March 31, 2021 Lunch - 2000 Vietnam. Dinner - Cream of Asparagus Soup, Grilled Filet Mignon, Salad, Baked Potato and Sautéed Oyster Mushrooms

March 31, 2021 Lunch - 2000 Vietnam. Dinner - Cream of Asparagus Soup, Grilled Filet Mignon, Salad, Baked Potato and Sautéed Oyster Mushrooms

Today everything went right in the market.  My portfolio was up over 2.25% for a while as big tech took off, although my portfolio finished up just under 2% for the day.

I am thrilled and hope the buying is rotating back to high tech.  I took one of Willy’s recommendations and bought Charge Point (CHPT) on Thursday and in the two trading days since I bought it it has risen 30%.  The company makes electric vehicle charging stations, which will be increased dramatically if Biden’s new infrastructure Bill passes

I ate my usual breakfast of tropical fruit salad with yogurt, milk, and granola.

Then I thawed two thick fillets.

At 11:30 I drove to the bank and then Sprouts to shop.  I bought a fresh Atlantic salmon k.  filet, mushrooms, a head of butter lettuce, cream, milk, tofu, cream cheese, an eggplant, Peruvian scallops, two Altaulfo mangos, cluster tomatoes, a bunch of asparagus, four small avocados, and bananas. When I exited Sprouts I called 2000 Vietnam and ordered an order of  (patted noodles) Bahn with grilled pork and egg rolls.

When I arrived at the restaurant the order was ready and when I arrived at home at 1:30 Suzette was hungry and ready to eat.  Unfortunately the Bahn was not what she wanted, so she made herself a meatloaf sandwich.

I enjoyed every morsel and removed leaves from the head of butter lettuce to wrap the pork and egg rolls and fermented Daikon and carrot in.  I lingered over the lunch for a good deal longer than Suzette, who ate her sandwich and returned to her desk while I sipped Vietnamese iced coffee and dipped patted rice vermicelli noodle pads in the fish sauce and then rolled them in a leaf of lettuce.  After lunch I started working on my 2920 taxes. 

At 4:00 we started prepping dinner.  Suzette placed six potatoes into the oven to bake and we went to the garden and picked a basket full of lettuce and arugula.  I then returned to the garden and picked tarragon and chives.  I chopped the tarragon and put the chopped tarragon pieces into the Caesar salad dressing and freshened it by adding lemon juice and olive oil.  I also sliced the chives and put them into a shallow bowl to be used to garnish the baked potato.

I sliced two radishes, 1/3 cucumber, and a tomato and added them to the spun lettuce chilling in the fridge.  

Peter and Etienne arrived at 6:30. Etienne brought two bottles of wine, one of which was a Pinot noir meritage.  I poured glasses of Calstar Cellars Sauvignon Blanc and showed Etienne and Peter the wine cellars and then let him pick a bottle for dinner.  He chose the first bottle he pulled from the wine fridge, a 2008 Juan Gil Spanish Jumilla.  Here are wine notes that appear correct to me:

A big, dark, heavily oaked wine with caramel, resin and baked berry aromas. The palate has a thick, meaty feel, slightly abrasive tannins, and then sweet, sticky, woody black fruit flavors. Finishes with brown sugar and more wood flavor; strives for a higher level but gets bogged down with barrel influence. MICHAEL SCHACHNER

• RATING
  87

We started the meal with a bowl of Cream of Asparagus soup Suzette had made in the afternoon with the Cornish Game Hen stock she made last night.  She sautéed celery and onion and chopped and cooked two bunches of asparagus in the sautéed vegetables and stock and added a potato, salt. Pepper, timur, nutmeg and cream.  Suzette drizzled the soup with cream fraiche and served the soup warm in covered soup bowls at the table under the gazebo. Suzette had laid paper and kindling in the ceramic brazier and she started the fire when we began the soup course. 

We drank Emma Reichart German Riesling with the soup, which complemented it perfectly.

Before we ate the soup Etienne sliced 1/2 lb. of fresh organic oyster mushrooms he had bought at a farmers market in Las Cruces and I minced a shallot and he sautéed the mushrooms and shallot in butter.

While we ate soup Suzette grilled the filets and when they were grilled to rare I sliced them and Suzette opened a potato for each plate and placed pats of butter in each potato. She then added salad dressed with Caesar dressing to the plates and I added three slices of steak to each plate and a spoonful of sautéed mushrooms.

We carried the plates with sour cream and sliced chives to the garden table and poured the Juan Gil red as we began dinner. It was an interesting wine.

We all enjoyed dinner as Etienne and Peter informed us about wineries and restaurants in the finger lake region of New York, which is where Peter was raised.

The meat was first rate. It seemed to be restaurant grade to me and the salad, potato, and mushrooms were all wonderful.  This is very much the kind of meal we would eat for special occasions when I was growing up in Texas.  We would often go out for dinner on Sunday evenings to the Farmer’s Daughter, a sister restaurant to the Cattleman’s, in Fort Worth and I would always order a petit filet, which was always served with a baked potato and salad.  So, tonight’s meal had a deja vu feel to me.

When we finished dinner at around 8:30 Peter bid us goodnight and Etienne brought in his kit to spend the night in the guest bed room.

We had a sniffer of Calvados while Suzette had a sniffer of cognac.  We waited for Trevor Noah, but he was not on tonight, so we all went to bed around 9:30.

Bon Appetit