January 21, 2024 Lunch - East Ocean Dinner - Lamb shank Stew

January 21, 2024  Lunch - East Ocean  Dinner - Lamb shank Stew

I woke up around 7:15 and went to work by 8:00 after watching a very strong Market open but the NASDAQ and Dow soon diverged with the Dow going up 537 points and the NASDAQ falling into negative territory and then recovering to end up 126 points thanks to a downgrade of Apple that sent it down $10.00/share and ending the day down $7.34. In fact it lost its No. 1 market cap position to Nvidia that managed a $3.12 gain to keep my portfolio positive for the day in spite of the disastrous dip in Apple but with lots of help from many other stocks.

I went to lunch with Mike and his comment that struck me as very true was, “i think we are going to see a lot of volatility in the market.”

What is definitely true is that the uncertainty in the market due to Trump’s statements has given a boost to the price of gold and crypto currencies which are seen as safe havens as alternative assets.

At 10:00 I toasted two slices of bagel and spread them with cream cheese and garnished them with Gravad lax, slices of sweet onion and capers and ate them with several cups of tea.

We sent an hour trying to complete the PAN application without success. Then we prepped the Lamb shank stew. I sliced stalks of celery, three carrots, 2/3 of a sweet onion, and five cloves of garlic and put them into our crock pot, while Suzette braised the two lamb shanks and quartered some potatoes and cut a handful of rosemary from our yard and added that to the crock pot with 1 1/2 cups of Cherry Blossom California Pinot Noir, a can of diced tomatoes, and 2 cups of beef stock made with Better than Bouillon and water and added those ingredients and the braised lamb shanks and turned on the Crock pot. 

Then Mike called and we decided to meet for lunch at 1:30 at East Ocean.

When I arrived Mike was waiting. We ordered our usual, dinner portions of Kung Pao Chicken for Mike and Deep Fried Tofu with Chinese Vegetables in a mandarin sauce (cornstarch snd chicken stock). But today was different because we each ordered a cup of Egg drop soup and an egg roll, also.

I was still not hungry from the bagels and after eating a bowl of soup and an egg roll was even less hungry, so I packed most of the rice and vegetable dish in a to-go box and took it home.

We lingered and talked until after 2:00 and then I drove to Costco and filled the car with gas and then drove to El Super to shop for produce mainly, although I bought a yogurt and 1 1/2 lb. of large 16 to 20 count shrimp for $6.99/lb.

I bought brown onions, sour cream, cilantro, cucumbers, oranges, Fuji apples, two ears of corn, lemons, limes, green beans, broccoli, green onions, romaine lettuce, a bunch of radishes, 8 avocados, leeks, yellow squash, celery, and Roma tomatoes.

Suzette and I arrived home at nearly the same time around 4:30 and she helped put away the groceries.

Suzette had not eaten all day and the lamb shanks stew was ready, so at 6:00 we ate a bowl of stew with glasses of Cherry Blossom Pinot Noir.

Cherry Blossom is a very unassuming wine, very light bodied but expressing the basic character of Pinot noir, so a perfect wine for the lamb  stew.

After dinner we finished our last glass of wine with a slice of Goat milk Gouda and later a sip of cognac for Suzette and a sip Of Calvafos for me with a square of chocolate while we watched Finding your Roots and then went to bed at around 8:30 after watching some of Lawrence O’Donnell’s The Last Word.

I exceeded 3700 steps again today. Soon I shall be reaching 4000 steps I suspect.

I am feeling really good.

Bon Appetit