July 9, 2024 Breakfast - Lax and Bagels. Lunch - Bahn from Vietnam 2000 Dinner - Seared Cod filet on a grilled Zucchini Mole/Romesco Sauce with Sautéed Ribbon Zucchinis

July 9, 2024 Breakfast - Lax and Bagels. Lunch - Bahn from Vietnam 2000  Dinner - Seared Cod filet on a grilled Zucchini Mole/Romesco Sauce with Sautéed Ribbon Zucchinis 

I toasted two slices of bagel, spread them with cream cheese and garnished them with chives, slices of onion and Gravad lax, and capers.

As I ate I watched the market take off again. Although the market oscillated up and down during the day my portfolio, the S and P, and the NASDAQ all ended up for another day, setting new record highs. My portfolio was up .8%, for yet another day in which I made more in the market than I did in the entire calendar year 2023 from my law practice.

I called Willy in the morning and we agreed to watch the Spain v. France semi-finals of the Euro Cup at 1:00. We decided to order noodle bowls from Vietnam 2000 and Willy was kind enough to go pick them up. He arrived with a box of patted vermicelli rice noodles topped with fried egg rolls and grilled marinated pork slices plus slices of cucumber, iceberg lettuce, and jalapeño, strips of pickled carrots and daikon, and a cup of fish sauce seasoned with chili and garlic. Willy said when he ordered they told him if he wanted egg rolls and grilled pork he needed to order Bahn, so he did.

I like Bahn a lot because you can make lettuce wraps by folding a leaf of lettuce around a slice of patted rice noodles and add either a slice of pork or a piece of egg roll dipped in fish sauce. The lettuce shields the sauce from your fingers. Without the lettuce wrapper there is no insulation of the sauced ingredients and eating can quickly become a mess. The reason I do not order it as often at restaurants is because they usually do not give me as many lettuce leaves as I need to make the fifteen to 20 wraps necessary to wrap each slice of patted rice noodle and ingredients, so it gets to be a hassle continually asking for more slices of lettuce.

But, yesterday I bought a fresh head of romaine lettuce, so I had all the lettuce I needed to wrap all the patted rice noodles and ingredients and I wrapped and ate every morsel of food and it was wonderful.

We watched Spain beat France 2 to 1. The first goal was scored by France and defeat of Spain looked inevitable, but then a 16 year old on the Spanish team named Yamal, who is destined to be the next great player of soccer., ripped a goal and a few minutes later Olmo for Spain ripped another goal, so all the goals were scored during the first 25 minutes and the rest of the 90 minutes of the game we spent watching the Spanish defend against the onslaught of French attacks.

After the match I checked my portfolio, Willy left, and I lay down and rested until 5:30.

Susette came home with two beautiful fresh zucchini she bought at the Los Lunas Farmers’ market. She had called earlier in the afternoon to ask me to thaw out the two frozen cod filets in the freezer.

Dinner - Suzette looked for a zucchini Romesco sauce she had seen on line but could not find it.

So, she used a PPI mole sauce and made a Romesco sauce and combined the two with most of the fresh zucchinis to make a zucchini/mole/Romesco sauce. She reserved and steamed strips of the yellow and green zucchini and seared the two thawed cod filets and placed each seared cod filet on a puddle of sauce with a small pile of steamed zucchini strips on the side.

This dish was as good or better in concept, execution, and presentation as any high end restaurant. This was the most impressive dish Suzette has cooked in a while, and, she has cooked many.

For example, last night’s dinner was a tour de force of cooking competency for which Suzette made a cheddar Mornay sauce, steamed broccoli and grilled a T-bone steak and potato slices and I made a sautéed mushroom sauce. But tonight was qualitatively different, tonight Suzette was not only competent; she went the next step to create and cook a dish that I have never experienced before. A dish a foodie craves is the dish they have never experienced before and tonight that occurred.

After dinner Suzette bookended the small elegant entree with a bowl of warm PPI apricot and blueberry cobbler she made with apricots from our tree last week and a heaping scoop of vanilla ice cream for a sumptuous finish to an incredible meal.

Today had everything one would wish, a positive market, a thrilling soccer match, and great food. I even rode my stationary bike and discovered that it records each stroke of my leg as a step. I hope to ride two times a day to reach a daily goal of 3,000 steps.

Bon Appetit