June 29, 2023. lunch - Vietnam 2000 Dinner - Broccoli Couscous with Dirty Rice and BBQ Shrimp.

June 29, 2023. lunch - Vietnam 2000 Dinner - Broccoli Couscous with Dirty Rice and BBQ Shrimp.

I ate granola with yogurt, milk, and grapes for breakfast.

I then prepared notes for the Unbearable Lightness of Being and got dressed.

I picked Charlie and Peter up around 11:30 and arrived at Vietnam 2000 at noon.  All nine members showed up and said they enjoyed lunch.  I ordered No. 30, Marinated and grilled pork and fried egg rolls on vermicelli rice noodles with mung bean sprouts, lettuce and herbs on the bottom.

At 1:00 we drove to my house and gathered around the dining room table and discussed the book.  It turned out that many were not impressed by the book and thought it was intellectual gobbledygook gook. I served Campo de Reves Pinot Noir from Anderson Valley and Falerio white from Italy plus grapes, peanuts, and cherries. Both wines were delicious. I particularly liked the Anderson Valley red.

At 3:30 I served Clafoutis with ice cream and whipped cream after the discussion.

Pradip looked at my shell collection and Keith stayed to taste slivovitz.

Walt came by and tasted slivovitz and Suzette arrived around 4:30.

Walt showed his new cloth raised bed shading system that he is marketing to Suzette who wants to build one in Los Lunas and delivered a box of Edible New Mexico magazines.

I lay down after everyone left at 5:00 and napped until Suzette awakened me at 5:45.

She wanted to heat the PPI BBQ Shrimp and Dirty Rice.  I asked for the addition of a green vegetable.  The only green vegetable we had was broccoli. Suzette suggested grinding some of the broccoli into Couscous sized granularity and sautéing it with the dirty rice and shrimp.

She shelled the shrimp and boiled the shells to yield a richly flavored stock and then food processed and sautéed the Broccoli couscous and then added the dirty rice, while I cut each shrimp into four pieces and added the shrimp to the sauté skillet mixture.

Soon dinner was ready and it was sensational. The flavors of the Cajun BBQ Shrimp were a little lighter and the broccoli added a little lighter lift to the rice it was blended with. The mixture of ingredients into a one dish meal produced bites of shrimp, couscous, and rice that were wonderful in part due to the Union of flavors that were previously sharply independent.

I drank a glass of the bubbly Venetian rose with dinner and Suzette drank a Dos Equis beer.

After dinner we watched a 1998 episode of Midsomer Mystery and then went to bed at 9:30.

I awakened at 12:45 and blogged this entry.

Bon Appetit