April 19, 2023 Continental Breakfast. Lunch - East Ocean. Dinner - Grilled Rib steak and Asparagus and sautéed Mushrooms and Béarnaise Sauce

April 19, 2023 Continental Breakfast. Lunch - East Ocean. Dinner - Grilled Rib steak and Asparagus and sautéed Mushrooms and Béarnaise Sauce

I had thawed out a steak yesterday with the dinner menu idea of grilled steak and the fabulous thick asparagus we bought and the last of the PPI roasted potatoes.

I started the day reading family histories of grand parents killed and who survived the death camps by TV personalities such as Dana Bash and Wolf Blitzer.  Today is the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, so it is the day many celebrate the death (Kaddish) of relatives who died in the Holocaust who left no date of death.

I had a meeting at 10:00 so at 9:00 I ate my favorite breakfast of my youth that I acquired a taste for on a family vacation when we spent a week or two in Paris.  Billy and I shared a room in Hotel Printemps with a small balcony with a view of Gard San Lazare.  Every morning a waiter would bring us a tray with bread, croissants, butter, jam, and hot chocolate.

Suzette saved me 1/2 of the almond croissant we bought at the Le Quiche booth at the Farmers’ Market, so I made a cup of hot chocolate and heated the croissant and had a fabulous deja vu experience of Paris at 14.

I then dressed and went to the meeting with a wealth Management company and then ate lunch with Robert at East Ocean.  We shared our usual, Fried Tofu with Mixed Vegetables and rice and hot tea.  Robert is a vegetarian and we always order the same thing.

After a lively legal conversation I drove home and arrived at 1:30, just in time to watch the Bayern Munich v. Man City EUFA match and watch the Market close.

The match ended in a 1 to 1 tie and my portfolio eked out a small .26% gain, which I was thrilled with since the NASDAQ was in negative territory until the last minute of trading.

At 3:30 I walked to the country club and back. This is the second time I have walked .8 miles and I did not suffer any muscular effect, although my left hip joint hurt.

I was winding and faced a strong headwind but when I turned around to head home I had the benefit of that strong tailwind.

When I returned I watched Ari Melber for 15 minutes and then meditated with the zen group for thirty minutes.

Suzette came home during meditation and when I finished at 5:00 she said she was hungry so we decided to prepare dinner.  Suzette is the grill master and I am the sous chef, so she grilled the rib steak and I sliced and sautéed the last four large white mushrooms with a minced shallot and a minced clove of garlic in two T. of butter and 1 1/2 T. of olive oil.

I have been wanting to use some of the tender young tarragon that is sprouting in the garden, so I picked a small handful and made a Béarnaise sauce. I follow the Julia Child recipe generally.  I boiled the tarragon with about 1 T. of minced shallot in 1/3 cup each of white wine vinegar and  white wine until it reduced by 3/4 and let it cool.  I then whisked three egg yolks in an enameled sauce pan and strained the cooled emulsion into the yolks. MI then put the sauce pan on low heat and added 1/2 lb. of butter 1 to 2 oz.s at a time.

The more the emulsion is reduced the thicker the sauce will be, so tonight the sauce thickened quickly and stayed thick as I added slices of butter.

When I added the last three pats of butter I turned off the burner and slowly allowed the butter reduce the heat of the sauce as I stirred them in.

I had sautéed the mushrooms at the same time, so I turned off the heat when the mushrooms were cooked and waited for Suzette to finish grilling the asparagus and steak.

When she brought them in I sliced the steak and she laid four large grilled asparagus on each plate and we selected slices of steak cooked to rare, which is perfect for Suzette, and spooned mushrooms onto the steak slices and then poured Béarnaise sauce onto the mushrooms.

I opened a bottle of 2010 Wellington Mohrhardt Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon.  The wine had lost most of it fruit and had a dull heavy taste, so I was happy we were nearly finished drinking the 2010’s.

Suzette praised the meal and I must admit that we are pretty good cooks and came up with a really wonderful dinner.

Bon Appetit