January 30, 2019 Lunch – PPI Miso Noodle Dinner – Grilled Lamb Chops, Roasted Brussel Sprouts with red onion, and Pinon nuts and Beans

January 30, 2019 Lunch – PPI Miso Noodle  Dinner – Grilled Lamb Chops, Roasted Brussel Sprouts with red onion, and Pinon nuts and Beans

I awakened at 6:00 and showered and dressed.  I went to Tricore Labs at 7:30 for blood work.

When I returned home around 8:30 I ate granola, blueberries, milk, and yogurt.

I watched the Market in amazement as Apple soared up $10.00 at one point and took a lot of other stocks with it except for AT&T, which ended down $1.33 after losing over 600,000 dish subscribers.

It looks like the December correction has ended.  In fact, this is the strongest January rise in 30 years.  But in my case down 20% in December and up 15% in January is not anything I am ready to cheer about.

I picked Billy and Elaine up at the airport at 2:00.  After dropping their bags at home, we drove to El Super to shop.  I had not shopped in over a week and I took advantage of the discounts on produce.  I bought oranges, mangos, a papaya, and a pineapple for another batch of tropical fruit salad.

I also bought radishes, cilantro, red and yellow onions, blue corn tortillas, a block of mozzarella cheese, requeson, and crema.

We then drove to Sprouts and while Billy read in the car, Elaine and I shopped.  We bought three types of corn chips, blueberries, 18 eggs, and 2 lb. of green beans.


I stopped at Donut Mart on the way home and bought three bagels and cream cheese.

When we got home at around 5:00 Suzette was there and since Billy and Elaine had not eaten lunch, we decided to cook dinner.

The Brussels Sprouts and Beans were already cooked, so the only thing needed was the grilling of the lamb chops.

I talked to Billy about the wine and we decided to try the Origon Gran Reserva.  Billy had the same reaction as Suzette, that the Syrah made the wine unduly heavy. Billy said, “I prefer a 100% Tempranillo.”

Dinner was lovely and the substitution of beans for potatoes met Billy and Elaine’s wishes.  Suzette explained that the beans were grown in Moriarty and there was a mixture of three beans, pintos, bolitos, and Anasazi.  Everyone liked the beans and Billy and Elaine and I went back for seconds.

Billy and Elaine had gotten up st 4:00 to make their flight, so everyone was tired and we were all in bed by 8:30.

Bon Appetit

January 28, 2019 Lots of Leftovers Lunch – PPI Couscous, Brussels Sprouts and Steak, Dinner – Blue Corn, beef, Enchiladas and beans

January 28, 2019 Lots of Leftovers Lunch – PPI Couscous, Brussels Sprouts and Steak,  Dinner – Blue Corn, beef, Enchiladas and beans

Today I must have set the record for disposing of the greatest number of PPIs.

I ate biodynamic granola with tropical fruit salad and poured the remaining fruit salad into a much smaller bowl that created lots of room in the fridge.

For lunch I decided to eat the remaking Couscous, with the remaining Brussels Sprouts left from two weeks ago with four strips of steak left from last night’s dinner.  This created a huge plate of food, but I finished it.

After lunch I dozed off for a bit while I watched the Market shrug off all the good news of the end of the government shutdown and instead focus on less than wonderful earnings reports by Nvidia and Caterpiller and a report by China of a slowdown in production in the 4th quarter.  I lost almost all of Friday’s gain.

I am holding my breath until after Apple reports its 4th quarter earnings after the market closes on Tuesday.  My hope is that Apple’s warning of a slowdown in sales in China in December that drove the stock down 11 points in one day has priced in any shortfall in earnings and its earnings will not be a shock to its market price.

At 2:30 I went to physical therapy.  We did about a dozen exercises.  My favorite was the last one which was rising to my feet from a sitting position without the use of my hands.

When I returned home around 4:30 Suzette called to tell me she would not be home until after 7:30 due to a meeting in Belen.

While watching the news I realized that we had all the ingredients for blue corn beef enchiladas.

At around 6:00 I began cooking by dicing the last ½ onion in the fridge, which removed two bags of pieces of onion from the fridge.  I then sautéed about 2/3 lb. of ground beef with the onions and added about 1 tsp. of taco seasoning to the meat.

When the meat and onions were cooked I put some of the PPI Red chile sauce from Christmas in a small skillet with water and some of the bean water and softened three blue corn tortillas that I lay on a deep sided plate to form the base for the enchiladas.  I then lay a layer of beef and the last of a container of requeson (Mexican cottage cheese, used often in enchiladas) on the tortillas.

Then I softened three additional tortillas for the next layer on which I lay the rest of the beef and onions, plus the last slices of Iberico cheese.

I then softened a third set of three tortillas and put them on top of the second layer of beef and cheese. I then grated about 1 cup of another cheese I found in the fridge and sprinkled it on top of the third layer of tortillas.

I then added about 1/3 cup of the red Chile sauce to the skillet with the stewing medium and a bit more bean juice and poured that over the top of the stack of enchiladas and added a bit more Chile sauce to cover several areas of tortilla not coated with the chile sauce.

I put the plate on a cookie sheet and baked it in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes until the sauce began to bubble and the cheese appeared melted.  Here is a picture.

The beans seemed soft after cooking them all day, so I filled a small bowl with beans and fetched the blue corn chips Aaron had brought last night and the container of guacamole Suzette made last night and had a wonderful dinner with a bottle of Negra Modelo, as I watched the news and the Antiques Roadshow. I was careful to leave ½ of the enchiladas for Suzette.

