November 18, 2019 Lunch – Chicken Noodle Miso Soup Dinner – Chicken Soup with Dumplings

November 18, 2019 Lunch – Chicken Noodle Miso Soup  Dinner – Chicken Soup with Dumplings

We traveled home yesterday from Lancaster.  We rode the train to Philadelphia. It was lunch time so we went to the Bridgewater Bar and Café, located in the train station.  We ordered asparagus soup, which was delicious, creamy with a small pile of fried prosciutto on top and a few lines of infused olive oil.  I also ordered a Farro bowl, with roasted butternut squash, sautéed Brussels Sprouts, Roasted hazelnuts, farrow, and several other ingredients.  The kitchen was slow so we asked for a box and took most of the farrow bowl with us, which turned out to be a blessing because it did not agree with my stomach today.

At the airport Suzette bought a bag of Lay’s potato chips and on the plane from Philadelphia to Phoenix we nibbled on the sweet bologna and Swiss cheese sandwiches on French sourdough Whole wheat bread we had bought at the Lancaster Central Market on the 15th.  With potato chips and Dos Equis beers.

After crossing most of the country we arrived in Phoenix five hours before our departure time of 9:15.  Suzette drank a Stella Artois beer and I drank an Angry Orchard apple cider and then we sat and watched football on the TV monitors.  We departed when there were 7:00 left in the 4th quarter so I do not how it ended.

We arrived in Albuquerque at 10:20, drove home and went to sleep.

November 18, 2019

I woke up and watched the business news.  I received a call from a client for whose brother, Jose, I had prepared a will in 2007, was dying of cancer.  I went to the UNM hospital ICU ward where they were keeping Jose alive.  That is all I can say.  I heard the doctor give his assessment while there and there was no hope of recovery.  Jose wanted to change his will, so I went home by way of El Super to buy some vegetables.  I bought two types of mango, a pineapple, sweet limes, green onions, cilantro, small avocados, milk, broccoli, corn chips, a cucumber, Italian squash.  Suzette has thawed out pork ribs, a Halibut steak, and brats, but I suddenly had a hankering for chicken soup.  Perhaps I had a premonition of what was to come after lunch and resorted to that time honored Eastern European remedy, chicken noodle soup.  I bought a package of chicken thighs and went home and made chicken noodle soup with one of the thighs that I cubed plus three kinds of oriental noodles, red miso, sweet onion, Napa cabbage, and thinly sliced white mushrooms, dehydrated chicken stock and chopped cilantro. I garnished the bowl with thinly sliced green onion rings.

I ate two bowls and went to the toilet and spewed put the unwanted farrow.  I then drafted the codicil for Jose and went back to the hospital to get it signed by his two nurses.  I took a picture of Jose and his sister, Vickie, with my phone to be able to prove Jose was conscious and functioning at a normal level of cognition.

I then returned home and after a visit to the bathroom again talked with a new client about a divorce.

By the time I finished it was 5:15 and Suzette arrived.  I told about my squeeze stomach and told her I did not think I was up for the BBQ ribs she had thawed.  I showed her the soup and suggested we eat chicken soup.  She agreed and suggested that we reconstitute the soup and add dumplings.  I told her that sounded wonderful and thanked her.

Chicken Soup with Dumplings

Suzette immediately suggested we add a mirepoix to enrich the soup, so I peeled and finely diced a carrot and a stalk of celery and more of the sweet onion.  I also added another chicken thigh diced, and some more Napa cabbage, cilantro, and four more white mushrooms sliced thinly, and some diced broccoli.  I garnished the soup with green onion.

Suzette found a dumpling recipe on the Internet. I chopped about 1 T. of parsley and she added the parsley to the dumpling.  She swore that the dumplings were better than matzo balls.  I tried to be diplomatic and avoided responding to her affirmation.

Willy came by to do a load of laundry so he would have clean clothes for his trip tomorrow to Tampa for a Vision Zero conference.

I opened a bottle of 2014 Origon Gran Reserva from the Terra Alta region in Spain ($5.99 at Trader Joe’s).

Wikipedia states, Terra Alta is a Catalan Denominación de Origen (DO) (Denominació d’Origen in Catalan) for wines located in the west of the province of Tarragona (Catalonia, Spain) and covers 12 inland municipalities. As the name indicates (Terra Alta = High Land) the area is in the mountains.

I poured glasses of the red wine for Suzette and Willy.

I ate two bowls of soup , each with a dumpling.  I must admit the soup and dumpling were very tasty.  Suzette liked the soup also.

After the Roadshow I started watching AnnAmerican Masters program on N. Scott Momaday, who wrote A house made of Dawn that won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize, the first by an American Indian.

Suzette went to the bedroom to watch the Daily Show.  After the Momaday show ended at 9:30 I began to blog while drinking a cup of Earl Grey tea and nibbling biscochitos, happy to be back in New Mexico.

I felt lucky to have not suffered anything worse than an upset stomach on the trip to Pa.

Bon Appetit