What a strange day. It started out well enough. We peeled and Suzette poached a box of about fifteen quinces. She poached the cored and peeled Quince in wine, sugar and water.
Suzette made a lax and cream cheese sandwich on a fried scrambled egg. I toasted ½ of a bagel and made a Lax sandwich on the bagel by smearing it with cream cheese, laying on thin slices of red onion, and then slices of Lax and then the fried egg. Suzette garnished the sandwiches with capers.
Suzette also made cole slaw with carrots, cabbage, onions, and mayo for dinner. We had decided to buy some salmon on sale at Albertson’s and make fish tacos with the tail section.
We first dumped our empty bottles at the recycling center just north of the convention center and drove to Trader Joe’s where we bought artichokes, deodorant, chocolate, hand cream, and six or seven bottles of wine.
We then drove to Total Wine and bought scotch and Calvados at a 10% discount and four bottles of wine for which there was no discount. We then went next door to the Uptown Bar and watched a horrible football game played by TCU with the TCU alumni association members. Suzette and I ate horrible fried calamari strips, onion rings and fried sweet potatoes and drank s beer. Suzette left me and drove to Goodwill, Sprouts Market to buy golden sultana raisins for poaching more Quince and then to Albertsons to buy a beautiful filet of Atlantic farm raised salmon for $5.97/lb. when she returned the game was almost over and we left when Kenny Hill threw his second interception near the end of the losing effort by TCU.
I wanted to get the 20% discount on wines at Total Wines so we went back and chose eight more wines to make a case of 12 in order to obtain the discount. Buying wine at Total Wine is a really difficult thing to do, because it is hard to know which wines are inferior but have been marked up versus those that merit their price. Thank goodness Suzette has an app on her phone that connects to grading and tasting notes and reviews, so we were able to find some good wines hopefully.
The wines are good at Trader Joe’s but the selection is quite limited. The trick at Total Wine is to find good wines at a decent price. Since the prices at Total .Wine start at almost double those of Trader Joe’s one is trying to find a better or different wine than those offered at Trader Joe’s that is worth the money. The good thing about Total Wine is that there is a vastly greater selection, so if one is willing to spend the time one can find legitimately interesting wines for decent prices. Sometimes you just must pay the higher price for a better wine. For example, our favorite rose’ is Le Pont. It is a Bandol rose’ that costs $20 at Total Wine and we think it is a good value at $16.00 after the discount. We bought a bottle of it today.
I also bought a decent Chablis for about the same price because these special wines are simply not available regularly at Trader Joe's and they tend to be even more expensive at good wine shops like Jubilation.
The wines we are buying tend to be the less expensive wines of major wine regions. Jubilation and Total Wine have much higher prices on the more famous wines such as premier crus.
We then drove home and after a stiff drink we decided to make a mango salsa to go with the fish
tacos.
I diced two small avocados, 2 oz. of red onion, about ¼ cup of cilantro leaves, 2 oz. of Padilla chili, a clove of garlic, a tomato, and a mango and squeezed the juice of a lime into it and Suzette added about 1 tsp. of salt.
Suzette heated several tortillas wrapped in wet paper towels in the steaming oven and fried about ½ lb. of diced salmon in about ¼ inch deep canola oil until golden brown at the edges. We then laid two tortillas on a plate and spread a layer of the mango salsa on and then laid pieces of salmon on that and garnished the salmon with coleslaw to make open faced tacos.
The tacos were fabulous. The avocados and mango were ripe so the salsa was delicious and so was the coleslaw and they both went well with the fresh sautéed salmon. A simple wonderful meal.
Suzette drank a Fat Tire beer with her dinner and I drank one of the French apple ciders we had bought at Trader Joe’s for $4.99.
We watched the Dodgers tie the World Series at 2 games each and then went to bed.
Bon Appetit
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