Suzette arrived soon after I got in bed at 8:00 to rest my sore muscles and work on my 2018 taxes.

Suzette ate the rest of the enchiladas with some of the beans for her dinner also and came to bed after her long tiring day of work at around 9:00, when we both went to sleep.

I felt good about using up two PPIs for lunch and three for dinner.  There is now lots more room in the fridge for the cooking we will do with Billy and Elaine, who arrive on Wednesday.

Bon Appetit

January 29, 2019 Lunch – Miso Noodle Soup. Dinner — Hamburgers, Beans, and Sautéed string beans and Beech mushrooms.

January 29, 2019 Lunch – Miso Noodle Soup. Dinner — Hamburgers, Beans, and Sautéed string beans and Beech mushrooms

This was a more normal day.  I did legal work efficiently and finished what I needed to do by 11:30.

I decided to cook a miso soup with noodles.  I filled a 2 quart pot 2/3 full with water. I then added 1 tsp. of dehydrated dashi and about 1 ½ tsp. of dried seaweed.  I the diced and added ½ of a large shallot and two large mushrooms.  Then I added a cooked salmon filet, four leaves of Napa cabbage sliced, about ten sugar snap peas sliced in half, three Fish balls, six heads on shrimp, and a heaping T. of red miso, plus three types of noodles: rice stick, bean thread, and Japanese buckwheat noodles (soba).

I cooked the soup for about thirty minutes until all the ingredients were cooked and tender and then ate it with green tea and a puddle of hoisin sauce and sriracha to dip the bits of meat into.

After lunch I called Mike and met him at the Candy store to engage him to cover the broken window with plywood and to secure it with a 2x4 and bolt.  Then I went to the bank and the post office and when I returned I at around 2:45 I was a bit tired still from my physical therapy on Monday, so I decided to rest instead of riding my bike.

Suzette picked me up at 4:00 and we went to Jim’s home to go over the final drawings.

We returned around 6:00 so I drank a cup of hot chocolate with coffee and rum and ate a piece of Swedish hard bread smeared with butter and covered with slices of Norwegian Jarlsberg cheese.

Todd had a flat and arrived a ½ hour late so we meditated from about 7:00 until 7:45.  We decided to grill the last of the ground beef in hamburger patties and eat the beans we had cooked and to steam the green beans I bought at Sprouts last week.  After I snapped the green beans and formed the hamburgers and the green beans were cooking I decided to sauté the steamed green beans with some beech mushrooms with butter, olive oil, a dash of chervil, and ½ of a shallot left from lunch that I diced. After the vegetables softened I added a liberal splash of Amontillado sherry and turned down the heat to create a light sauce.   I sliced three slices of Stilton cheese to melt on the hamburgers, because we like to melt a piece of blue cheese on our hamburgers to create a sort of glaze and sauce
for the hamburger.

I also decided to try the bottle of 2011 Cotes du Boutg I found in the wine cellar a few days ago.  Suzette had several calls during this period , which made the cooking a little disjointed, but by 8:30 we accomplished the cooking and I opened and poured two glasses of the red wine.

 Suzette got me to reach to the top shelf to fetch two small Frankoma greenware bowls, which she filled with beans and placed on our plates with the green bean and mushroom medley and the blue cheese glazed hamburger.

I found the wine to be well made and smooth but it had little character in Suzette’s opinion. So we will not buy another bottle of it, if I ever see another.

We watched some news and got to see Roger Stone give a big Nixon wave on his way out of court after being indicted on seven counts including  lying to Congress and suborning perjury testimony.  As I watched I had an awful feeling of déjà vu that our country was going through another episode of political tricks to gain control of the government and we were forced to re-live the watergate era, except worse if it is proven that the actors in this episode were acting in concert with the Russians.

By. 9:15 we were on our way to bed.  I blogged a bit and then went to sleep by 10:00.

Another day that confirmed that you can eat a healthy tasty dinner in the midst of a busy schedule of activity.

Bon Appetit

January 29, 2019 Lunch – Miso Noodle Soup. Dinner — Hamburgers, Beans, and Sautéed string beans and Beech mushrooms.

This was a more normal day.  I did legal work efficiently and finished what I needed to do by 11:30.

I decided to cook a miso soup with noodles.  I filled a 2 quart pot 2/3 full with water. I then added 1 tsp. of dehydrated dashi and about 1 ½ tsp. of dried seaweed.  I the diced and added ½ of a large shallot and two large mushrooms.  Then I added a cooked salmon filet, four leaves of Napa cabbage sliced, about ten sugar snap peas sliced in half, three Fish balls, six heads on shrimp, and a heaping T. of red miso, plus three types of noodles: rice stick, bean thread, and Japanese buckwheat noodles (soba).

I cooked the soup for about thirty minutes until all the ingredients were cooked and tender and then ate it with green tea and a puddle of hoisin sauce and sriracha to dip the bits of meat into.

After lunch I called Mike and met him at the Candy store to engage him to cover the broken window with plywood and to secure it with a 2x4 and bolt.  Then I went to the bank and the post office and when I returned I at around 2:45 I was a bit tired still from my physical therapy on Monday, so I decided to rest instead of riding my bike.

Suzette picked me up at 4:00 and we went to Jim’s home to go over the final drawings.

