November 17, 2020 Lunch – 2000 Vietnam No. 21. Dinner – Sautéed Smoked Pork Chop with Apple slices and sautéed Acorn Squash with Brown sugar and butter and steamed Asparagus

 November 17, 2020 Lunch – 2000 Vietnam No. 21. Dinner – Sautéed Smoked Pork Chop with Apple slices and sautéed Acorn Squash with Brown sugar and butter and steamed Asparagus

This was another great day of food with little effort.  I ate my favorite breakfast of granola, milk, fruit salad and yogurt.  Then at 11:20 I called Willy and asked him if he wanted to eat our favorite Vietnamese Summer dish, Bun Cha Gio with grilled pork, which was 2000 Vietnam’s menu item No. 21.  He accepted and invited me to eat at his apartment, so I telephoned in the order and in a few minutes drove to the restaurant and picked it up and drove to Willy’s apartment at the northwest corner of Old Town.  I was amazed at how quiet and uncrowded the streets were, due to the latest lockdown of all restaurants and non-essential stores.

We ate on Willy’s patio in the warm sunlight.  We picked fresh Oriental basil to garnish our box lunches from his buckets filled with herbs.  Lunch was delightful.  

     

After lunch and met with Karim about his legal matter and then read the proposed contract for him and  prepared a couple of deeds and dozed until 5:15 when Suzette came home.

We discussed dinner, which turned out to be exceedingly easy to prep and exceedingly delicious.  I was working and Suzette did the cooking and the prep was so quick that by the time I got to the kitchen in fifteen minutes dinner was almonds ready to eat.  We had roasted a large acorn squash several days ago.  Suzette peeked and cubed the squash and sautéed the pieces in butter and brown sugar in s medium skillet.

In a large skillet Suzette sautéed two smoked pork chops and slices of apple and onion. She also snapped and steamed a handful of asparagus.  So in a matter of minutes a hearty dinner was ready.  I ran to the basement to fetch plastic storage bags and two bottles of wine and then to the garage to retrieve a bottle of Gruet 2018 Rode ofPinot Noir, which is a blend Pinot Noir grapes grown in Gruet’s vineyard at T or C and at Santa Ana Pueblo.  It is heavier than the earlier Tamaya Rose that was 100% Santa Ana grown grapes, but a pleasant drink that was not too acidic excepts on the finish.

  

 We could not decide whether we loved the combination of ingredients; smoked pork chops, sautéed with apple   and onion slices, sautéed acorn Squash, and steamed asparagus or the fact that this dinner was so easy to prepare.  Probably both.  After dinner we finished the bottle of rosé as we ate chocolate chip cookies, watched another episode of Queen’s Gambit.and a bit of news, and then Suzette went to bed at 9:20.  I had dozed in front of theTV between 4:00 and 5:15 when Suzette came home, so i stayed up to blog until 11:00.

Bon Appetit