May 3, 2022 Lunch - Salad Dinner - Tapas Dinner with Diane and Jim

 May 3, 2022 Lunch - Salad  Dinner - Tapas Dinner with Diane and Jim

Today we were invited to the Sounder/Graf’s for a dinner of tapas. I was assigned the Gambas and offered to also make a dish I had not made before and wanted to try, grilled bacon wrapped dates because we had a box of dates.

Before Suzette left for work she fetched the bag of frozen shrimp from the garage freezer and we broke a dried guajillo pepper into small pieces into a bowl and added hot water to rehydrate it.

After Suzette left I picked the seeds out of the bowl of chili.

I woke up a little hungry today so after we defrosted the shrimpI cooked a big American breakfast of two sausage patties, two eggs over easy, and two slices of whole wheat bread buttered and spread with apricot preserves.

I worked until 1:00 and then made a salad with salami, cheddar cheese, a diced tomato, slices of onion, and slices of carrot.  I dressed the salad with Cesar dressing to which I had added lemon juice and some of the good olive oil. 

I checked the market after 2:00 and was amazed that it achieved a small gain for the second day in a row, which pushed it to within $5000 of the level it was at the beginning of last year.

The big news on all of the talk shows is the leak of a preliminary majority opinion by the Supreme Court to reverse a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion within the first 21 weeks of pregnancy that was found to be a constitutional right by the decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973.  I hope this coalesces people to vote the crazy right wing politicians out of office in November.

I took a short nap from 4:00 to 4:30 and then started cooking.

I made a copy of Jose Andres’ recipe for Gambas in his Tapas Cookbook and then assembled the ingredients so I could cook the dish at Diane and Jim’s house.  I poured the remaining thaw water off the 32 shrimp and packed them in a metal bowl between layers of paper towel to keep dry.  I spooned the rehydrated chili into a small lidded container.  I sliced thinly 6 cloves of garlic and put them in a plastic sandwich bag. I poured some cognac into an empty cognac bottle. I poured about 1/3 cup of the good olive oil into a small lidded container. And I chopped about a T. of fresh parsley for the garnish and put it into a small lidded container.

Then I turned my attention to the bacon wrapped dates.  This was a dish we first ate several years ago at Basilica in the East Village in NYC with Rebecca.

We had 12 medjool dates and six slices of thick cut bacon, but did not have peeled almonds.  I decided to stuff the dates with slices of praline pecans, which were about the size of the seeds I was removing from the dates.

I removed the seed with a cut down the length of one side of each date and then replaced the seed with a slice of sugar coated praline pecan. I the wrapped each date with 1/2 slice of bacon and secured the bacon with a toothpick.  The wrapped stuffed dates fit perfectly into the dates’ plastic box.  I refrigerated all of the Gambas ingredients and the prepped stuffed dates in the fridge and went to the basement looking for a Spanish Rioja to take to the party.  I found a 2006 Rioja Tinto that had been given to us by Jennifer and Dale.  At 5:45 suzette fetched a basket and we put all the ingredients and wine plus our wedge of Manchego into it and drove to the Souder/Graf’s.

We decided to sit outside on their patio rather than inside. I opened the 2006 Tinto.  It was heavily sedimented but still tasted great.  There were olives on the table and I sliced slices of Manchego.  

Soon Jim brought out a tapa of artichoke hearts and ham.

Jim does the cooking.  We decided to make the gambas next.  Jim wanted to see me make them.  I handed him the recipe and he read it to me as I cooked the dish.  First we heated.  1/4 cup of the good olive oil and then added and browned the 6 cloves of thinly sliced garlic.  Then we added the shrimp and the chili and cooked them for about 4 minutes.  Then I added the cognac and cooked it for a minute to make a sauce.  We then transferred the shrimp to a Nambe serving bowl and I garnished the dish with the finely chopped parsley.

Jim and Diane had bought a lovely Sage Bakery boule that they sliced so we could dip bread into the shrimp sauce as we ate the shrimp.  Diane raved about the sauce, which was the accumulation of the juices from the shrimp, the chili, and the olive oil and cognac. Saying, “I am a sauce person.”  as she dipped bread into the sauce on her plate.

Jim next brought out a traditional Tortilla Espanol; potato and onion slices bound together with egg, to which Jim had added ham and pimiento and he opened a bottle of Rivero Reserva.

After we ate slices of tortilla garnished with salsa and crumbled feta cheese, that they told us was the way tortilla Espanol is served at Eske’s brew put in Taos.

Jim then started the grill and grilled asparagus wrapped in prosciutto that he garnished with shredded Manchego.  The asparagus must have been soaked in olive oil because they were moist and really delicious.

I then asked Jim to grill the bacon wrapped dates on the grill, since it was still lit.

First, Jim opened another bottle.  This time it was a Tempranillo and Grenache blend from La Mancha.

Jim did a great job grilling the dates because the bacon was beautifully charred and the inner layers of bacon were cooked.  The insides of the dates were really hot and slightly gelatinous (molten), which is something I had noticed in New York.  You have to be careful eating them or you will burn your mouth.  

Diane loved them and I must admit they tasted really good.

Diane inquired about the recipe and ingredients for the dates twice, so she must have been impressed.

Jim also served baked coconut macaroons, which I loved.

At 9:15 we started to tire and said goodnight after a hugely successful meal of tapas.

Bon Appetit