We returned around 6:00 so I drank a cup of hot chocolate with coffee and rum and ate a piece of Swedish hard bread smeared with butter and covered with slices of Norwegian Jarlsberg cheese.

Todd had a flat and arrived a ½ hour late so we meditated from about 7:00 until 7:45.  We decided to grill the last of the ground beef in hamburger patties and eat the beans we had cooked and to steam the green beans I bought at Sprouts last week.  After I snapped the green beans and formed the hamburgers and the green beans were cooking I decided to sauté the steamed green beans with some beech mushrooms with butter, olive oil, a dash of chervil, and ½ of a shallot left from lunch that I diced. After the vegetables softened I added a liberal splash of Amontillado sherry and turned down the heat to create a light sauce.   I sliced three slices of Stilton cheese to melt on the hamburgers, because we like to melt a piece of blue cheese on our hamburgers to create a sort of glaze and sauce for the hamburger.

I also decided to try the bottle of 2011 Cotes du Boutg I found in the wine cellar a few days ago.  Suzette had several calls during this period , which made the cooking a little disjointed, but by 8:30 we accomplished the cooking and I opened and poured two glasses of the red wine.

 Suzette got me to reach to the top shelf to fetch two small Frankoma greenware bowls, which Skopje filled with beans and placed on our plates with the green bean and mushroom medley and the blue cheese glazed hamburger.

I found the wine to be well made and smooth but it had little character in Suzette’s opinion. So we will not buy another bottle of it, if I ever see another.

We watched some news and got to see Roger Stone give a big Nixon wave on his way out of court after being indicted on seven counts including  lying to Congress and suborning perjury testimony.  As I watched I had an awful feeling of déjà vu That our country was going through another episode of political tricks to gain control of the government and we were forced to re-live the watergate era, except worse if it is proven that the actors in this episode were acting in concert with the Russians.

By. 9:15 we were on our way to bed.  I blogged a bit and then went to sleep by 10:00.

Another day that confirmed that you can eat a healthy tasty dinner in the midst of a busy schedule of activity.

Bon Appetit

January 27, 2019 Brunch – Baked Eggs with Foie Gras and Sauteed fingerlings. Dinner – Grilled Ribeye Steak, Sautéed Potato Slices, and Cauliflower Couscous with Steamed Sugar Snap Peas

January 27, 2019 Brunch – Baked Eggs with Foie Gras and Sauteed fingerlings.  Dinner – Grilled Ribeye Steak, Sautéed Potato Slices, and Cauliflower Couscous with Steamed Sugar Snap Peas

I slept until 7:30 after blogging for two hours in the middle of the night.

I watched the morning talk shows until 10:00.  Suzette wanted to try to replicate the amazing appetizer we ate at a small bistro in Montmartre in September.  According to our waiter it was an egg,  a T. of cream, and a few pieces of foie gras baked until the egg congeals.  It was delicious.

We were not sure whether to mix the cream with the or to add them separately and then add the foie gras.

We decided to do four ramekins, two each whipped and unwhipped and sauté the remains roasted fingerling Potatoes.

The whipped egg and cream rose like a soufflé and was stiffer, while the unwhipped  did not rise and was creamier.

                                                 The whipped

                                                   The unwhipped

The sautéed fingerling potatoes

We drank a bottle of my current favorite Gruet champagne, the 2012 Vintage Blancs de Blancs.  It is smooth with a nice finish and 100% Chardonnay.  A truest elegant wine.

The baked eggs were terrific.  Suzette decided to butter the ramekin next time and not whip to try to create a creamier texture.  I said that the Parisians may have used  more or heavier cream. We are still experimenting with this recipe but it is a new one we collected on the last trip and a good one.  Two baked eggs with foie gras were sufficient to carry us to dinner without another snack, also.

We carried our glasses of champagne to the basement to toast the successful completion of the boiler installation.

Aaron called to say that Monika preferred beef steak to lamb chops, which I had predicted, so I fetched four frozen ribeye steaks from the garage freezer and started thawing them.  He asked if there was anything they could bring, I requested corn chips.

We were still in a cooking mood, so I cleaned and halved a bag of Brussels sprouts and a diced a red onion and a Suzette tossed the vegeatables with olive oil and salted and peppered them and roasted them in the hot oven she had used to bake the eggs.

We also decided to cook beans in the duck stock we had made last week, so I boned the duck carcass, Suzette checked and selected an assortment of Moriarty beans, and then we filled the bean pot with beans and duck stock and meat.

At around noon Suzette went to work and I lay down and finished my book club book, A Gentleman in Moscow and a Bloomberg article on the steps being taken or not taken to control China’s overheated economy.

I dozed for a bit but when I awakened at 2:00 I decided to rode my bike. I ate two sugar tablets and put two additional tablets in the pocket of the shirt I wear to ride.  I have anew short circuit.  I ride to the Country Club on Park Ave. and through the passage to Tingley Dr., then north on Tingley to Central where I enter the bike path and ride south past the zoo to Marquez, where I turn around and ride back north to the house.

When I returned home at around 3:30 I drank a cup of coffee hot Chocolate infused with a teaspoon of cocoa and a shot of rum.  I watched the last quarter of the All Star game and then Last Samurai with Tom Cruise.

Suzette returned home at 4:00 and I took my shower and dressed for dinner at 5:00.

When I returned to the kitchen Suzette was hard at work prepping the cauliflower couscous and steaming the sugar snap peas, which she combined and sautéed.

We had three baked Yukon gold potatoes, which Suzette sliced and sautéed eight slices of potato.

