February 8, 2025 Breakfast - Baked oatmeal with Blueberries. Lunch - Chicken and Pork Cassoulet. Dinner - Roast Duck Glazed with Apricot and Lavender jam, cranberry Sauce, sautéed Sweet Potato wedges, and creamed corn with Snow peas.

February 8, 2025 Breakfast - Baked oatmeal with Blueberries. Lunch - Chicken and Pork Cassoulet. Dinner - Roast Duck Glazed with Apricot and Lavender jam, cranberry Sauce, sautéed Sweet Potato wedges, and creamed corn with Snow peas.

This was a fun day of food. I watched Wall Street Week while Suzette made baked oatmeal with blueberries flavored with vanilla for breakfast.

I switched from green tea to Earl Grey, a black tea, drunk without milk or sugar today.

Then at noon Suzette heated the last of the confit chicken and smoked pork cassoulet. I loved the herbaceous confit chicken that had been seasoned with Herbs de Simon and rosemary that we ate with glasses of Martin Codax Albariño.

We both walked this afternoon. I am pretty sure I walked over 3000 steps but I did not have my phone on me all the time. 

At 4:30 we started cooking dinner.

Mike came over to pick up his belongings from the operation that he left in the car when I picked him up and we invited him to stay for dinner.

At 4:30 we made cranberry sauce with the leftover cranberries from Thanksgiving. We picked through them to cull the bad ones, then Suzette simmered the good ones in a pan with some water and sugar. As they were cooking I added the zest and juice of two oranges and a large handful of chopped pecans. This is my mother’s recipe, as I recall it.

In the morning I thawed a package of two cooked and cryovacced duck halves that we bought at Costco for $20.00. 

Mike and I talked while I destemmed a handful of snow peas that Suzette cut in half and Suzette sliced the kernels off two ears of corn.

Then she peeled and sliced three baked sweet potatoes and sautéed the wedges in butter and olive oil and simmered the corn kernels and snow peas in milk and butter and roasted the two duck halves in the oven for 20 minutes until their skin crisped and they were thoroughly heated and then she glazed the duck halves with homemade apricot and Lavender jam.

Suzette filled a bowl and a round mold with the cranberry sauce and served it with the duck.  When it was cooked I sliced the glazed duck and Suzette plated it with sautéed sweet potatoes and creamed corn and snow peas.

Monica and Aaron came at 6:30 with a fabulous cherry and cheese torte for dessert.

I served Le Ferme Julien Rhone rose before the meal and a 2020 La Reveur Côtes du Rhône red with the meal that was characteristically tart with acid.

Monica wanted a cheese course so I served a fresh wheel of brie, and the goat milk Gouda with crackers and glasses of Trader Joe’s 2022 Carneros Pinot Noir.

Then we opened a half bottle of 2018 Carmes de Rieussec Sauternes with the cherry and almond cream torte. They were a lovely pairing. The Sauternes was light without a lot of botrytis, so went well with the cherry and almond torte.

After that I served sips of Maison Surrenne cognac and then sips of Germain and Robin Old Havana cognac.  The Old Havana was much better than the Maison Surrenne cognac, everyone agreed. The Old Havana had more character and smoothness, and complexity to me. “It had more age”, Aaron said. 

Around 10:00 everyone said goodnight and we cleaned up a little and went to bed.

Bon Appetit