July 7, 2018 Lunch – Vietnamese Noodle Miso Soup. Dinner Party – Haddock filets Baked in foil with fresh yellow carrots, black Brandywine tomatoes, and leeks and cauliflower salad.

July 7, 2018 Lunch – Vietnamese Noodle Miso Soup. Dinner Party – Haddock filets Baked in foil with fresh yellow carrots, black Brandywine tomatoes, and leeks and cauliflower salad.

This was an interesting, busy day.  It involved a lot of TV watching and a lot of shopping and cooking.

It started with a ride of eight miles south.  I did not ride the entire ten miles because this was the first day of the Tour de France and I wanted to see the finish if possible.  When I returned at 7:45 the sprint finish had just occurred. As everyone expected, the 23 year old rider from Colombia named Federico Gaviria won.  The reason why he was expected to win is because he has already beaten the best sprinters in the world 8 times this year, most recently in several sprint finishes in the Tour of California and is the reigning track world champion.

I was a little tired from the ride, so made myself a bowl of granola, milk, yogurt, and blueberries.

The other reason I returned before 8:00 was to see the World Cup match between Sweden and England, which England won 2 - 0.

At halftime of the match Suzette and I drove to the Farmer’s Market down the street and in a matter of minutes purchased a bunch of yellow carrots, a bunch of leeks, and about four lb. of bruised black Brandywine tomatoes.

We went home and I watched the rest of the match.  Near the end of the match Suzette had located haddock for dinner and went to Albertson’s to buy three filets.  I watched the end of the match and at 10:00 I was hungry again so I decided to use some of the items Suzette had thrown out that had started to rot while our fridge was turned off for a day from noon Thursday until 3:00 on Friday.  I fished a box of portobello mushrooms and two baby bok Choy from the trash. I decided to make a Vietnamese Noodle Soup with several items from the freezer as well.  I filled a pot 2/3 full with water and added 1 T. of seaweed, 1 tsp. of dehydrated dashi, 1 cube of Pho flavoring, a small handful of square 30 mm. rice noodles and a clump of wheat noodles.  Then I peeled and diced two shallots and added them.  Then I removed the mildewed stalks and diced four portobellos and the two baby bok Choy after removing the damaged outer leaves.  I then added a small bag of PPI broccoli flowerets.  I then dug out three shrimp, two fish balls filled with ground beef, and Sven chicken dumplings from the freezer and added them.  I then let the pot simmer fifteen more minutes while I added a heaping tablespoon of red miso and about four oz. of medium tofu.  I ate at 10:45 while watching the re-play of stage 1 of the Tour.

 

At 11:30 I took a shower and dressed for dinner.  Willy came at 12:00 to watch the World Cup match between Russia and Croatia.

Suzette returned a little after noon and made her and Willy an asparagus, cabbage, tomato, and avocado salad.

The match lasted 120 minutes to a 2 – 2 tie plus penalty kicks, which Croatia won.

There were several shots of the Croatian Prime Minister and Russian Prime Minster Medvedev sitting beside each other and shaking the other’s hand each time the other’s country scored a goal.

After the match Willy left and I diced the black Brandywine tomatoes, three carrots, three cloves of fresh garlic from our garden and two leeks for dinner.  I then lay down for an hour nap.  Suzette awakened me at 5:30.  She prepped six double foil wrapped pockets with haddock laid on lemon slices and garnished with diced carrots, leek, garlic, tarragon from our garden, pats of butter and a dash of Albariño white wine.

I used the excess pieces of lemon, some tarragon, and a clove of garlic plus some olive oil to
reconstitute our Cesar Salad dressing.


I then fetched a bottle of rose from Cotes Du Provence ($6.99 at Trader Joe’s) and a bottle of La Granja (70% Verdejo/30% Viura Spanish blend white wine $5.99 at Trader Joe’s).

Ruth arrived first at 6:20 with dessert, lemon cakes from a shop located at Wyoming and Academy.
Bluebell vanilla ice cream, Trader Joe’s Mango sorbet, a bag of fresh raspberries, and a raspberry gelato.

As soon as we found space in the freezer for all the ice creams, Cynthia arrived with an interesting cauliflower salad of thinly chopped fresh cauliflower, Black olives, celery, green and red onions in a mayo, salt and pepper and olive oil dressing.

I poured the Cotes Du Provence rose.

Soon Melissa arrived and we sat in the TV room and talked after Suzette put the six packets of fish on the grill.  After the first bottle of rose I fetched a bottle of St. Sagnol rose from Coteaux Varios Du Provence ($6.99 at Trader Joe’s) from the garage and poured it.

In about thirty minutes we took the bottle of white La Granja and Cynthia’s salad and moved to the table in the garden.  Then Suzette placed a packet of fish baked in foil in each pasta bowl and we served them and passed the cauliflower salad and poured the white wine.



We ate and talked.

 I replenished the pitcher of water and helped Melissa serve dessert, which was lovely and delicious.

 I poured sips of German pear brandy with dessert but it was not a huge success.

At 9:30 we said goodnight.  Cynthia was kind enough to leave the rest of the cauliflower salad and Ruth kindly left the ice creams and raspberries.

Bon Appetit