She also set the table in front of the fireplace and while I made a Béarnaise sauce with herbs Provence instead of tarragon, Suzette converted the two large avocados into guacamole for which I minced about 1 ½ T. of shallot, by adding lime juice and minced fresh cilantro.

Suzette seasoned the thawed steaks with salt and pepper and put them on a aluminum cookie sheet into the fridge.

Aaron amid Monika arrived at 6:15 with a large bag of organic blue corn chips.  We put the chips into a bowl and served the guacamole with it and opened a bottle of Gruet Brut to drink.

We sat in our living room for the first time since Christmas Day while secretly relishing the fact that the front zone in our house is a uniform 65 degrees.

We were so excited, we showed Monika and Aaron our new boiler, which Monika recognized as being a very high quality German boiler.

We also viewed the wine cellars and discussed a wine for dessert and settled on a bottle of Gruet Pinot Noir Sauvage, which I took to the fridge to chill.

Suzette then grilled the four ribeyes on the propane grill.  When they were grilled we covered them with aluminum foil for a couple of minutes to let them concentrate their juices and keep cooking a bit while we opened a bottle of 2010 Wellington Mohrhardt Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon, which Aaron poured.

I then sliced three of the steaks because the first two were medium and the third was medium rare.

Suzette plated the plates with a pile of the cauliflower Couscous and sugar snap pea mixture and then a slice of potato on which I lay two or three slices of steak and then another sliced of sautéed potato on which I lay several more slices of steak to create a sort of steak and potato stack, which she the drizzled with Béarnaise sauce.

I must admit that it was a pretty impressive plate of food.

Suzette extended the Western theme by using her Frankoma ware green wagon wheel dishes and ceramic glasses with the hand made steel knives and forks for the meal.

We sat in front of the fireplace and enjoyed our dinner.

After dinner I spooned pieces of cold blueberry Clafoutis into small bowls and Suzette garnished them with a small dollop of Reddi Whip whipped cream.  I brought the whipped cream to the table so those who wished could add more whipped cream.  Aaron opened and served the Sauvage and we enjoyed the 100% Pinot Noir zero residual sugar champagne with the fresh fruit Clafoutis.

After dinner we took a short tour of the art collection and then around 9:00 we said goodnight.

Monika seemed to like her dinner, so I was happy.  After Aaron and Monika left, Suzette said she was tired and wanted to go to bed leaving the dishes for the morning.

I bagged the meat and Suzette put up the rest in containers.

By 9:30 we were on our way to the land of nod.

I woke up at 2:00 and remembered that that is when I usually awaken after a big steak dinner.

I drank a glass of water and blogged and waited for my stomach to quiet.

I could not help checking Bloomberg News and my enthusiasm for a big day in the Market indicated by a 236 point future posted Sunday morning was dampened considerably when I saw the futures and oil had gone negative on the news that China’s industrial production numbers had worsened even though the US government shutdown ending was good news.

Bon Appetit

January 26, 2019 A short trip to Santa Fe Lunch – The Plaza Café

January 26, 2019 A short trip to Santa Fe Lunch – The Plaza Café

I did not sleep well last night last night and arose at 6:30, although Suzette slept better and later, until around 8:00

I checked the the phone messages and returned a call from Joe, the plumber, who said they had not been able to gain entry into the basement on Friday and only had about 20 minutes of work left to finish the installation of our boiler and connect it to our existing system of radiators and start heating the house.  We made arrangements for the plumbers to gain access on Saturday, so we could drive to Santa Fe.  Suzette wanted to see the new Five Groups exhibit at the Fine Arts Museum.

At 8:00 I toasted 2 1/3 slices of an onion bagel and smeared them with cream cheese and lay thin slices of onion and Lax on them and studded them with a few capers and drank a cup of hot tea with them.

We left for Santa Fe at 10:00 after a Suzette drank her coffee, read the paper, showered and dressed.

Suzette checked restaurants to find a restaurant for dinner that we had not been to before and art exhibits as we drove to Santa Fe, so we had a plan when we arrived at around 11:00.  The plan was to spend the day looking at art and then eat an early dinner in Santa Fe, but when we looked at our preferred restaurant, Sazon, we were put off by the prices.  All the appetizers were $18.00 and no entrée was less than $30.00.

We drove to Stephen’s first.  I did not see anything but Suzette found a set of six or eight lovely lucite dessert plates for $48.00 that would be perfect for poolside service at her spa at the Center for a Ageless Living in Los Linas.  Here is a picture of them.

We then drove to the Railyard area.  We were hungry and so we walked to the Farmers’ Market first and decided to eat a snack since it was 11:30.  I selected a small spinach and feta quiche for $6.00 and Suzette bought us a 12 oz. bottle of fresh apple cider, which we shared as we sat at on of the tables at the end of the large indoor food hall.

We then walked across the railroad tracks to the El Museo indoor flea market and walked around it, but did not buy anything.

Then we walked back toward the car, stopping at Lewellan Modern Gallery to view its new exhibit of Picasso prints.  The exhibit was interesting but not enough to inquire about the prices.  We also saw several nice Woody Gwynn paintings and an awful Marc Chagall painting.

I remember in the 80’s when Arlene Lewellen took over Elaine Horwith’s Gallery space on Palace St. and had the best modern gallery in Santa Fe for years.  I bought a Jeanne Quick to See Smith pastel from her Petroglyphs series in the early 90’s from Arlene after I had helped Westland Development negotiate the sale of approximately 1000 acres of land to the U.S. Department of Interior and help enact legislation to create the Petroglyphs Monument on the Westside of Albuquerque.

