October 8, 2023 Breakfast at Vara. Dinner - Dungeness Crab Salad

October 8, 2023 Breakfast at Vara. Dinner - Dungeness Crab Salad

What a great day of food that began with Cava and ended with champagne. We also did quite a bit of food prep and some food and wine shopping.

Aaron, Monika, and Alexi picked up Willy, Suzette and me up at 7:30 and we drove to Vara and arrived as hundreds of balloons were aloft and more were going up.

We could walk to a slight rise nearer the Balloon Field and see the balloons lifting off.

There were lots of special shapes and we stayed for about 1/2 hour until a balloon in the shape of Barney the dinosaur coming out of his shell passed over head.

We then returned to the serving table and each of the four adults took a glass of cava and several of us ordered coffee and we all ordered breakfast of either a burrito or a bowls of tater tots drizzled with chorizo, chili, and cheese. I ate a tots bowl and it was delicious with crisp baked tots.

I took the wedge of Iberico we bought at Trader Joe’s yesterday and the piece of Tetilla cheese we bought at the Mouse Hole cheese shop yesterday.

Monica immediately cut pieces of each, since she loves cheese and she bought us and herself glasses of Tempranillo and we ate cheese and sipped red wine.

After 1 1/2 hours Aaron drove us back home.

The news is all about the Hamas raid on Israel.

Apparently there was a music festival in the desert near Gaza where Hamas killed and captured about 300 people.

I watched some football and Suzette worked and then at 2:00 we drove to Costco so Suzette could pick up 15 packs of decking material.

She took a flat bed and I took a cart to fetch the flooring and I took a shopping cart to the wine area where I bought two bottles of Gruet Savage Rose, two bottles of Jaboulet Cotes Du Rhone and a bottle of Chianti Riserva.

When Suzette came back and found me at the fresh fish section, we bought a flat of four crab claws.  We also bought a Point Reyes blue cheese, a package of hazelnut filled crepes, baguettes, and flour tortillas.

We then drove home and unloaded the food and wine and attempted to construct the platform Suzette plans to use to cover the pond this year, but cutting the PVC pipe proved too difficult.

I ate two slices of baguette smeared with herring salad and garnished with pieces of pickled herring.

Then I watched more news and football but there were no interesting games.

AI 4:00 I minced two oz. of onion and squeezed the juice of  1/2 lemon to cover the onions and let that stand and cook for about twenty minutes while I fetched a head of bibb lettuce and a bottle of Gruet Blanc de Noir from the garage and spun the lettuce and arranged it on two plates and then cut wedges of tomato and slices of avocado for two salads.

I then made a dressing by adding catsup and Mayo to the onion and lemon juice.

Suzette cooked a pork tender she had thawed that she had garnished with fennel seeds , z atar, salt, and white pepper and pulled it out of the oven while we ate dinner and put a small roasting pan of pork belly we bought at Costco to roast into the oven.

Suzette put the crab on a plate and took it with two steel bowls to the table under the gazebo and half filled the ice bucket with ice and water to keep the champagne chilled.

We took silverware, champagne glasses, and the plates, bowls, napkins, and crab to the gazebo.

We each shelled one claw and poured dressing over our salad and ate a lovely crab salad with sips of champagne.

I wore thick blue jeans and a long sleeve shirt so was not bothered by the mosquitos, although I had to spray my hands and neck and sides of my face to keep from being bitten there.

After we finished our salads we came back inside and I picked the meat out of the other two claws while Suzette took a shower.

We watched San Francisco beat the Cowboys and at 7:00 we watched a PBS episode of Professor T. Then at 9:00 Suzette raised the temperature in the oven to crisp the edge of the pork belly and at 9:30 Suzette pulled the pork belly out of the oven. it was perfectly cooked when we tried a forkful.

Suzette then went to bed and I watched an episode of Van Der Valk and then at 10:00 a great episode of Astrid where she uses her knowledge of Japanese culture to solve a mystery murder of a Japanese Yakuza.

So this weekend all my favorite teams, the Cowboys, TCU, and Texas all lost. 

Oklahoma moved up from No. 12 to No. 5 and Texas moved down from No. 3 to No. 9.

So both are still highly ranked, but it was terrible to see Texas not punch the ball into the end zone from the 1 yard line and then lose because it could not stop an Oklahoma drive with one minute to go.

Bon Appetit