December 7, 2021 Lunch - Padilla’s Chili Relleno Plate. Dinner - Fried Oysters and Tarragon Tartare Sauce with Seaweed Salad and an assortment of Cheeses with Kurt’s homemade bread

December 7, 2021 Lunch - Padilla’s Chili Relleno Plate.   Dinner - Fried Oysters and Tarragon Tartare Sauce with Seaweed Salad and an assortment of Cheeses with Kurt’s homemade bread.

This was the best day ever for my portfolio.  Everything went up for a change with an increase of 3.6% with the big tech raging back up.

It was also a uniquely interesting day of food discoveries.

I did not eat breakfast but met Mike for lunch at Padilla’s at 11:15.

Mike ordered a chicken and green chili filled burrito.  I ordered a chili Relleno plate with double beans and green chili. The two deep fried battered rellenos were filled with a soft creamy white cheese that made them taste very pastry like.

I ate one relleno and half the beans and boxed the other relleno and 1/2 of the beans to save room for the delicious sopapilla they make at Padilla’s.  I ate 1 1/2 Sopapillas with a lot of honey and gave half of one to Mike.  

Mike and I agreed to meet at my house later in the afternoon to revise a document he was drafting as we parted company.

After lunch I drove to the Smith’s at the corner of Constitution and Carlisle, a Kroger affiliate, where I soon made a discovery.   Smith’s now participatesxAS  with Murray’s Cheese in a fancy cheese program.  I bought a wedge of Mimolet, which I have not seen in a store in over 20 years and a cube of Arun, a soft blue cheese I had never seen before.  I was thrilled that my local Smith’s was offering such interesting cheeses of the type that one would find at Murray’s Cheese shop in the East Village in New York City.  God bless Kroger/Smith’s.

I wandered back toward the butcher area and picked up a 1.5 quart container of Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream marked down to $.99.  

When I arrived at the butcher counter I asked the butcher to cut me a 1 1/2 lb. piece from a fillet of fresh Atlantic salmon on sale priced at $8.99.  I noticed three small bottles of three fresh Pacific oysters in a tub of ice in the front of the counter. The price for such jars of oysters is usually $6.99, but there were three jars with labels indicating that the jars were reduced to $.99.  The butcher explained that December 7 was the mark down date and December13 was the throw away date.  I checked the label and saw the December 7 date, so I bought all three bottles.

I was dizzy from the realization that I had entered mark down heaven as I wheeled my cart through the produce section on my way to the self check out  machines, as I bagged about 1/2 lb. of lovely tender green beans priced at. $1.49/lb. As I approached the check out machines I saw an end cap with small boxes of corn bread muffin mix on sale for $.59 each and brought one.

I needed help checking out but was happy to pay $46.00 for my small quantity of food.

I drove home by way of the bank to make a deposit and the cleaners to drop off some clothes for cleaning.

After I arrived at 1:50 I watched the market close in which the high tech stocks regained much of their recent losses.  My portfolio had regained the 25% gain mark.  I was thrilled.

I worked for a while and then lay down and napped for an hour to catch up on the lack of sleep last night due to my upset stomach.

Mike arrived at 4:30 with a bag of five cheeses, a half loaf of fresh country style bread Kurt had made, several La Croix sparkling waters, a box of rice crackers, and a bottle of VSOP cognac.  We worked on Mike’s four page draft until 6:30; well after Suzette arrived at 5:00.  

Suzette snacked on Mike’s cheeses and bread while she waited for us to finish working, but interrupted us to discuss what to do with the oysters.

We decided to use the corn muffin mix to batter the oysters and fry them, so Suzette returned to the kitchen and started preparing the oysters for frying

When we finished we gathered in the kitchen where Suzette had rinsed and dried the oysters on paper towels and had readied one pie plates for battering the oysters, one with flour, one with whisked egg, and the third with some of the corn muffin mix and she was heating a large cast iron skillet with canola oil. Suzette had also made a tartare sauce by combining some of the tarragon mayonnaise I had made with some pickle relish and the juice of 1/2 lemon.