We then drove to the Fine Arts Museum.  We first went to see the Five Groups Exhibit, which featured mainly works from the museum’s collection.  I noted that there is a recent shift of emphasis toward showing the work of female artist, perhaps because the current director is a woman.  It almost feels like the movement a couple of decades ago toward enforced diversity in colleges by creating
quotas for minority students to bring greater integration into all levels of society.  It worked.  It got us our first African American President.

The five groups were: the earliest group The Taos Society of Artists, the Transcendental Painting Group, which was mainly in Taos and Albuquerque, Los Cinco Pintores in Santa Fe, the Rio Grande Group mainly in Santa Fe, and the Stieglitz Group gathered mainly around Mabel Dodge Lujan in Taos.

                                                       An Agnes Pelton TPG Painting
                                                Nat is asking $265,000.00 for this one.

                              This is an Emil Bisstram TPG painting named “Archetype”

Here is my favorite Taos Society of Artists painter, E. Martin Hennings

Since the works were from the Museum’s collection we had seen many  of the works before, except for the Rio Grande Group, which included several nice paintings by Willard Nash.

We then viewed the large New Mexico sculpture exhibit, which exhibited many women sculptors.  We were most impressed by four lovely 12to 14 inch tall wooden sculptures of Indian dancers by Agnes Sims.

It was about 12:30 when we finished looking at the Fine Arts Museum exhibits.  I was tired and hungry again and Suzette wanted a beer.  We crossed the street and walked south on Lincoln along the west side of the Plaza toward the Ore House, but stopped at the Plaza Café and went in to get me something to eat.

We were shown to a booth above which was a photo taken of the front of the Plaza Café in 1955.  The website refers to it as the Famous Plaza Café and it seems to me to be one of the few businesses and buildings on the Plaza that remains unchanged or repurposed from the 1950’s, besides the Palace of Governors and the Fine Arts Museum.

Suzette became more enthusiastic about eating when she read the menu and saw they served her favorite beer, Negra Modelo and we both saw two items we wanted to try, Tortilla Soup and Chicken Mole Enchiladas.  The Plaza Café was full of both locals and tourists.  As Suzette observed,  “This must be on everyone’s ‘To Do’ list.”

I told her, “I know folks who eat here several times a week.”

We ordered two Negras ($5.00 each), a bowl of the Tortilla Soup ($7.50) and the Chicken Mole Enchiladas ($12.95).  These are pretty cheap prices for Santa Fe, so I could see why it is a
universally favorite place to eat.

The beers were brought first and then both the soup and enchiladas were brought together with an extra bowl and an extra platter, because we told the waitress we wished to share both dishes.  Suzette would have preferred that the soup be served first and then a little later the enchiladas, but it was not that kind of restaurant.  I was happy that the waitress brought an extra bowl and plate so we could split the two dishes.

The tortilla soup was a lovely chicken vegetable soup with carrots, onions, celery and potatoes garnished with fried tortilla strips and some melted cheese.  A delicious light caldo instead of the often heavy inedible Chile and bean based concoctions found in fancier restaurants.

The chicken mole enchiladas were also very clean and flavorful, a pile of the same shredded cooked chicken wrapped inside of a thick corn tortilla and sauced with a lovely mole sauce that was both fragrant with a slight chocolate flavor. I thought for a moment I was back in Oaxaca and the reason for that is because the restaurant may be using the mole sauce produced in Oaxaca that is imported into the U.S.

Suzette liked the Spanish rice that was tinted a reddish color by the abundance of tomato sauce it was cooked in. The beans were creamy, also, indicating a care in their preparation.

We enjoyed lunch at a new restaurant, thus satisfying Suzette’s wish to eat at a new restaurant that, ironically, was also a historic restaurant with interesting food and reasonable prices that served her favorite beer and close to the museum that did not require me to walk a long distance, especially since it was cold and windy and there was still snow on the ground in many places.   I felt that by the convergence of a series of planned and unplanned circumstances, quixotically we had checked all the boxes in our choice of the Plaza Café for our Santa Fe dining experience.

Since I was tired, we decided to drive home after lunch.  Suzette was kind enough to drive the Prius back to Albuquerque so I could sleep.

She stopped at Costco to fill up and we were in bed and napping by 3:30.

I awoke at 4:45 and Suzette awakened soon after that.  We watched the PBS news at 5:00 and then the BBC news at 5:30.  Then we watched the NHL Allstar Games until 8:00 when we watched the PBS series “Death in Paradise”.  Suzette was not hungry, so I toasted two slices of whole wheat bread, melted slices of Jarlsberg cheese on them and then laid slices of onion, some mayonnaise, lettuce leaves, slices of avocado, and finally sliced turkey breast to make two rather tall open faced sandwiches.

We went to bed at 9:00 and I slept until 2:30 a.m.when I blogged about the day’s events and then returned to bed.

Bon Appetit

January 25, 2019 Lunch – AmerAsia. Dinner – Stuffed Bell Peppers

January 25, 2019 Lunch – AmerAsia.  Dinner – Stuffed Bell Peppers

I had a biodynamic granola breakfast with tropical fruit salad and yogurt.

