This was a day where we started with no food plan that
turned into an amazingly wonderful group of meals.
We were focused on getting Suzette to the hospital for a colonoscopy at 7:30, so we awakened at 6:00. I had time to make a snack to take to the hospital, so I took the last slab of Gravad Lax from the dish in which it was curing and rinsed off the curing medium and dried it and sliced five slices and toasted two slices of bagel, smeared them with cream cheese, dotted then with slices of red onion and lay the slices of Gravad Lax on each side and but two sides together to make a double sided sandwich and wrapped it in Saran, placed it in a sandwich bag and into my coat pocket.
We drove to the hospital and Suzette came through the procedure with no problems. At 9:30 we returned home. Suzette was a little groggy from the general anesthesia but she recovered quickly and we drove by the building so she could talk to Freddy, the contractor. When we returned home Suzette was hungry so I sliced her some chunks of Gravad Lax and she made scrambled eggs with Gravad Lax and grated cheese. I made a cup of tea and joined her for breakfast, eating my sandwich. We both thought the Gravad Lax was lovely. Soft and not salty.
I worked until noon and then asked Suzette if she would like some noodle soup. She said yes so I made an extra special Pho with raw beef and beef meatballs and three types of noodles (Japanese soba, Vietnamese Rice sticks, and Chinese Wheat noodles), plus minced shallot, zucchini, three sliced mushrooms, and some chopped dill. For flavoring I added a pho seasoning cube, a heaping T. of red miso, and 1 tsp. of Knorr dehydrated beef stock, a tsp of sesame oil and 1 T. of Chinese cooking wine.
We garnished the soup with raw beef and green onions and seasoned the soup with hoisin sauce.
The soup was fabulous, the best pho I have ever made. Suzette loved it and I ate three bowls.
After lunch we rested. We were tired from such an early rise.
The mail brought an interesting letter from the Louis Stern Gallery in L.A. it was Karl Benjamin’s gallery and represents his estate and the letter informed me that there was a project to create a catalog raisonne of his work. I bought No 22 of 1974 from Peter Eller around 2005, when he still had his Gallery on Dartmouth. I sent pictures to Louis Stern Gallery several years ago and we visited the gallery when we went to the AmPm exhibition several years ago. Karl Benjamin was one of the four original L.A. Hard edge painters in the 60’s. I am thrilled to have one of my pictures be included in the catalog.
We had no plan for dinner and were not especially hungry, so we decided to wait until 7:00 to cook. We decided to stuff several PPI baked potatoes with the remaining rib steak. I suggested we add some mushrooms and shallot and Suzette agreed. At 6:00 I started chopping mushrooms and shallot and plucked five or six stalks of thyme from the plant we brought inside for the winter. I then chopped a pineapple, two grapefruit, two oranges and a red mango and added them to the tropical fruit salad.
Suzette then helped me snap the ½ lb. of green beans and I rinsed them in cool water.
At 7:00 Suzette prepared dinner. She chopped up the rest of the steak and then sautéed the beef, the
mushrooms, and shallot with the thyme in a skillet and heated the baked potatoes in the microwave. I thinly sliced four green onions and Suzette fetched the sour cream and steamed the green beans.
She stuffed the heated potatoes with the sautéed mixture and then garnished them with sour cream and green onions and plated them with the steamed green beans. Here is a picture.
After dinner I made a cup of tea and ate the PPI peach, quince, and blueberry cobbler with the tea.
We went to bed at 9:00, although I stayed up to blog and read a bit. I have been reading the New Yorker article on Amazon and enjoying it immensely.
What an amazing day of food created from nothing essentially, just a thawed out steak and some PPIs
Bon Appetit
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