I discovered yesterday that I had prepaid my 2019 income tax and that my portfolio reached a new plateau, so today I went shopping and went a little crazy buying what I wanted instead of those wines and spirits that were the best value. I spent over $500. I started by driving to Trader Joe’s where I bought 14 bottles of wine, plus toothpaste for a Suzette, a baguette, a wedge of Iberico cheese, and artichokes.
Then I drove to Costco and filled the tank and drove down central to Talin, which was on the way back to Total Wine. At Talin I bought three types of dried noodles, fresh egg white noodles, seaweed salad, two types of mushrooms, a 1.2 lb. piece of Halibut, two duck leg quarters, dill, baby bob Choy, Pho seasoning cubes, soft tofu, a Japanese daikon, and a jar of pickled ginger.
I then drove to Total Wine and went crazy. I bought all my favorites and several new spirits and wines; two large bottles of scotch for Suzette, three bottles of Courtet cognac, a bottle of grappa di brunello and a Getman Pear brandy for me, a 12 pack each of Negra Modelo and Bohemia, and 13 bottles of wine, including a Spanish Clavajo Gran Reserva, a Gavi Princessa, a Famille Bougier Chenin Blanc old vines Reserve, 2 Italian Fabiolas, a Morin Cotes du Rhone, a bottle of Madeira, etc. I was a little out of control, but someday we will appreciate my indiscretions.
Suzette was home when I arrived and helped me carry in the groceries and alcohol. Neither of us had eaten breakfast, so we were hungry. I wanted to eat the rest of the raw salmon and tuna with three more scallops. Suzette would not eat those but instead made tuna salad with pickle relish, mayo, and lemon juice. Tasted it and it was very delicious.
I peeled and sliced 1/3 of the daikon and put the slices into the Japanese pickled vegetable bowl. Suzette helped thaw three scallops and I sliced the salmon and tuna. I opened the seaweed salad and arranged the tuna, salmon, and scallops around the open container for seaweed salad on a plate. I made green tea and filled a dipping bowl with soy and wasabi paste, filled bowl with rice and heated it, and fetched the pickled ginger. We ate an amazing lunch. Suzette only ate tuna salad and seaweed salad, so had to eat all the Sashimi and finish the seaweed salad. I loved it.
Todd called and we agreed to hold a zen meditation at 5:00.
I then worked until 3:00, when I lay down for a 1 ½ hour nap.
I awakened renewed at 4:30. And wrote the prices of the wines and dates purchased on each bottle of wine purchased at Total Wine.
After meditating I joined Suzette in the kitchen and butchered the long narrow slice of Halibut into four small fillets. She cut some broccoli into florets and put them in the steamer. Then at 6:15 the rainy season began with a downpour that lasted about twenty minutes. We talked to Luke for a few minutes and then I went t the garden to pick five springs of thyme. Instead of scrunched down, all the sprigs were extended as if reaching to catch water. Interesting.
When I returned to the kitchen I found that Suzette had laid a slice of lemon under each fillet and put a thin pad of butter in each of the two grooves in each fillet. I simply lay a sprig of thyme in the
middle of each fillet between the two sprigs of butter and pushed one end into the butter to anchor it
where possible.
Suzette spooned some rice into a Pyrex baking dish and covered it with Saran Wrap to seal it. Suzette then studied the steaming oven manual for cooking times for fish, confirmed that the Halibut was 1 lb. and set the settings which resulted in a cooking time of 20 minutes.
At the 10 minute mark Suzette started the steamer on the stove to steam the broccoli and with 3 minutes of the cooking time left she started the microwave to reheat the rice.
While Suzette was steaming and heating the meal I checked the fridge and found an open bottle with a full glass of chilled Gruner Vitlinder for Suzette and the 2002 Santa Maria Argentinian Sauvignon Blanc more than ½ full, so I poured out the Gruner for Suzette and an equal amount of Sauvignon Blanc for me. I then seated myself and waited for Suzette to plate the dishes. I am amazed that the
2002 Santa Maria Sauvignon Blanc is still very drinkable; a tribute to the good wine making that made this wine and other Argentinian wines famous 20 years ago.
Soon a lovely plate arrived with a fillet leaning on a pile of rice and broccoli florets scattered around the pile.
When we took our first bite of Halibut we discovered that the Halibut was not such a great bargain at $8.99/lb. because it had little flavor probably because it had been frozen hard for a month, Suzette surmised. One thing that helped the flavor immensely was that the steamer oven had a catchment pan in which the cooking liquids had accumulated and Suzette poured the cooking liquid that was full of the lemon juice and fish flavor into a bowl and we spooned the thin liquid over the fillet to give it some moistness and flavor to replace a bit of that lovely liquid caught so tenderly inside the flakes of a fresh piece of fish.
After dinner I opened the new bottle of Courtet cognac I had bought at Total Wine. Suzette and I took a sip and soon discovered it had a slight bite at the end of the sip, but that soon went away and left a cognac of great character, especially for the price of $21.95 less 10% or $19.97.
Suzette made a dessert of lemon pound cake doused with the blueberry compote she made a few nights previously.
I sipped another glass of Sauvignon to settle the fish flavors and then I followed her example and poured a sip of cognac and made a cup of chai and heated a couple of slices of pound cake and the covered them with blueberry compote. I loved the combination of blueberry and lemon and enjoyed the cognac with the dessert.
We again became tired at around 9:00 after watching a PBS documentary on the geological history of the U.S., but stayed up to watch Trevor Noah on the Comedy Channel and then went to bed a bit after 9:30.
Bon Appetit
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