I went to AmerAsia to eat dim sum with Aaron for lunch.  We went a little crazy and ordered 6 dishes: chicken with peanut and water chestnut steamed dumplings, beef with water chestnut steamed dumplings, steamed buns, rice with spicy pork, stuffed deep fried tofu, and fried dumplings filled with juicy pork balls.

We must have been hungry because we ate so quickly that I forgot to get a picture.

After finishing the six dishes, we were given a dish with four pieces of  fried dough covered with powdered sugar that we gobbled also.

Aaron returned me home by 1:30.

Suzette came home early at 4:00.

At 5:00 I asked Suzette if she wanted to cook stuffed bell peppers and she said, “Yes.”

We went into motion around 6:00.  I called Mike to ask him if he wanted to join us for dinner and he said he would bring a bottle of Italian Amarone.  Then Willy called and said Amy and Val were in town and we invited them to dinner also for a total of 6.  We rearranged the table and chairs and I brought in two more chairs so we could gather around the round table in the TV room in front of the fireplace.

Then at around 6:15 Suzette put five Yukon Gold potatoes into the oven to bake and I started by coring the five bell peppers, while Suzette made the filling with ground pork and beef plus onion and cauliflower by processing them in the Cuisinart. When she sautéed the filling I went out to the garden and picked a handful of sage, which I chopped finely and added to the filling.

I then diced three Roma tomatoes and added them to the skillet Suzette had filled with 7 oz.of tomato sauce and a bit of red wine to which  I added about 1 tsp. of marjoram leaves.

After the filling was cooked Suzette stuffed the bell peppers with the filling and poured the sauce over the five stuffed bell peppers she had placed in a Pyrex baking dish .

We continued to bake the Yukon gold potatoes with the five stuffed bell peppers in the oven for about thirty minutes.

After the stuffed bell peppers were in the oven, I started making a blueberry Clafoutis, by measuring 7  T. of flour and 10 T. of powdered sugar plus ½ tsp. of salt into a medium mixing bowl.

I  scalded 1 cup of cream and 2 cups of half and half together in a sauce pan over moderate heat until it began to boil and then I turned off the heat and let the milk cool.  As the milk was cooking I whisked 3 eggs and added them to the dry ingredients. After the milk had cooled a bit, I poured the scalded milk through a seive to catch the milk solids into the dry ingredients and stirred until the batter was smooth.

I then added 18 oz. of blueberries I had bought at Sprouts last week for $2.98 to the batter in the
mixing bowl and stirred the batter to mix it .  I then poured the batter into the buttered ceramic baking dish and placed it on a cookie sheet.

We removed the potatoes from the oven and then placed the Clafoutis in the 350 degree oven at 7:00, just after Mike arrived.  Amy, Vahl and Willy arrived at around 7:15 and we poured everyone glasses of the new Portuguese wine I bought at Trader Joe’s for $6.99 produced in the the Lisbon region that has a colorful impressionistic painting of a funicular in the city.

Everyone liked the Portuguese wine because it was fruity with mild tannins.  The men sat at the table in front of the fireplace and Suzette and Amy cut each stuffed bell pepper in half and sliced two baked potatoes and served ½ of a bell pepper on a slice of baked potato with a drizzle of the tomato sauce enriched with the cooking juices in the baking dish to each person

I thought ½ of a bell pepper would not be a sufficient amount of food but it was very filling, although Willy and I split another smaller stuffed pepper for seconds.

I took the Clafoutis out of the oven at 8:00 when the top was just beginning to turn golden brown and let it cool for a bit.

when dinner was eaten and Mike’s bottle of Italian wine was finished, I opened a new bottle of cognac ($19.95 at Trader Joe’s) and set it on the table with a can of Reddi Whip and then served bowls of warm Clafoutis and Suzette fetched small spoons.  We nibbled on Clafoutis and talked until 9:00.  As it turned out Amy and Vahl were staying in Albuquerque because they are taking the early flight to PV in the morning and staying in Sayulita. We talked about Sayulita and told them we were going there on February 13 and Willy is traveling to Mexico City on March 1 and Luke is there now running a spiritual retreat on the beach in Oaxaca.  What a magnetic pull that country seems to have on our
family.

At 9:00 we said goodbye to Amy, Vahl, and Willy and Mike said goodnight at 9:40.

We were in bed shortly after 10:00 and watched Rachel Maddow report the explosive news that Roger Stone was arrested early this morning on 6 or 7 criminal charges connected to his activities supporting the Trump campaign and specifically the release of Clinton emails by Wikileaks.

Bon Appetit

January 24, 2019 Chinese as far as the eye can see. Lunch – East Ocean. Dinner – PPI Fried Rice with clams, fried tofu and mixed vegetables

January 24, 2019 Chinese as far as the eye can see. Lunch – East Ocean. Dinner – PPI Fried Rice with clams, fried tofu and mixed vegetables

The day started again with granola, fruit salad and yogurt, my favorite bio- dynamic breakfast because it does not contain milk.

I met Robert Pidcock for lunch at East Ocean and we split an order of Fried Tofu and Mixed Vegetables.  There was even some left that I boxed and took home.

Suzette came home tired after another ten hour day and did not want to prepare a meal, so before I went to meditate, we decided to not cook.  I had a snack of a melted Iberico cheese sandwich and a chopped chicken liver sandwich with hot tea.

When I returned home I brought in the new box of vegetables and rice from today’s lunch. Suzette decided to stir fry all the PPI clams, tofu, vegetables and rice, so we ended up having a simple but delicious hot dinner and I enjoyed Chinese for the third time.  When I lived alone when I was single in my twenties I would make a dinner of stir fried rice with vegetables and a meat every night.  Sort of my stir fried days instead of my salad days.

