October 18, 2024 Lunch - Enchiladas at Padilla’s Spanish Dinner Party

October 18, 2024 Lunch - Enchiladas at Padilla’s Spanish Dinner Party 

What started as a bad day turned unto a great day.

I got up at 6:45 and at 7:30 I ate a bowl of granola with milk, yogurt, and green seedless grape halves and watched the news. Remarkably for a Friday the NASDAQ was up about 100 points, although the Dow was down. This pattern persisted all of the trading day that allowed my portfolio to made a small gain of .579 %.

At 9:15 I drove to the Center for Ageless Living for a Covid 19 and flu vaccination.

Then I drove to the bank to retrieve a stock certificate from my safety deposit box, which took a while because they had difficulty opening the vault.

When I finally left the bank it was noon and I decided I wanted sashimi for lunch so I drove to Smith’s on Carlisle where I bought three salmon center cut steaks, an Aji tuna steak, four jars of discounted oysters, and 1 lb. of sea scallops plus green beans, a cucumber, shallots, and cream cheese. By the time a pushed the groceries to the car my muscles were getting sore and I needed to eat, so I changed my plan and as I approached Girard on Constitution I turned right toward Padilla’s instead of left toward home.

There was a line waiting for a table when I arrived with Diane Denish and a fellow I had met before who is affiliated with the SBIC also waiting in line.

Soon I was shown to a table and I ordered blue corn enchiladas with ground beef, double beans, onions, and red chili. I ate a few chips with salsa to tide me over while I waited and soon began to feel better.

When the enchiladas were served I was only able to eat 2/3 because there were two hot sopapillas yet to come. I ate one of the sopapillas and boxed the other sopapilla with the remaining enchiladas and beans. I paid and said goodbye to Diane. I asked Diane if she was enthusiastic about Kamala and she answered with a forceful, “We are going to win.”

We discussed the Democratic ground game in Arizona for a minute or two and then I said goodbye and left.

After I got home and put up the groceries, I worked at my desk until 4:00 and watched Ari while I sliced two onions, 5 white potatoes, and diced three tomatoes for the dinner entree. 

Dinner - we were making the entree of Galician style baked fish with potatoes, tomatoes, and sautéed onions with saffron and pimeton (Spanish smoked paprika). While I napped until 6:18, suzette blanched the potato slices, sautéed the onion and the added the saffron, pimeton, and 1 cup of water to make a sauce. She then lay the potatoes, tomato, onions in sauce and slices of cod fillets in two large French copper baking pans and baked them in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes when our guests arrived.

The Blaugrunds came at 6:30 with a bottle of Prosecco and an asparagus salad. A little later the Chews arrived with the dessert, a tiramisu cake from Whole Foods plus a bottle of Casa Rodena 1629 blend, a Pellegrino, and a bottle of Topo Chico.

We served cocktails in the living room and talked until the fish dish was ready when we moved into the dining room.

This fish dish is the most traditional and simplest fish dish we had on our trip.i can think of nothing more traditional than the combination of plentiful local ingredients; potatoes, onions, tomatoes, and fish with a little pimeton and saffron and water.

We enjoyed conversations about our trip to Spain and Suzette showed them her album of pictures from her trip to India 28 years ago. The Blaugrunds have just returned from trips to Korea and Iceland and Greenland and the Chews are going back to India at Christmas.

It is always fun to get together with these two couples.

I served Martin Codax Albariño before and with the meal and a rose Spanish cava I bought at Costco with dessert named Robert Nola to keep with the Spanish theme.

After dessert we all said goodnight and Suzette and I went to bed around 10:00.