worked in the yard and watched the Albuquerque High Band march down Park Ave. playing music, which was quite exciting.

We then worked until noon, when I met Suzette at Azuma for lunch.  She ordered Grilled Unagi on a bed of seaweed salad and I ordered Chirashi Donburi with ½ seaweed salad.  We were charged $3.00 each for the substitution of seaweed salad for rice, which seemed fair.  There was a problem with the yellowtail today.  It was stringy day did not sit well in my stomach.  I should have remembered that fresh fish is delivered on Monday and Thursday, but I had a desire for raw fish.  Actually Todd told me that eating meats with collagen will ease my joint pain.  My joint pain has been eased since eating the stringy fish, so maybe everything was for the best.

We have been following the constant TV coverage of Hurricane Irma, although it appears that the earthquake off the coast of Oaxaca was a much more deadly event.

Dinner - We decided to grill the stripped bass, so I removed its head and put it into the fish grilling cage for Suzette while she deflowered and chopped two cups of broccoli and cauliflower.  I put a bottle of 2016 Tuatea Sauvignon Blanc from Nelson, New Zealand in the freezer to chill.  The label says that “tuatea” means “crest of the wave” in Mauri.  I then steamed them while I was sautéing 9 shishito peppers in olive oil and butter with a dash of salt and white pepper and when the broccoli and cauliflower was cooked added it to the large skillet containing the peppers and sautéed all of the ingredients until they took on color.

Suzette sliced tomatoes, red onion, avocado and she added juice of a lime and I chopped cilantro and added it to make a tomato salsa.

Willy arrived at 6:00 and shortly thereafter the fish was fully cooked after about twenty minutes of grilling.  I filleted it and we plated the vegetables with each person getting three peppers each.  We put the tomato salsa on the table and I poured the wine.

Note the toasted crust on the broccoli and cauliflower

Suzette thought the fish tasted muddy like catfish.  I thought it tasted clean but lacked the flavor of wild caught. The stripped bass definitely tasted like it was aqua cultured and we decided to not buy it again.

The vegetables were excellent I had had to cook them a bit more than I would have wished while waiting for the fish to fully cook, which allowed them to brown a bit and develop a slightly crunchy crust.

The wine was also very pleasant, more fruity than many other New Zealand Sauvignon blancs that have a grapefruit tartness.  We enjoyed it and I will buy it again at $5.99 at Trader Joe’s.

During the afternoon I pitted about four cups of bing cherries from Washington that I bought at El Super for $1.26/lb.  these are the last of this year’s crop and I had to pick through lots of spoiled and mildewed cherries to put together a good bag at the store and had to through out several today that were beginning to spoil, but many that I tasted were really sweet.  I soaked the cherries in cognac for three hours until mixed ten T. of powdered sugar, 7 T. of flour, and ½ tsp of salt in a bowl and mixed in three eggs and then three cups of scalded milk.  Then poured the custard mixture into a buttered ceramic baking dish and added the brandies cherries and baked the dish in a 375 degree oven for 55minutes and then let sit in the oven as it cooled for another twenty minutes until the custard was firm.

Suzette had gone down the alley and picked white figs today and picked several from our bush also.  We ended up with nine small figs.

After dinner Suzette said,”I would like to eat the figs with a good white port.”  So I went to the basement and fetched a 375 ml. bottle of R. E. Buller Fine Muscat port from the Rutherglen region of Australia that had to have been at least fifteen years old.  It received a 97 rating from Wine Spectator and it was a spectacular wine; fruity, tawny, and tantalizingly  sweet, all at the same time.  I have had a number of muscats from Australia over the years and have enjoyed all of them, especially the orange muscats, but this was the best.  Suzette said it went particularly well with the goat cheese garnished fresh white figs.

We decided to start drinking more of the ports we have been aging in the basement.

After our fig and port dessert, we tasted the Clafoutis.  I must say that it tasted a bit sweet to me.  Perhaps as I am reducing the amount of sugar in my diet I have gained a greater sensitivity to the flavor of sugar.  I will reduce the amount of sugar in future clafoutis.

We had a pleasant day of food and went to bed a 9:00.

Bon Appetit