Today was a awful reminder of cross-cultural food combinations.
It is2:30 in the morning of Dec. 18 and I am having stomach pains from the food at different ends of the spectrum I ate today.
For lunch I took Aaron and I went to eat at The Range after our first choice AmerAsia was closed for kitchen renovation.
I ordered Country Fried Steak, a throw back to the less sophisticated culinary habits of my youth. I love the fried battered pounded cube with white gravy and mashed potatoes served with a lovely brown mushroom gravy at the Range, but it must have been overly filling, especially when combined with dinner.
I decided to make a Seafood Soup for dinner. I invited Mike and Wily for dinner at 6:30. In the afternoon I thawed a haddock filet. Suzette and I started cooking at 5:00. I diced 1 cup of onion and ½ cup of shallots and about seven or eight cloves of garlic that Suzette sautéed in a large Le Creuset casserole. I then diced ½ yellow bell pepper and ten stalks of asparagus, which she added to the casserole and sautéed. We then shelled about a dozen shrimp and Suzette went to the garden and picked a handful of thyme and several garlic chives and added them the soup. She cooked the shrimp shells in a skillet with wine and water to make a stock and added the thyme stalks. We added a bay leaf, a pinch of saffron, and 1 tsp. of herbs Provence to the soup.
I then diced about 1 ½ cups of tomatoes and two zucchini that I added to the casserole. Suzette diced the haddock and several scallops. She added wine and water and the stock to the casserole to create the soup. At 6:30 after a bit of cooking Suzette added the diced fish and scallops and peeled shrimp and diced scallops and mussels in their shells to the soup.
Willy had gone with a Suzette to select items for the new apartment at Pro Source in the afternoon and took a walk in the Bosque and returned for dinner at around 6:00. He helped move the dining table near the fireplace, so we would be warmed by the fire as we ate and helped set the table. I fetched a bottle of Trader Joe’s Petit Reserve 2017 Russian River Valley Sauvignon Blanc (Trader Joe’s $7.99) and out it into the fridge to chill.
When Willy returned from his walk, I poured small glasses of the wine we poured last night, a 2011
Vega de Origon Gran Reserva from the Terra Alta region of Spain. It still tasted wonderful. I called Trader Joe’s and requested a case of it.
When Mike came a little after 6:30 I gave him a glass of the Vega de Origon and he liked it also, which I count as a sign of its quality, since Mike drinks lots of good red wine.
Mike brought a La Brea baguette and bunch of parsley from Smith’s.
I grated some Pecorino Romano cheese and Suzette sliced slices of the baguette and piled cheese on them and baked them in a hot oven to melt the cheese and make cheese covered croutons. I minced a handful of parsley leaves.
Suzette then served the soup and garnished each bowl with several croutons and a generous pinch of minced parsley.
Suzette made more cheesy croutons and each of us guys ate another bowl of soup garnished with croutons.
After dinner I fetched the chocolate covered almonds and liquor and cherry filled chocolates and bottles of cognac and Calvados and we sat and ate chocolates as we sipped cognac and calvados.
Willy left at around 8:30. Suzette went to bed around 9:20 and Mike and I talked until 10:20. We mentioned our plans to attend the Taos Winter Wine Festival this year and both Willy and Mike expressed an interest in going.
I woke up around 1:30 with a stomach ache. Suzette passed by around 2:45. When I asked her if she suffered any ill effects from the bouillabaisse and she said she had not, so I blame my stomach ache on the chicken fried steak or perhaps more appropriately shifting from Texas fried food to French seafood soup was too much for my stomach.
I still do not know if the fried food put my stomach off of the radical shift from a Texas Fried Steak to French Provençal Bouillabaisse.
I shall try in the future to mix such radically different cuisines.
Bon Appetit
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