September 16, 2020 Lunch – Maison Pate’ from Le Troquet. Dinner – spaghetti with Italian sausage spaghetti sauce

 September 16, 2020 Lunch – Maison Pate’ from Le Troquet. Dinner – spaghetti with Italian sausage spaghetti sauce 

Today was a day of pleasant simple peasant food.  I started the day watching the news and the Tour at 5:30.  At around 8:00 I ate a bowl of granola, milk, blueberries, and yogurt as I watched the Tour de France race up two huge mountains. 

I then worked, took a shower, picked Maison Pate from Le Troquet and confirm lunch lans with Peter Eller.  Peter arrived at 12:15 with two lovely containers of sliced Pate, tomatoes, French whole grain mustard, cornichons, thinly sliced slices of red onion, and Pitted kalamata olives plus about six or seven toasted and buttered slices of French baguette

Qi Peter wanted Fizzy water with lemon, so I poured us glasses of club soda and added fresh lemon juice.  We took our lunches out to the table under the gazebo in the garden and enjoyed the cosmos and other 

blooming flowers in the warm Indian Summer weather.

After lunch I completed gathering the tax information necessary to complete my 2019 taxes and sent them to the tax preparer.

I then lay down and finished DiMaggio, our book club book for this month and napped until 5:00 when oSuzette arrived.

Suzette had had a tough day and asked me to cook. I leapt at  the opportunity because I had a menu planned.  I had bought six pork Italian Sweet sausages on Monday at Sprouts for $2.99/lb.  My plan was to make a fresh spaghetti sauce with some of the sausage and serve it with spaghetti.

I cubed a tomato, 3 oz. of yellow onion, two sweet peppers from our garden, ½ of a bell pepper, a zucchini

 squash, and four cloves of garlic.

I also de-stemmed and chopped about 2/3 cup of fresh basil leaves

I then skinned and diced two Italian sausages and Suzette Sautéed them in a T. of olive oil in a deep skillet.  We then added the chopped vegetables and sautéed them covered with the wok cover until tender.  Then I added 7 oz. of tomato sauce and about 15 oz. of Prego spaghetti sauce.  Then I added the fresh basil.

Suzette boiled a lb. of spaghetti in a heated pot of water while the spaghetti sauce simmered.

Suzette opened a bottle of Aquino Reserva Chianti (Trader Joe’s $5.99).

The wine was a little bitter at first but became very drinkable in a few minutes with the addition of a few ice cubes. 

We enjoyed our simple dinner because of all of the fresh vegetables cooked into the spaghetti sauce.  I can not tell you how delicious the fresh vegetables and basil in the spaghetti sauce was.  We watched Rachel Maddow and Bob Woodward on Lawrence O’Donnell’s 

The speed and intensity of Trump’s lies is tiring and disheartening.  As several commentators stated, “can we just vote today so this nightmare can end.”

After dinner I toasted two pieces of French baguette and buttered them and added slices of a freshly opened wheel of my favorite French brie from Isigny in Normandy that is sold by Costco for around $6.00 for 500 grams.

I had another glass of wine as I typed this blog and went to bed a bit after 10:00.

Bon Appetit