March 1, 2023 Lunch - Vinaigrette. Dinner - Snow Peas in cream sauce, French Onion Soup, and Filipino Stewed Chicken, Turmeric Rice and Snow Peas

Today was a magical food day.

I had an appointment at 8:15 and then at 9:45 I made breakfast.

For breakfast I fixed the last two Kaufman bagels Suzette bought the other day.  She ate the caraway seed and salt one and I ate the plain one.

We had no cream cheese, so I spread Garlic and Herb Boursin on the super crisp twice toasted slices and then added thin slices of red onion and thick slices of Gravad Lax, a slice of tomato, and finally a small spoonful of capers.

I drank tea with milk and sugar and Suzette drank coffee.

Then at 11:45 after I funded Luke’s rent for a space to develop a spiritual healing center in Kingston, NY, Victor Marshall arrived for lunch.  He drove us around the corner to Vinaigrette. 

It was a sunny, warm day and I enjoyed getting out. Victor ordered, Eat Your Peas, a lovely large bowl of greens and peas, and I ordered my favorite, Frisée Salad, a pile of Frisée dotted with fried bacon lardons, topped with a poached egg and dressed with a shallot vinaigrette.  I immediately noticed that menu prices have been raised.  My Frisée Salad used to cost $9.99 several years ago when Vinaigrette opened.  It now costs $14.25.  Victor’s pea salad cost $15.00.

Given the fact that hamburgers and enchiladas have doubled in price during the same period, I found the larger salads to be a good value.

I was saddened to hear the story of how Victor lost his license to practice law and told him a bit about my varied law practice. 

He and I have a bond because he was fighting for the historic water rights for farmers on the San Juan/Colorado River and I am fighting for the rights of farmers on the Lower Rio Grande in New Mexico. So we are dealing with the same opponents, issues, and political forces.  The difference is I did not try to recuse the judge for bias, as Victor did.

Coincidentally, when I return home at 1:30 I noticed that my last appeal on behalf of the LRG farmers had been assigned to a panel for a decision after being filed in the Court of Appeal for about four years.

Justice does move slowly.

I then had the most fun of the day.  I called Aaron and we were able to file Earn’s Annual report with the  State of Delaware, timely for the first time ever, saving Earn the $200.00 penalty fee for late filing.

We were thrilled and I told Aaron I thought he should buy himself a fancy dinner in NY with the $200.00 savings.

At 4:00 I lay down to rest and watch Ari Melber and was awakened by Joy Reid at 5:00.

I rushed to my computer and joined the meditation group that included all six of us tonight for a wonderful meditation.  One notices subtle things in meditation and tonight I noticed that my concentration was deeper and clearer because I was nor experiencing pain in my right hip.  I was thankful that I had the operation and realized that better days are ahead.

Suzette arrived just as mediation ended at 5:30.  She has had a harrowing 30 minute delay on I-25 due to a huge accident and was in no mood to go anywhere, even though I offered to take her to dinner if she would also go to Costco.

So after a cocktail, she explored what was available in the fridge and came up with a fabulous dinner. We had PPI French onion soup, a bag of snow peas, and the last Filipino chicken thigh that Elaine brought us for dinner last Friday night, and turmeric rice I made last week.

So Suzette developed an amazing and highly satisfying dinner out of these disparate leftovers.  She first made us superb baked crocks of French onion with a slice of baguette covered with Racalette cheese.

We stripped the tough strings from the sides of the snow peas and then Suzette steamed the snow peas and added a splash of heavy cream to the steamed peas to produce a light, creamy sauce.

Finally, she heated several snow peas with some turmeric rice and the last Filipino chicken thigh together in the microwave for a delicious Entree for me. I poured us glasses of Kirkland New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from the opened bottle in the fridge.

We first ate our hot crocks of French Onion Soup with a bowl of creamed steamed snow peas that were out of this world delicious. The soup was really authentically delicious in every aspect but I could not eat much of mine because Suzette served me the heated entree of chicken, rice and snow peas soon after we started eating the soup.

The snow peas were fabulous. Suzette had created a new dish.  Crisp fresh steamed snow peas, lightly sauced with a drizzle of heavy cream.

We ate the snow peas with our soup and then I ate several more with my chicken and rice entree and there were still some left so Suzette added the  snow peas and sauce to my half eaten crock of soup and added the last of the soup to fill the crock for a wonderful lunch dish for me for Thursday.

But that was not the end of this evening’s creative leftover feast. After dinner while we watched some news Suzette fetched the last slice of triple mousse pastry we had bought at Le Quiche. Its outer edge had toughened due to a week’s exposure to the air. I recommended drizzling it with cognac and Suzette decided to heat the cognac drizzled pastry in the microwave for 30 seconds.

The microwave softened the tough edges but it also caused the pastry to collapse into mounds of white, light brown, and dark brown chocolate mousse suffused with cognac. The result could not have been better or more delicious, especially with the snifter glass of cognac mixed with a bit of Grande Marnier Suzette served me with the pastry.

So from a frustrating start of frazzled nerves from terrible driving conditions and having no clear dinner menu, Suzette created an exciting dinner with a new recipe for snow peas, and a fabulous French pastry dessert. 

I love our way of developing interesting dinners utilizing PPIs.

Bon Appetit