April 20, 2021 Lunch - Salad tasting at the Greenhouse bistro. Dinner - crab cakes and steamed green beans

April 20, 2021 Lunch - Salad tasting at the Greenhouse bistro. Dinner - crab cakes and steamed green beans

I moved the buttons on a pair of shorts and a pair of slacks when I awakened for a more relaxed and secure fit.

Then I watched the market start to go down and at 10:00 ate granola with fruit salad and yogurt. I am down 4% over the last two days.  Luckily I have been too busy to feel the true level of anxiety from constantly watching the big slide and I still feel relatively comfortable because even after the last two days my portfolio is still above it old all time high of early February and last week.

At 11:00 I drove to Shahin’s to pick up a check.  Suzette called at 12:15 to remind me that I was scheduled for a vibration and sound table treatment at 1:00.

I arrived at 1:00 and was introduced to the sound table.  It was a thick water bed on a treatment table.  Unfortunately, The water mattress was only 60  or 62 inches so my head and feet were on the downward sloping ends.  They put a pillow under my head, which helped.

They started aroma therapy, and I picked a program called inner peace.  I was handed earphones and the music started and vibration started.  After a few minutes I dozed off for a large part of the 48 minute session.  I liked the experience.  It was very relaxing although not as wonderful as a massage.

Suzette tells me I will feel the benefit tomorrow.

After the therapy session I went to the bistro where Suzette was in the kitchen making four test salads for the Bistro’s reopening menu with the kitchen staff. They included a modified Spiaggia lax and citrus salad with the orange juice and mayo dressing and basil infused olive oil; the new trout salad we just created with egg slices with a honey mustard dressing; the Grape Suzette salad with fresh tarragon, grapes, and grated Parmesan cheese; and a Roasted beet salad with goat cheese dressed with a balsamic dressing.

All the salads were wonderful except for the beet salad that needed work.  I suggested adding olive oil and goat cheese to reduce the sweetness of the institutional dressing the cooks were using as their dressing base and everyone agreed the beet roasting needed work.

The thing that amazed me was the freshness of the salad greens harvested from the Center’s garden.  The baby spinach was a marvel.

After lunch I returned home and changed cars and drove to the bank and then the U Haul lot to fill the propane tank.

When I returned home it was 5:00 and I had seen the outpouring of relief from the guilty verdict in the George Floyd murder trial several times, so we took a short walk and then I had a gin and tonic as I snapped green beans for dinner and Suzette made crab cakes as we watched more post trial coverage.  I liked that Harris and Biden spoke.  It feels like the nation can breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Suzette baked slices of French bread in the oven to melba toast dryness and pulsed them in the Cuisinart to make bread crumbs and then added whisked eggs to make the second best crab cake I have ever eaten.  She lightly sautéed the crab cakes in canola oil and butter to help the crab cake retain its crabby flavor.

The best crab cake I ever ate was at my Bank cousin’s tennis club outside Baltimore in 1970 that was made with whipped egg whites and bread crumbs, only.

I made a quick tartare sauce with 1/2 minced shallot soaked in the juice of 1/2 lemon for 20 minutes and then mixed with 2/3 cup of mayonnaise, and a T. of horseradish.

I opened the newly arrived bottle of 2018 DePonte Melon de Bourgogne for this special dinner.

We agreed that we loved the new Dungeness crab concept at Costco packaging six cleaned crab halves in a package.  It is perfect for eating one crab each in a huge crab salad and having one crab left for crab cakes and saves thawing and cleaning the crab and probably is comparable in cost per pound of crab meat to the old single frozen crab packaging .

I must admit that there was enough shell in the crab meat we picked for the crab cakes to disqualify us from any Eastern Shore crab picking contest.  We decided to buy this new product again, so we can practice our picking skills.

After dinner we gathered wine and packed it for the trip.  We decided to take New Mexico Gruet wine to Suzette’s family.  Then we packed the down comforter.

We watched Trevor Noah and went to bed at 9:30.

I awakened at 12:30 to blog.

Bon Appetit