We discussed what vegetable we might eat with the fried oysters and decided to eat the rest of the Korean seaweed salad we had bought at Costco recently.

We then toasted the four slices of Kurt’s flat beautiful grain filled bread Suzette had sliced and two more slices I cut.

We discussed wines. I wanted white with the oysters and red with the cheese and bread so I went to the garage to fetch a chilled bottle of Italian Falerio and opened and filled the wine glasses Suzette had set on the table, while Suzette plated three small glass plates with the seaweed salad and started to batter and fry the 9 oysters. Here are some pictures of Suzette frying the oysters.

Soon Suzette handed Mike and me each a plate filled with three fried oysters and a small mound of seaweed salad with the admonition to take  the tartare sauce and the plates to the table and began eating.

Soon Suzette joined us with her plate as soon as she finished frying her three oysters. 

 The freshly fried oysters battered with the slightly sweet corn muffin mix with the slightly sweet seaweed salad and the slightly sweet tartare sauce were an interesting homogeneously flavored combination that neutralized the flavor of the grease in which the oysters were fried.

What an amazing small dinner.

Ten or 15 minutes we finished eating our oyster appetizer while zsuzette and Mike finished their glasses of white wine, I went in search for a bottle of red to match the cheeses.  I soon found a bottle of 2016 Corte Barolo I bought in September at Trader Joe’s for $12.99. 

Mike approved, so I opened it. I had never drunk this wine before, but by my estimation it was a good cheese wine. As soon as I tasted the Barolo I knew I was correct.  It was smooth and light and its flavor did not interfere with the flavor of the cheeses. I guessed correctly, that a light Italian red wine would closely approximate Pinot Noir that the French prefer with cheese.  A Barolo is an even better choice for cheese, in my opinion.

The second cheese discovery of the day occurred as soon as Mike opened his bag of cheeses and lay them on the table. They all contained Reduced price tags on them with prices from $1.99 to 2,99.  These were the same Murray cheese selections from Smith’s, for which I had just paid $9.00 and $10.00 respectively for a similarly small wedge.  All of the cheeses were priced from $23.00 to $30.00/lb.

Mike’s four cheeses included two French Affinoises; one plain and one herbed; a California hearty flaky blue artisanal cheese; and a soft black truffled French cheese.  Mike has spent a lot of time in Paris and knows his cheeses.  All of his selections were amazing.  I had only eaten the plain Affinois before, so trying three new wonderful cheeses was a treat, especially on beautiful home made bread.

We enjoyed Mike’s cheeses and the Barolo wine. Mike cut and toasted two more slices of Kurt’s bread so we could have seconds of several.

After we each had tried each cheese and drunk a couple of glasses of Barolo, I suggested that we try Mike’s cognac.  He told us a friend in Madison, Wisconsin took him to a small specialty wine shop where he bought this cognac.  

I had seen it before but never tried it, perhaps because it cost over $50.00.

Suzette then announced that I had bought a bag of a highly addictive Swedish candy at IKEA when we were in Dallas, so I fetched the Daim orange flavored chocolate covered rectangles of toffee. We each took three packets holding one 1 by 2 inch piece of candy and poured sips of the cognac and savored both.

The VSOP cognac had great character and yet was amazingly smooth, sort of a controlled burn that complemented the sweet orange flavored milk chocolate in a very pleasing manner.

At 9:30 we finally said goodnight after Mike graciously gave us the remaining half bottle of cognac as compensation for my services.  Mike mentioned wanting to do a side by side comparison of cognacs.  I offered to provide that comparison and, after he left, I took the bottle to the basement for storage to await his return to New Mexico in the New Year for that comparison.

I love impromptu meals of exquisite food and wine, such as tonight’s meal.

Dinners such as these are a rare treat because we usually are eating like peasants, but tonight we were able to eat like aristocrats at peasant prices, thanks to Smith’s markdowns.

I made a promise to myself to return to Smith’s more frequently in the hope of finding other magnificent markdowns.  For example, I wonder if they stock frozen duck.

Bon Appetit