Meditation was particularly good tonight. A new person named Wesley attended for the first time who was a very solid meditator.  We had a great meditation.

Bon Appetit

January 23, 2019 Breakfast – Duck Liver Omelet Lunch – East Ocean. Dinner – PPIs

January 23, 2019 Breakfast – Duck Liver Omelet  Lunch – East Ocean. Dinner – PPIs

I slept until 7:30 this morning.  I got dressed and took out the garbage.  Then I decided to make a duck liver omelet with the duck liver from inside the duck we roasted last Sunday.  I put the neck into the pot of broth and added water to cover and simmered it for several hours to enrich the stock.

I then minced ½ of a shallot and sliced several small potatoes and cut a handful of sugar snap peas in half, and sliced one large mushroom.  I also diced the duck liver.

I skimmed the duck fat from the pot of broth and melted it in a medium skillet with 2 oz.of butter.  When the butter was melted I added the the sugar snap peas, the potato slices, and the shallot.  A minute later I added the diced duck liver.  I sliced strips of Swiss Gruyere cheese and whipped four eggs and added white pepper and salt to the eggs.  I covered the ingredients with the eggs and after a couple more minutes lay slices of cheese on top of the egg.

I let the omelet cook for several minutes until it appeared stiff enough to turn.  It was so thick and heavy with ingredients that it broke apart when I tried to flip it but I patched it together somewhat.  Here are several pictures

I worked until 12:30 when Mike called and suggested we go to lunch at East Ocean.  I met him there at 1:00 and he was kind enough to let me order. I ordered Fried Tofu with mixed vegetables and Manila Clams in a Szechuan sauce with rice.   The ownership of a East Ocean has changed but the original chef remains in the kitchen cooking the same quality of food as always.

Mike and I ate two helpings of both dishes and I packed the remaining food into styrofoam boxes to take home.

After I left a East Ocean; I drove to Sprouts at San Mateo and Lomas to shop for food.  I bought sliced turkey breast for sandwiches, four Sweet Italian sausages at $2.99/lb., a gallon of Tiilemock Rocky Road ice-cream, two green bell peppers, Brussels sprouts, green beans, two large avocados, milk, and a lb. of chocolate covered pecans.

I returned home at around 4:45.  A little after 5:00 I walked about ½ mile to the country club and back.

I worked until Suzette arrived at 6:30.  She was hungry and decided to eat the ½ of the duck liver omelet I made for breakfast for her dinner.  I decided to eat the PPI salmon, Couscous, sugar snap peas, and cranberry from last night’s meal with the last of the Tuatea.

We were both tired and did not want to cook, so eating PPIs was a perfect dinner.  We each had a bowl of ice cream after dinner.  Here is a picture of mine garnished with whipped cream, chocolate syrup, and rum.

Bon Appetit

January 22, 2019 Lunch – PPI Chile Relleno. Dinner – Grilled Salmon, Tomato Couscous and Steamed Sugar Snap Peas

January 22,  2019 Lunch – PPI Chile Relleno. Dinner – Grilled Salmon, Tomato Couscous and Steamed Sugar Snap Peas

I ate yogurt, granola, and fruit salad for breakfast.

For lunch I ate the PPI Chile Relleno and beans left from yesterday’s lunch.

At 5:00 Suzette picked me up and we drove to Southwest Foods and Costco to shop for the Center.

While at Costco we bought a few items for the house, including 6 lb. of hamburger, a package of nine lamb chops, a 24 oz. package of sugar snap peas, a farm raised steelhead salmon filet, a quart of heavy cream, a half gallon of half and half, and 15 lb. of Yukon gold potatoes.

We had invited Willy for dinner, so when we got home we decided to grill the salmon and make Couscous with tomato and shallot and steam the sugar snap peas.

The Couscous was easy.  I finely minced ½ shallot and a Roma tomato and sautéed them in 3 oz. of butter with 1 cup of Couscous.  I then added 1 ½ cups of boiling water to the pot and covered it and cooked the Couscous on a low temperature for a couple of minutes and then turned off the heat to allow the Couscous to steam.

I snapped about 1 ½ cups of sugar snap peas and Suzette steamed them for about 7 or 8 minutes.

I chilled a bottle of Tuatea Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand ($7.99 at Trader Joe’s I think).  It had that fruity citrus flavor I love in New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

Suzette found a bag of fresh cranberries in the garage fridge .  Suzette loves cranberry sauce with salmon as much as any other kind of sauce so we decided instantly to make a cranberry sauce.  She put he 12 oz. bag of cranberries in a 2 quart sauce pan and added about 1 cup of water and we added about 1 ½ cup of sugar.  I then added the zest of 1 orange and the juice of 2 oranges to the pan.  After the cranberry sauce had cooked for about ½ hour and thickened considerably, Suzette said she wanted to make a cranberry cream sauce.  She melted 3 oz. of butter in an enamel pot and then we added 2 T. of flour and she cooked the roux for a couple of minutes.  Then we added about ½ cup of cream and about 1 cup of milk until the sauce obtained a creamy consistency.  Suzette then added about 1 cup of cranberry sauce to create a cranberry cream sauce.  It tasted fabulous but it was an ugly muddy magenta color, very different in appearance from the glistening deep red of the cranberry sauce.

