December 13, 2023 Lunch - Salmon and rice. Dinner - Roasted Rump Roast with Potatoes, yams, and carrots and brown gravy

December 13, 2023 Lunch - Salmon and rice. Dinner - Roasted Rump Roast with Potatoes, yams, and carrots and brown gravy

 Woke up at 7:00 and watched the news for about 30 minutes.

Then I made breakfast  for Suzette and me by toasting three slices of everything bagels.

I spread cream cheese on 5em and garnished with slices of Gravad lax on Suzette’s slice and Gravad lax and red onion slices on my two slices.

I drank a cup of tea and then sat down in front of my computer for the annual State tax seminar. I was very interesting with a wide range of topics.

For example, a new issue corporations and LLCs need to face in the new year is filing under the newly enacted Corporate Transparency Act.

During the 10:00 break Suzette and I made cups of hot chocolate and I heated a pain au chocolate.

Then during the lunch break from noon to 1:00 I peeled and cubed two yams, an onion, two carrots, 11 cloves of garlic, and four Yukon Gold potatoes and Suzette braised the rump roast and put it in a casserole with water and better than bouillon to make a stock and the cubed vegetables in the oven at 350 degrees until the internal temperature of the meat reached 150 degrees and then turned down the temp to 225 degrees and cooked the casserole for three hours to tenderize the meat.  The result was by dinner that the meat fell apart at the touch of a knife or fork.

Suzette at 12:30 also heated and we shared the leftover sautéed salmon and cranberry rice from last night’s dinner. Then I returned to the seminar at 1:00.

After the seminar, which fulfilled my Continuing Education obligation for the year, we went through old family pictures and then I opened a bottle of 2017 Marques de Colbert, a Spanish red wine from the Utiel-Requena region.

Utiel Requena is a Spanish Denominación de Origen Protegida (DOP) for wines located in the province of Valencia (Valencian Community). It takes its name from the two neighbouring towns of Utiel and Requena. It is renowned for the predominant use of the Bobal grape variety.

https://www.vivino.com/wine-regions/utiel-requena

 I then spread two hard bread crackers with some of the Murray’s cheese ball we bought this week and rested while Suzette removed the meat and vegetables from the casserole and added flour to the cooking juices to make brown gravy. I sliced 1/2 of the meat and placed it on a ceramic platter with the cooked vegetables and poured glasses of wine.

We ate at 6:30 and Willy arrived shortly l. He loved the high protein winter warming comfort food and we were happy because we had found the roast in the discounted meat section at Smith’s for $14.12, so this meal that consumed 1/2 of the roast cost about $2.50 per person.  The wine is about a $9.00 bottle so a fabulous meal with a good wine for about $5.50 per person. The roasted vegetables were also, softened by long cooking and saturated with beef stock flavor.

We talked with Willy, mostly about the stock market, which is on a sharp upward trajectory after the latest economic data shows that inflation is going down and businesses are still hiring, which will add strength to the consumer sector’s buying power and drive business profits.  In short, the US economy appears to be heading away from recession and toward  the hoped for soft landing of lower inflation without the shock of dislocation in the labor market. 

Willy and my portfolios had one of their best days as the market reached new highs.  My portfolio reached a new post-Covid high and increased by about 1.6%, even after withdrawing a required minimum distribution of $52,000 this month that we will use to remodel the bathroom and bedrooms.

After dinner as we watched a documentary on Canadian Wildlife Suzette made us parfaits of spumoni ice cream with a drizzle of Hershey chocolate syrup and sliced strawberries in syrup.

We were tired and went to bed before 9:00 as soon as Willy left.

I awakened at 1:30 a.m. on the 14th to finish this blog  and will return to bed for another three hours of sleep shortly.

Bon Appetit