July 9, 2023 Breakfast - Bacon and Eggs with Cottage Fries and sautéed red onion. Lunch - Vichyssoises. Dinner with the shell club, Filet Mignon with Salads

July 9, 2023 Breakfast - Bacon and Eggs with Cottage Fries and sautéed red onion. Lunch - Vichyssoises. Dinner with the shell club, Filet Mignon with Salads

I woke up around 7:45 and checked the bike race and found out that Stage 9 was going and they were about 50 miles from the finish.

So I watched Fareed Zacharia until 9:00 and turned it back to the bike race .

Only then did I realize they were going to finish at the top of a 13 km. climb of Puy de Dome, near Clermont Ferrand, that has not been a finish since 1988.

Because the peleton was 15 minutes behind the leaders who were contesting for the stage and King of the Mountain points the race turned into two races. There was an exciting finish for the stage when Michael Woods, a Canadian, came from several minutes back to win the stage with a catch of the leader within the last kilometer.

Then when the peleton was about 1 km. from the finish Pogajar took off and Vinegaard chased him but could not catch Pogajar, who created an 8 second gap to draw to 17 seconds behind Vinegaard’s aggregate time and the yellow jersey.

After the race ended I helped Suzette in the garden and to load stuff into her vehicle for about 1/2 hour.

She then made a beautiful breakfast of Bacon and Eggs with Cottage Fries and sautéed red onion.  Suzette made a very delicious aggregation of the eggs, cottage fries, and red onion and I toasted four small slices of baguette to which I added cherry preserves.

Then I made the Clafoutis. I pitted and cut in half about 5 cups of cherries and drizzled a T. of Grand Marnier on them..

I then buttered and coated with granulated sugar a 9 x 13 inch Pyrex baking dish.

I then mixed 12 T. of confectioner sugar and 9 T. of flour in a bowl to which I stirred in four eggs and 1 1/2 cups  of cream and 2 cups of milk that had been scalded.

I then combined the cherries and custard mixture and baked the combined  custard for 55 minutes in a pre-heated stove at 350 degrees.

                                  The custard put into the oven to bake.

                                    The. Scalded milk

                               The cherries drizzled with GrandcNarnier

At 2:00 Suzette emulsified and we reconstituted some of the vichyssoise that I overcooked last night that had turned into a thick mass.  We added 1/2 cup of cream and then several cups of milk to finally loosen it from a sludge into a smooth soup. It still had an after-taste so we added some seasoned salt, which helped cover up the after-taste.

I went to the garden and picked seven or eight chive stalks that I cut into ringlets to garnish the soup.

Suzette poured glasses of Kirkland Pinot Grigio that we added ice to.

We ate our soup in the garden in the shade of the gazebo where there was a light breeze.  

Then at 3:00 we napped. After 20 minutes Suzette got up and worked on her billing. I did not awaken until 4:00 when took a shower and dressed and watched the quarter-final of the Americas’ Gold Cup between Jamaica and Guatemala, which Jamaica won. 

Then at 5:30 we gathered some shells and a bottle of 2013 Calstar Sangiacamo Pinot Noir and drove to Tom and Ronnie’s house in north Rio Rancho.  When we arrived at 6:15 everyone was eating dinner, so we joined them. The menu was wonderful; three salads (one of which Laura made combined quinoa and diced chicken with lots of other ingredients), fillets Mignons cooked perfectly to rare, and sautéed onions and mushrooms.

We joined the group of 7 and talked and ate and drank. I enjoyed my steak and salad dinner. 

Then desserts were served: Blue Bell vanilla ice cream with my clafoutis and Mike’s wife’s fabulous tea cake dotted with sour cherries from their neighbor’s tree.

After dessert the four sea shell collecting members gathered around the dining table that was filled with hundreds of Pat’s shells and picked as many as we wanted. Then Suzette picked some shells for shell jewelry.

Finally at 9:30 we all said goodnight after another wonderful meeting.

Bruce and Tom discussed the trend to break up genuses into smaller and smaller groupings, which Bruce strongly disapproved of.

For example, many of the South African shells I brought looked alike and quite different from most other cowries, which Bruce said, “They all resemble each other so it would be helpful to group them into a genus”. 

So I learned that genuses are arbitrary but have a benefit if each genus groups similar shells in appearance.

A good Clafoutis, a good dinner, and a wonderful evening of shell talk and we came home with more shells.

 Bon Appetit