I ate granola, milk, blueberries, figs, and yogurt as I watched Middleby spike 20 points this morning. By the close it had settled Dow to a 15 point gain which for my 600 shares meant a $9,000 gain on a down day in the market. My gain today was just over $8,000.
We reserved a hotel room in the Etoile area near the Arc de Triumphe in Paris.
At 10:00 I went to my dermatologist who did a very comprehensive survey and removed several pre-cancerous growths. Nasty but wonderful, because after a lifetime of abusing my skin I am finally taking care of it.
At 11:15 I called Peter Eller after the appointment and we decided to meet for lunch after I went to Trader Joe’s. Peter asked me to buy him a Charles Shaw Shiraz and chardonnay for $2.99 each. I bought 10 other bottles of wine plus two bottles of Chevalier VS cognac for $19.95 each plus bottles of Charles Shaw organic Pinot noir for $3.99 each, plus three of my favorite cheeses, French Tomme de Savoie, Norwegian Jarlsberg, and Spanish Iberico and French Village yogurt.
After Trader Joe’s I drove to Vietnam 2000 and met Peter for lunch. Peter ordered meatball pho soup and I ordered No. 21, Bun Cha Gio, a bowl with fried egg rolls and BBQ pork laid on a layer of the same type of rice vermicelli noodles that were in Peter’s soup, laid on a lower layer of chopped lettuce, julienned cucumbers, herbs, and mung bean sprouts. I only ate ½ of mine and took ½ home in a box. I like the egg rolls at Vietnam 2000.
I returned home at 1:30 and thawed the chicken thighs I bought at Smith’s last week and chilled the bottle of 2017 Reserves de Chasstelles Tavel I had just bought at Trader Joe’s for $5.99.
Around 4:30 Suzette called to tell me she was going to Costco and asked if there were any things we needed. I asked her to buy some vegetables.
At 5:00 I ate a cheese and a herring sandwich and at 5:55 went to meditate.
When I returned home at 7:20 Suzette was still relaxing from her hard day at work and a weird experience. It seems the fraud division of her credit card company cancelled her card because it misinterpreted her charge for the hotel room in Paris, France as a fraudulent charge for a hotel room in Paris, Texas. Alas, she was upset by the loss of her card and the crazy misunderstanding by her card company and bank. Just when you thought the world was a seamless commercial mesh, something weird like this happens that confirms that many institutions are not yet plugged into the global economy.
It made me think of the weirdly disorienting Wim Winders movie “Paris, Texas” starring Harry Dean Stanton.
Suzette did not want to cook, but she wanted to eat so I started prepping the Bobby Flay Chicken recipe. The first step is to coat the chicken pieces with a spice mixture of 2 T. of Spanish Paprika, 2 tsp. of dry mustard, 2 tsp. of ground cumin, 2 tsp. of ground fennel seeds, and 1 tsp. of black pepper. I put these spices in a freezer bag and removed the loose skin from the chicken thighs and then dusted the 10 thighs.
At this point Suzette came to the kitchen and took over the cooking duties. She heated 3 T. of olive oil in a skillet and sautéed the thighs in two phases of five each. We call this the Bobby Flay method for three reasons: we first encountered this method of cooking chicken in one of his recipes introduced to us by Susan Palmer and because the recipe involves a two step cooking process, searing and browning the spice coated chicken on top of the stove in hot olive oil and then baking the chicken at 350 degrees in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes and finally, because he weighted down the chicken during the searing phase with a skillet filled with water, much like the brick covered chicken method used in restaurants.
The result is these two different cooking methods is a quicker cooking time that produces a crisp spicy outer skin and tender inner flesh. A delightful and unique texture.
I did not want to cook a vegetable, so I asked Suzette if eating the PPI Purple Potato and spinach casserole was a sufficient accompaniment to complete the meal. When she agreed I fetched the casserole from the garage. To freshen the dish I placed the extra spinach we had prepped but not used last night under the squares of potato casserole Suzette cut for each of us on the plate she intended to microwave. The effect of this was to create a bed of fresh steamed spinach under the heated potato casserole, which added a fresh green vegetable to the dinner and freshened the casserole with little extra effort.
While the chicken baked, I opened the Tavel and we poured tastes of it. It was a revelation a rose with character and complexity for only $5.99. Suzette found it a little acidic, which it was. This bottle was a blend of 60% Grenache, 25% Cinsault and 15% Syrah, so it contained the same grapes found in many roses from Provence. I guess the difference is the greater percentage of Syrah and the fact that the grapes were grown farther north.
I liked it and will buy it again, if Suzette does not object.
In another ten minutes Suzette removed the chicken from the oven, heated the purple potato and spinach casserole in the microwave, and we were ready to eat. I filled our glasses with Tavel.
We split three pieces of chicken and I ate another small piece after dinner, so we had six PPI pieces for future meals.
We went to bed at 9:30 after a hard day mostly focused on matters other than food.
Bon Appetit
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