August 21, 2019 Lunch – Café Trang Dinner – New Recipe Swedish Meatballs with creamed spinach with mushrooms, garlic, and onions.

August 21, 2019 Lunch – Café Trang   Dinner – New Recipe Swedish Meatballs with creamed spinach with mushrooms, garlic, and onions.

Today I started with a good breakfast of sautéed, smoked pork chop and fried eggs over easy.  Then we both rode our bikes.  Suzette along the bosque trail to the river and I along the bike path to Rio Bravo.

Then I showered, shaved, and dressed and prepared a document and then at 10:30 I drove to the bank to get a document notarized and then to Central Trailer Supply to meet Dana for lunch.

This lunch turned out to be amazing. Dana is the key to keeping Titan Technologies alive and well, but what he talked about were the adventures of his dad and granddad in the Second World War.  Apparently they were members of the Albuquerque national Guard that was sent to Corrigador to man the shore battery that was captured by the Japanese and became the Bataan Death March.

Both of them were saved by their mates.  Dana’s grandad was also in the First World War, which is amazing.  Anyway, according to Dana, his Dad faltered and the men in the march shoved him behind a bush which saved him from being bayoneted by the Japanese.  He then spent over two years roaming the countryside being fed by Philippine natives until he was captured by the Japanese and sent to Japan to a slave labor camp.  According to Dana, his grandad was carried to a prisoner of war camp in the Philippines by a bigger stronger soldier who grabbed him by the waist of his pants before he could be bayonetted by a Japanese soldier.  His grandad was ready to die when he heard the Japanese soldiers talking about a big mushroom and shortly afterward the Japanese eased their torture of the prisoners and he survived.  Because of his father’s disappearance, his fate was unknown until after the war. Dana’s father and grandfather were the only father and son duo to survive the Bataan Death March.  Dana said he had an uncle who was also on the Bataan Death March who just died at 100.  Dana said his dad never complained about anything after the war.  So, my friendly lunch turned into an amazing story of survival and heroism.

We both ordered No. 44, which is my favorite dish bun noodles with fresh mung bean sprouts, shaved lettuce, a pile of roasted crushed peanuts, a pickled carrot and daikon salad, and a fish sauce dipping sauce garnished with two fried egg rolls and slices of BBQ pork on a bed of soft steamed rice vermicelli.  We both liked our dish and cleaned our plates.

After lunch Dana was kind enough to go with me across the parking lot to Talin to shop.  I bought a 1 ½ lb. fresh salmon steak, a daikon, shallots, brown beech mushrooms, a bag of Yu Choy, sweet red paprika from Spain, beef meatballs, and several types of noodles, bean thread, wheat, and rice.

When I arrived home at 1:45 I immediately called Matt to let him know I was home and apologized for having arrived at 1:45 for our intended 1:30 appointment.  He said in his usual friendly manner, “No problem, we will be right over.”  Soon about twenty-five people who are working on Briarpatch arrived including the director for this segment to be filmed in our kitchen.

After lots of looking and measuring, they left and Mat indicated they may start film prep as soon as Labor Day Weekend.  I told we planned to stay in town that weekend, so scheduling the shoot would be no problem.  Yea another shoot.

After they left at around 3;00 I worked a bit and then went to the bank to get a document notarized.

When I returned home I discovered that I had another good day in the market.  This may be short lived because I think I heard that the 2 year treasury crossed the 10 year treasury at the close, which is one of the signs of a pending recession.  The market futures started trending downward after the market close and are slightly negative.  If I was smart I would sell some stocks on the open.  

When Suzette came home at 5:30 I joined her for her weekly shopping trip to Costco and Southwest Distributors for the Center.  At Costco besides all the food stuffs for the Center, she bought boxes of Vegetarian tikka marsala for Willy and lemons.

We than drove to Southwest Distributors where she bought soy sauce, champagne white wine vinegar, eggs, and Chinese Cooking wine for the home plus lots more items for the Center.

At 6:30 we returned home.  We rested until 7:00 and then began to cook.  Suzette was distracted by work related problems so I peeled, sectioned, and boiled five potatoes for mashed potatoes.  I then cleaned two bunches of spinach and sliced three large white mushrooms, one-half of a Vidalia onion, and two cloves of garlic from our garden.

When Suzette became available again she started cooking.  I had put the onions and garlic into a wok to cook and Suzette added butter and we sautéed the onions and garlic for few minutes.  The I added the mushroom slices and cooked the vegetable mixture another five minutes.  Then we added a dozen PPI Swedish meatballs, 2 T. of Amontillado sherry, and the two bunches of cleaned spinach and covered the wok and cooked everything about ten to fifteen more minutes.

While the mixture was cooking, I made a roux with two T. of butter and 1 heaping T. of white flour.  Suzette took over and completed the cream sauce by adding heavy cream and milk.  When the sauce was smooth we added it to the wok and stirred everything together.

I opened a bottle of 2017 Famille Perrin Reserve White Cotes Du Rhone.  We loved the distinctive Marsanne and Roussane grape blend with the cream sauce, meatballs, mushrooms, onion, and spinach.

This was a great dinner with a wonderful new fall recipe.

After dinner I could not resist finishing with a French flare.  I ate a few pieces of chocolate with a bit of Calvados and Suzette became even more animated and made Bananas Foster with whipped cream and the last of the vanilla ice cream.

Suzette went to bed after 9:30 and I stayed up to blog until 10:45 and then read a bit.

Bon Appetit