I started the day with 1/3 of an onion bagel smeared with cream cheese layered with red onion slices and Lax and garnished with capers.
We then drove to the Farmers’ Market several blocks away. Suzette bought sugar snap peas and fresh asparagus. I bought a loaf of Cloud Cliff Bakery whole wheat bread for $7.00. Then Suzette saw an interesting sculpture of painted iron of butterflies and a sunflower balanced on a nail that sits on a stand and rotates in the wind. We took the sculpture home and put it on bricks in the pond.
Then Suzette made us Brunch by sautéing baked potatoes, smoked pork chops, and fried eggs. I chopped chives and about six leaves of sage and tossed them into the potatoes. Suzette made a Bloody Mary and I drank a glass of Emma Reichart Pinot noir rose that I bought yesterday at Trader Joe’s for $5.99.
Then we worked in the garden a bit. I trimmed the chard and then processed it . We then drove to El Super so Suzette could buy some vegetables and fruit and 60 smoked pork chops for her assisted living facility’s kitchen. We also bought a few fresh garbanzo beans and three ears of fresh corn for the house. Then we went home and rested.
I got up before Suzette and had a cup of tea and a few bites of fruit cake. At 4:00 we started cooking.
I brought in the pot of chicken stock which still had two thighs and the mirepoix in it. Suzette brought in the pot of lobster shells and started heating it. I removed the two chicken thighs and removed the meat from the bones and put the meat into a plastic container into the fridge. Suzette then strained the chicken stock to remove the mirepoix. We put the remaining chicken stock back into the pot and I took it back to the garage.
Lobster Bisque
Suzette puréed the mirepoix from the chicken stock. She then strained the lobster broth and put the
clean lobster stock back into the pot as we had done with the chicken stock and tossed the lobster
shells. Then she made a roux of flour and butter to which we added about two or three cups of lobster broth, about ¼ cup of Amontillado sherry, and the puréed mirepoix. We then added the PPI lobster thermidor and about 3oz. of frozen tomato paste we found in the freezer. While those ingredients cooked for a bit I checked the lobster bisque recipe in the Gourmet Cookbook and added the final flavorings; 1 T. of butter, 2 T.cognac, 2 T. of white dry vermouth, and 2/4 cup of heavy cream, although the thermidor already had those ingredients in it.
The puréed mirepoix and some lobster stock
Suzette cooked the ears of corn in a pot of boiling water for five minutes, while I opened a bottle of 2012 Wellington Vineyards Marsanne I had been saving for a few years and poured glasses of it. Suzette ladled soup into covered bowls and put an ear of corn onto a plate and filled a tray and I
carried them to the table under the gazebo.
We had a wonderful meal and both agreed the lobster bisque was the best we had ever made for several reasons; mainly the large amount of lobster meat and the large quantity of delicious mirepoix. I had a second bowl and we finished the Marsanne as we watched our new sculpture turn in the breeze, the fountain in the pond gurgle, and doves in to drink in the bird bath in the evening. It is quite peaceful in our Garden because there is a row of pines and several rows of other trees that shield our view of Park Plaza apartments and isolate our garden from the rest of the city. Our view is mainly our garden and then beyond our six or seven foot wall to the east of trees as you can see in the photo above of our pond.
We enjoyed the evening air for a while. Then we went back to the kitchen and Suzette put the remaining lobster stock into a half gallon pitcher and the lobster bisque into a plastic container.
Suzette suggested making gumbo with the remaining lobster and chicken stock and meat and serving the lobster bisque as an appetizer on Sunday at the Mother’s Day Brunch we invited Amy to.
After dinner we picked fresh mint in the garden and made mint flavored simple syrup and then made our first mojitos of the year.
I slept until 3:45 when I awakened and finished this blog entry. At 4:30 I went back to sleep.
We bought and processed a lot of food today and we both agreed that the best lobster bisque ever was worth it.
Bon Appetit
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