January 27, 2024 Breakfast - Lax and Bagel with cream cheese, red onion, tomato, and capers Lunch - Fried Oysters with a corn and black bean salad Dinner - Vickie’s 50th BD Party

January 27, 2024 Breakfast - Lax and Bagel with cream cheese, red onion, tomato, and capers  Lunch - Fried Oysters with a corn and black bean salad  Dinner - Vickie’s 50th BD Party

I awakened around 8:00.  Soccer was not on any channel I had access to, so I watched Velshi and saw an incredible Banned Book segment on Kindred by Olivia Butler.  I immediately put a hold on the book at the library and suspect it will be my choice for a book this year for the book club.

At 10:00 I sliced a bagel half into two thin slices and toasted and Suzette spread cream cheese on the slices and fetched the capers while I sliced slices of lax, tomato, and red onion. We each garnished our bagel slic and I drank a cup of coffee maciatto made by our new coffee machine.

At 11:00 we drove to Weems Gallery to pick up the painting Suzette was giving to Vickie for her 50th but Weems was closed for a medical emergency of one of the staff, so we drove to Smith’s to buy milk. Our new coffee machine consumes lots of milk because we are selecting coffee with milk and foam.  I waited in the car while Suzette went in and when she returned she not only had bought milk but had also  two discounted cheeses, a wedge of Fontina and another fancy cheddar.

It was 1:30 when we returned home and we decided we were hungry and needed to eat lunch.  I had bought four jars of fresh west coast oysters.

Suzette decided to fry three jars or 12 oysters. She processed saltine crackers in the Cuisinart into light bread crumbs and put them in a pie pan. Then she mixed egg and milk in another pie pan.  I made a rather thin tartare sauce with juice of 1/2 lemon, 1 T. of horseradish, 1 cup of mayonnaise and 2 T. of pickle relish.

The Suzette discovered the third cooked ear of corn was still in the pot from last night’s dinner and decided to make a corn and black bean salad.

She stripped the kernals from the ear of corn with a knife and then added a can of coked black beans, a diced canned pimiento, two slices of red onion dived, two stalks of celery finely diced, and three slices of tomato diced.  She then dressed the salad with Spanish olive oil and some of the patron flavored vinegar we bought in Spain.

I cut leaves of romaine lettuce from their ribs and rinse them and covered plates with pieces of leaves. I also sliced baguette and toasted them and fetched the container of cheese curds flavored with pimento.

Suzette had rinsed and dried the oysters and when everything was ready she heated canola oil in a skillet and dipped the oysters in the milk and egg batter and then the bread crumbs to coat them and then deep fried two batches of six each.

We then lay six on the bed of romaine lettuce on my plate and four on Suzette’s plate.

Suzette fetched a lovely French Sauvignon Blanc from the garage fridge and we poured glasses of it and spooned corn and black bean salad and tartare sauce onto our plates.

I also spread pimento cheese spread on several slices of baguette.

We had a wonderful lunch.

Then Suzette showered and napped and I dozed in front of the TV until 3:00 when we drove to the Bosque and walked a mile. Today was the first time in a long time that I walked around the second pond, so we ended up walking a bit more than a mile.

When we returned home I drank another cup of coffee with four cookies and watched Philadelphia play Denver in NBA basketball until 5:30 when we left for Vickie’s birthday party at Jeff and her new home in Bosque farms.  They held the party in their large garage where they hand set up tables and pulled a two trailer turned into a bar inside the garage.

There were lots of Mexican food on a table. We passed over the green and red enchilada and rice and instead filled a plate with corn chips and drizzled green Chile queso and beans over them for a hearty plate of nachos.

Later we ate two huge chocolate chip cookies and a strawberry Jell-O shot made with vodka instead of water.

We left around 7:39 and were home a few minutes after 8:00 in time to watch Father Brown and Death in Paradise.

Then Suzette went to bed at 10:00 and I stayed up to watch Nina until 11:00 and then lay down to blog and read myself to sleep.

It was a fun day of food and I was able to hike a bit more than a mile without great difficulty or pain. Perhaps I am gaining some stamina.

Bon Appetit