September 10, 2021 Lunch - Olive Garden, Soup and Salad. Dinner - Sautéed Italian Sausage, tomatoes, red bell pepper, pasilla pepper, onion, and garlic
Today turned into a busy day. Johal called yesterday and said that the Indian Consulate General would attest to the Power of Attorney if attested to by a state rather than the U.S. State Department. So this morning I prepared Powers of Attorney for each of Karim, Rahim, and me after I ate a bowl of granola, milk, blueberries, yogurt and banana slices.
When Karim arrived at 10:00 we drove to the parking lot next to Paseo and I-25 where Rahim was waiting for us. Rahim and Karim signed their POAs and I notarized them.
Then Karim drove us to the Secretary of State’s Office in Santa Fe in his Tesla Model S. After we checked in and paid the 3 $3.00 fees my POA was notarized and we obtained an Apostille for each document by 1:00.
We then drove out Cerrillos to the Tesla charging station near the Outlet Mall.
We discussed lunch during the 35 minutes it took for Karim’s Tesla to charge 100 miles of electricity and then we drove back north on Cerrillos to the Olive Garden restaurant we had passed on our way to the charging station. I have not been in an Olive Garden in over thirty years so did know what to expect. The atmosphere is corporate casual with lots of wood and lots of young servers and staff. The menu is standardized also. Although the restaurant was eerily empty at 2:30 in the afternoon we had to wait fifteen minutes before being seated in a more than half empty area of booths and tables.
Karim had suggested we share the endless salad, soup, and breadstick combo, so we ordered that. There were four soups to choose from, two were tomato sauce based and two were cream or rather milk based soups. Karim chose the minestrone and later the faggioli and I chose the Tuscan sausage potato cream soup both times. The first bowl of Tuscan soup was richly creamy but the second was little more than milk and slices of boiled potatoes. A similar oddity was the salad served in a large bowl, mostly iceberg lettuce with a few torn leaves of romaine, a small handful of sliced red onion, two pepperoni, four slices of Roma tomato, a couple of thin carrot sticks, an over abundance of not homemade croutons, and two black olives (perhaps as an homage to the restaurant’s name). Our first bowl was not dressed even though we ordered it with Italian dressing. Our waitress brought us ramekins of creamy Italian dressing as if that was the way things usually worked at Olive Garden and I feared she was correct. The bread sticks were good, sort of mini baguettes, but they came three to an order so we chose to order another basket rather than try to spilt the third breadstick.
The second bowl of salad was nicely tossed with dressing thanks to our waitress’ chiding the cooks. All in all it was a satisfying meal in a weirdly inefficient, uncreative way with a waitress who was young, charming, and enthusiastically helpful.
After lunch we drove back to Albuquerque. The most interesting part of the drive was the entry onto I-25. I warned Karim that there was no entry lane so when I told him the right lane was clear he accelerated from about 45 to 98 in a matter of a second or two and we shot onto the freeway.
The other thing I liked about Karim’s car was the wonderful sound system and the infinite range of music. He had several apps and a music service so when he asked what I wanted to listen to we went through my favorite 60’s folk rock and protest songs by singers like Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Melanie, Tom Paxton, and Donovan.
We arrived home around 4:15 and I then drove to the post office to post my checks for tax payments.
When I returned home I was hot and tired since the outdoor temperature read 97 degrees.
I thawed two Italian sausages and two bratwurst, made a rum and tonic, and turned on the fan in the bedroom and lay down to cool myself.
The news was boring, mostly talking about the amazing coverage planned for 9/11, a much more impactful event for the tristate area around NYC, so I turned to the US Open and watched a rather spirited match between Djokovic and Zwerus.
When Suzette came in around 6:30 and asked about dinner, I responded that I was ready to cook dinner and slid out of bed and made my way to the kitchen.
We had lots of pesto tossed spaghetti, so my idea was to make an Italian sausage spaghetti with vegetables. I guess I had been inspired at the Olive Garden, but Suzette made the dish into a wonderful fried pasta dish that only she seems capable of making after I chopped 1/3 red onion, 1/4 pasilla chili, two portobello mushrooms cubed, 1/2 red bell pepper, two cloves of garlic, and two unripened store bought tomatoes.
Suzette sliced one of the Italian sausages and sautéed it with the vegetables in olive oil and butter and then added a generous handful of cooked pasta and sautéed the entire mixture until it was braised together into a melange of flavors and textures. I shaved slices of Pecorino Romano cheese off the wedge that Suzette garnished the fried pasta dish with.
We opened a bottle of South African Pinotage named Six Hats that someone gave us and it was surprisingly delicious. We even sipped an extra glass after the meal and watched Zwerus win the fourth set to bring the match to a two set each tie before Novack brought down the hammer in the fifth set, so we changed back to the news at 8:30 and went to bed at 9:30.
I later ate a bowl of chocolate ice cream with rum and chocolate syrup and then a slice of fruitcake with a sip of cognac and a cup of chai.
I have come to really enjoy Suzette’s fried pasta, sausage and vegetable melanges. It is another method Suzette employs to create a one dish dinner with PPIs mixed with fresh ingredients.
Bon Appetit
No comments:
Post a Comment