Suzette grilled the salmon filets outside in the full moon.  When she brought the salmon filets in, she constructed our plates by placing a pile of Couscous in the middle, on which she lay a salmon filet and a generous spoonful of the cranberry cream sauce with a smaller pile of sugar snap peas on the side.

I poured glasses of wine and we had a lovely meal.

Bon Appetit

January 21, 2019 Lunch – Padilla’s Dinner – Duck Breast Salad

January 21, 2019 Lunch – Padilla’s  Dinner – Duck Breast Salad

We ate granola, yogurt, and tropical fruit salad for breakfast.

I went to my semi-annual dental check up and cleaning at noon and afterwards I drove to Padilla’s and ordered a chile relleno plate with double beans and green Chile. I only ate 1 of the 2 chile rellenos and half the beans because I have learned that the dish is served with two hot sopapillas.  I think Padilla’s have the best sopapillas in town, so I ate both of mine served after the meal and boxed the other half of my meal for tomorrow’s lunch.

I then went home and signed an order from last Thursday’s hearing and left for my weekly Physical therapy at 2:30.  I had therapy from 3:00 until 3:45 and then drove to the Apple store to find out if the call I had received in the morning was a sham and found out it was.  Satisfied I went to Williams-Sonoma and Trader Joe’s trying to find chestnuts nut neither had them. Mi bought two more bottles of the 2017 Louis Dublanc Cotes Du Rhone red for $6.99 each and drove home around 4:45.

As I was putting the wine bottles in boxes in the dining room, Suzette arrived.

We immediately went to the garden and picked lettuce and arugula for the duck breast salad we intended to make.  After watching the news for a bit, we started dinner.  We washed, tore, and spun the lettuce.  I diced tomatoes, green onions, 1/3 of a cucumber, and potatoes and duck that Suzette had heated in the microwave.  Suzette also chopped about 1/3 cup of the Martha Stewart sugar roasted pecans that we added to the salad.

We poured out the rest of the bottle of Louis Dublanc Cotes Du Rhone we opened last night and enjoyed our salads, except I had diced some slightly molded tomatoes and did not properly remove all the rotten parts, which Suzette found unacceptable and rejected.

After dinner I toasted a slice of nine grain bread and buttered it and lay slices of Iberico cheese on it and melted it for a very pleasant melted cheese sandwich with the last sips of wine.

Later during the Antiques Roadshow we sipped cognac and nibbled pieces of chocolate.

Willy came by to do his laundry for a while, but had eaten.

We watched a very interesting documentary called “Rumble” about the contributions to Rock and Roll by Native American musicians.

Bon Appetit

January 20, 2019 Brunch – Smoked Pork Chop Burrito. Dinner – Roast Duck with Braised Red Cabbage and Spinach

January 20, 2019 Brunch – Smoked Pork Chop Burrito. Dinner – Roast Duck with Braised Red Cabbage and Spinach

As I watched the Sunday Morning news programs and Manchester City beat Fulham in the last minute of overtime, Suzette made breakfast burritos by sautéing a mixture of onion, smoked pork chop, mushrooms, red Chile sauce, and roasted potatoes.

She served the mixture on a toasted whole wheat tortilla for a delicious light breakfast.  I drank my favorite Mexican tea, chamomile with lime juice and honey with the burrito.

After breakfast I made a bowl of tropical fruit salad with a papaya, a pineapple, three mangos and three oranges.

At 2:00 I became hungry and made myself two open faced sandwiches on toasted rye bread, one with sour cream and pickled herring and the other piece of toast buttered and topped with slices of fresh Norwegian Jarlsberg cheese.

After my snack I ate a sugar pill and walked between ½ and 1 mile with Suzette.

I watched the NFC and AFC final games today. They were both very exciting with both being tied at the end of regulation.

When we returned from our walk we decided to start cooking the duck.

After Suzette put the duck on a spandex vertical roasting frame she brushed it with the Chambord glaze but that volatilized in the oven.  She cooked the duck for 1 ½ hours during which time I sliced ½ head of red cabbage and de-stemmed a colander full of spinach leaves.

I also selected the wine for the meal, a bottle of Louis Dublanc Cotes Du Rhone bought at aTrader Joe’s recently for $6.99.  It blends Syrah, Grenache, and Mouvedre grapes into a week rounder yet light very drinkable wine.  Vinvino rates it 3.7 and very good value, but without a long finish.  I actually enjoyed drinking it without food but found the short finish excellent for food because it allows me to savor the food flavor longer without the interference of the wine, which was the good thing about the rich Franciscan Cab the other night with the Meatloaf.


The inspiration for this meal was twofold. I wanted to see if I could eat a rich fatty meat like duck and I had remembered when we were staying inPrague in a Sunday, our host told us that duck and red cabbage was a traditional Sunday evening dinner in Czcheckoslovakia, so we went for roasted duck at a traditional restaurant named the Blue Duck, which still exists.  Here is a picture of their roasted duck dinner.

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While the duck was roasting Suzette Braised the cabbage in olive and cumin and then added 2 T. of vinegar and 1 T. of sugar to moisten the cabbage.  At the end she added the spinach and poured the wine and I fetched the bottle of quince and cranberry compote she made last year, which was a perfect complement to the rich, fatty duck meat.

Here is our roasted duck dinner

We enjoyed dinner immensely and I celebrated with my first sniffer of Calvados since my operation.  This meal was the official return to my former range of gastronomic adventurism.

Bon Appetit