This was the first day that the film crew for BRIARPATCH was present at the house. The first shot will be outside on Thursday, but the carpenters, masons, painters, and landscape crews started getting the place ready for the shot today. They had to prune the Rose of Sharon by the driveway, replace the bricks that had fallen from the wall, paint the bay window wood, renovate the lattice work on the fence dividing the front yard from the back yard, strengthen the gate they will shoot over, and exterminated some red ants and a wasp nest near the shot scene.
I became involved with them and was unable to ride my bike as my new water case heated up and I had to try to negotiate several hearings and finish the lease for a client we worked on on Friday.
At 12:00 when the crew went to lunch I drove to the bank and then Padilla’s and ordered a Chile Relleno Plate with Green Chile and double beans. I ate one of the two Chile rellenos and half of the beans and the both of the sopapillas. Padilla’s has one of the best sopapillas in town. They are fluffy and served hot to order, so they melt in your mouth and make a pleasant dessert with a bit of honey squirted inside to be warmed by the steam inside the sopapillas.
I had decided to use some of the hamburger meat to make Swedish Meatballs. When I looked at the recipe in my Swedish cookbook, I noticed that the recipe emphasized the importance of using fresh ground pork and beef, so after lunch I drove to El Super and bought three ripe avocados for $.50 each, three vine ripe tomatoes at $.97/lb., two Poblano chilis at $.99/lb., five smoked pork chops at $3.79/lb., and 1 lb. of fresh ground pork at $2.29/lb.
When I returned home I worked until 4:30 on my water case. When I turned on Mad Money, I discovered there had been a 390 point melt down in the Dow today which translated to about a 2% drop in my portfolio thanks to President Trump’s inability to reach a resolution to the trade and currency war with the Chinese that is causing a slow down throughout the world economy, which is causing the dollar to strengthen, which will cause the US economy to slow and US companies’ profits to decrease. Last Sunday Larry Sumners called Trumps trade and currency strategy sadistic and masochistic, because we are hurting our economy in order to hurt other countries’ economies. Trump likes to inflict pain on others to get his way, but there will be lots of pain felt in the US by his tariff and currency war with China.
Interest rates worldwide are dropping and large companies are deferring growth strategies as worldwide consumption falls, sending the world economies into a worldwide recession and either a slowdown or the end of the US’ longest growth cycle in history. Just one more sad reality of Trump’s election. The Russians and Iranians must be thrilled. Even though they are suffering, they are more used to suffering from American economic policies than Americans will be from Trump’s self inflicted wounds to our economy. I have over 12% of my portfolio in cash and may sell more stocks soon to raise that percentage.
At 5:45 when Suzette arrived I told her of my plan to make Swedish Meatballs and her reaction was, “Great let’s do it.”
Here is the recipe.
We put about 1 lb. of ground beef and the lb. of pork into a large mixing bowl. Then we finely minced a medium onion in the and cooked two potatoes in the microwave and peeled them and finely minced them in the Cuisinart and added them to the mixing bowl along with ½ cup of Progresso bread crumbs.
We then added two eggs, some heavy cream, salt and pepper and mixed the ingredients with our
hands. I then made loose balls and Suzette rolled each meat ball into a round ball with her clean hands.
We made about fifty meatballs. Suzette then fried the meatballs in a large skillet filled with canola oil to a depth of about ¼ inch and put the cooked meatballs in a warm oven to keep them warm.
While Suzette fried the meatballs I snapped the approximately ½ lb. of haricot verts I had bought at Sprouts on Saturday and then steamed them.
I had invited Willy for dinner and when we were about thirty minutes from being ready we called him to tell him dinner would be ready in twenty minutes.
When all the meatballs were cooked Suzette poured of the grease and deglazed the skillet with Marsala and added some butter and sautéed the two mushrooms I had sliced with the ¼ clove of elephant garlic I thinly sliced. Suzette then added the bag of PPI casarecce macaroni to the skillet and heated all the ingredients.
I opened a bottle of Aquino Chianti Reserva ($5.99 at Trader Joe’s) and poured two glasses and put a third glass on the table for Willy.
Just as we were serving six meatballs on our plates, Willy uncannily arrived and we put six on his plate also and filled his glass with Chianti and chopped about two at. of parsley to garnish the plates.
After a minute I realized I forgot an important part of a Swedish Meatball meal and went to the pantry and fetched a bottle of Swedish Lingonberry preserves, which is traditionally eaten with Meatballs in Sweden.
We enjoyed our dinner and a bit later after Willy left and we finished drinking the bottle of Chianti we heated some of the peach and blueberry cobbler suzette made last night. I ate mine with whipped cream and Suzette ate hers with some cream. We also had cognacs to settle our stomachs while we watched the Antique Roadshow and then a new series on American food history. Tonight’s segment dealt with Hershey and Mars chocolate companies and Post cereal and Birdseye. The most interesting facts were that Birdseye brand was named for it founder who created commercial refrigeration for food. Marjorie Post bought his company for $22 million in the 20’s and became the richest woman in America, because she bought up many other brands and created General Mills as one of the first great food conglomerates.
She built many great houses, one of which was Mar A Lago, now owned by the President.
At 9:30 we went to bed happy and full.
I had finally made one of the greatest Recipes of Swedish Cuisine, thanks to Suzette’s help. The lingon preserves had been waiting several years for just such a moment. The other great Swedish dish that utilizes lingon is Swedish pancakes that is traditionally served with sausages.
Bon Appetit
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