March 29, 2024 Breakfast - Ginger tea and chocolate crepe. Lunch -Curried Red Lentils with brown rice and steamed Spinach. Dinner - Oysters, Salad, and Cheese

March 29, 2024 Breakfast - Ginger tea and chocolate crepe. Lunch -Curried Red Lentils with brown rice and steamed Spinach. Dinner - Oysters, Salad, and Cheese

I ate a chocolate crepe with a cup of ginger tea for breakfast and then worked with Rahim on a contract until 10:00 when Steven arrived to administer physical therapy.

At about noon Amy arrived with another Martin Walker book and Julia Child’s Autobiography for me.

After Amy and Luke took a walk around the block, Luke made us lunch of red lentil Dhal seasoned with turmeric, garlic, and coriander. He poured the dhal over a small cup of brown rice in a pasta bowl with a pile of yogurt and a strand with several sprigs of fresh steamed spinach and a medium boiled egg.

It was a tribute to the diet for a small planet and a perfect lunch with legumes, rice, dairy and a vegetable.

After lunch Amy and Luke went to the Albuquerque Museum and I lay down for a nap.

I rested until 3:30 and I watched TV until 4:30. We decided to set up a table on the back porch instead of under the gazebo because of the cool breeze for our dinner with Mike and Joy at 6:30. We thawed a bag of heads off large shrimp.

At 5:00 Suzette left to pick up the oysters, I cooked the shrimp with onion,Tabasco, and 1/2 lemon . I then made cocktail sauce by mixing catsup, lemon juice and horseradish.

Then I peeled the shrimp and put them in pasta bowls filled with ice cubes.

Mike and Joy arrived at 6:20 and Suzette returned shortly thereafter with three dozen oysters on the half shell; one dozen each of Great whites, rochambeau, and Rappahannock.

Mike and Joy brought two bowls of salad. Joy made a dressing with Patron flavored vinegar and Spanish olive oil.

We first served the oysters with Naveran Cava and rice and corn crackers.

Then I toasted slices of bread and we brought out the five cheeses, champignon Cambozola that Mike brought and goat, brie, Jarlsberg, and hard grana cheese and we served the salad with the Spanish vinegar and olive oil dressing and poured Embroidery Pinot noir and later Trader Joe’s Anderson Valley Pinot noir, which I liked a lot.

Luke and his two friends came a little later and Luke cooked sausage and asparagus and string beans and we talked drank red wine and ate cheese until 10:30.

It was a lovely evening of conversation and a pleasure to meet Mike’s new companion, Joy, who was born in New York to a Sephardic mother and an Ashkenazi father, very interesting.

Bon Appetit.