May 27, 2018 Brunch – bagel and Lax Dinner – BBQ ribs, corn, deviled eggs, and beans

May 27, 2018  Brunch – bagel and Lax  Dinner – BBQ ribs, corn, deviled eggs, and beans.

   At 9:00 I ate ½ of a whole wheat bagel smeared with cream cheese and layered with tomato, Lax, and red onion slices and garnished with capers.  I drank green tea.

At 10:00 after the news shows I prepped the beans and ribs.  I put 1 ½ cups of beans in a pot with 4 1/2 cups of water as instructed yesterday by the Moriarty bean grower at the Farmers’ Market, who sold us the beans. His instructions were to cook them for 3 ½ hours.

The instructions on the package of ribs was to cook them covered in aluminum in a shallow roasting pan at 300 degrees for 2 ½ hours.  Since the beans would take longer I set the temp in the convection oven at 250 degrees and simply brushed the two racks of ribs with Kraft Masterpiece KC BBQ sauce (Costco).

Then I joined Suzette in the garden.  I scaped the garlic plants while Suzette planted the tomato, zucchini, and pimiento plants we bought yesterday.  She also put a wire super structure over the pole beans and cleaned up the beds and trimmed the chard.  I went in after trimming the dead heads from the rose bushes at 11:00.

We showered and dressed and drove to Trader Joe’s in Uptown and picked up the six bottles of 2017 San Sagnol Rose’ plus four bottles of the Floriana Hungarian Gruner Vetliner, all of which were $6.99 per bottle, plus another wedge of blue cheese and a ball of fresh mozzarella.

When we returned home I turned the heat on the ribs down to 250 again and rested again.  My recuperating body is demanding lots of rest, but it is responding with ever less pain and my skin is beginning to rejuvenate.

At 2:30 I went to the kitchen and Suzette was glazing the ribs with BBQ sauce.  Willy called to say he would arrive at 3:15, so we went into final prep.  Suzette had hard boiled 8 eggs and deviled 6 of them and placed them on a deviled egg and garnish platter with cubed pickled beets and pieces of homemade dill pickles.

I sliced  ½  Vidalia onion and added the slices to the platter. Here is a picture.

 

Suzette said she had done nothing to the beans and I should finish seasoning them.

I went to the garden and picked a handful of oregano, a garlic chive and three chive stalks, which I de-stemmed and sliced and chopped and added to the beans with about 2 tsp. of Japanese sea salt.

After a few minutes suzette said, “Why not add some onion.”
So I chopped about 2 oz. of Visalia onion and added that.

Willy arrived about 3:45 and everything was ready.

I sliced the 11 ribs on one rack and we each took an ear of corn and beans and Suzette and I took beers and Suzette made a pitcher of mint tea for Willy and we carried all that to the garden.

We were all hungry so we devoured our Memorial Day feast.

The ribs were slightly greasy but remarkably tender.  So tender that the meat fell off many of the bones as I tried to cut the ribs apart.

Also the beans were lovely.  I tried to keep the beans’ unique flavor but soon saw Suzette’s logic and after the meal I added a couple of Tsp.s of  BBQ sauce to them to add to them that vinegary, sweetness of BBQ sauce.

Although I may get to the point of enjoyed unique flavor characteristics of different varieties of beans, I am still largely in Suzette’s camp that a pot of beans is a blank canvas on which one added the seasoning flavors one wishes the beans to transmit.

There is one entire rack of ribs and lots of PPIs, so this meal could be re-enacted again.

After dinner Suzette asked me if I wanted to go to the RBG movie at the Guild and I said I could not as I lay down in bed again to go back to sleep.

I awoke at 8:30 and watched the last few scenes in the Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark movie with Harrison Ford and Karen Allen.

I then waited up for The PBS Masterpiece theater presentation of Inspector Lewis at 10:30 as I sipped a cup of tea, very British.  Then afterwards I completed this blog installment before returning to bed.

Bon Appetit