December 20, 2021 Lunch - Vietnamese Miso noodles with Shrimp. Dinner - Rack of Lamb with sautéed Potato Cubes and Tzatziki

 December 20, 2021 Lunch - Vietnamese Miso noodles with Shrimp. Dinner - Rack of Lamb with sautéed Potato Cubes and Tzatziki

Today I had an experience that made me think fondly of my mother.  Among the stocks I inherited from her were 323 shares of Pioneer Natural Exploration (“Pioneer”).  On Saturday I received a check from Pioneer for $975.00, which was a completely unexpected $3.00/share dividend.  It made me think of my mother’s love and her caring for me that had reached beyond the grave.

I was so moved by this inter-generational benefit that I prepared Assignments for each of Luke, Willy, and Suzette for 5617 shares of the Small Business Finance Bank by assigning each 1/3 of a 16,850 share certificate from the 335,133 shares I own in the bank. 

I also worked on my response to the COA order to designate transcripts by re-filing a Designation that I filed in 2019 in district court.

The most far reaching transactions of the day were the sale of 4/5 of my Apple shares and 1/2 of my Nvidia shares.  This was another brutal day in the market in which my portfolio dropped over 1.9%. The gain for the year is under 20% now, but I now have dry powder to buy stocks if they continue to fall.  No one knows what will happen in the near future, but I am placing a huge bet that things will get worse before they get better.

I ate granola, milk, blueberries, and yogurt for breakfast around 9:30.

Then I received a message from my yoga teacher canceling our session today because she had gotten a bad cold and feared she may have Covid.

At 10:30 I called Peter and changed our plans for me to pick up lunch since I was not going to be near the 2000 Vietnam Restaurant. Instead I invited Peter to lunch at my house.  I made Vietnamese Miso noodles with Shrimp, since I know Peter is a big fan of shrimp.

I filled a 2 quart pot 4/5 full of water and added four instead of three bundles of noodles ( 1 wheat bundle, 1 bean thread bundle, and two rice vermicelli bundles) plus Chinese Cooking Wine, crushed Pulse seaweed, 1/2 shallot minced, three stalks of asparagus diced, three mushrooms sliced, a Pho shrimp seasoning cube, 1/2 tsp. of dehydrated dashi. 1 T. of red miso, some green onion slices, 2 Fish cake balls sliced, 8 oz. of cubed soft tofu, and finally 11 shrimp when Peter arrived around 12:30.  The noodles had cooked about 45 minutes when Peter arrived so they were soft, having absorbed most of the liquid and yielding a rather soupy mass of noodles.

I put hoisin sauce, sriracha, sesame oil, soy sauce, and cilantro on the table and we each ate our way through a bowl of noodles.  I gave about 1/4 of my bowl of noddles to Peter, because I could not finish mine.

Peter left at 1:30 and checked at 2:00 and got the bad news while I was completing the assignments.

I then mailed Luke’s package at the post office, drove to the bank to deposit the dividend check and get the assignments notarized.

Then I delivered Peter’s copy of Comanche Empire to him.

I returned home and filed the designation. Suzette arrived at 4:30 and we walked 1/2 mile in the neighborhood.

When we returned home, Suzette wanted to grill the rack of lamb, so I made an elaborate tzatziki with a whole cucumber, three cloves of garlic, juice of 1/2 lemon, a tomato diced 2/3 cup of yogurt, 1/4 cup of chopped Italian parsley, and a slice of diced red onion, plus a couple pinches of salt.

While I made the tzatziki, Suzette grilled the rack of lamb after she glazed it with some of her homemade mint jelly and cubed two potatoes and blanched them and then sautéed them in olive oil and seasoned them with 1/3 cup of cminced Italian parsley, salt, and lemon juice.

I opened a bottle of 2015 Rivera Spanish Rioja.

The propane failed on the grill, so I sliced four riblets off the rack and Suzette finished cooking those riblets in the skillet in which she had sautéed the potatoes for a couple of minutes.

We enjoyed dinner, although we agreed the racks of lamb at Costco are of a better quality.

After dinner we watched the Antiques Roadshow and the Vikings v Chicago Bears NFL game. Neither team was impressive and neither will probably make the Playoffs this year. Chicago had three turnovers, 8 penalties, and a blocked punt in its dismal losing performance.

I ate a bowl of Pistachio Almond ice cream.

We went to bed at 9:30 and I then blogged until 11:45.

Bon Appetit