May 9, 2014 Thai prix fixe dinner at the Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery

May 9, 2014 Thai prix fixe dinner at the Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery

Suzette invited me down for a massage at the Garden Gate Day Spa and dinner at the Greenhouse Bistro because Executive Chef Derren Den-Ridder had created a special Thai menu for the month of May.

After getting straightened out and relaxed at the Garden Gate Day Spa I walked across the parking lot to the Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery for dinner at 6:00.   Both are located at the Center for Ageless Living just south of Los Lunas at 3216 Hwy. 47 South.

When I arrived at the Bistro and looked at the prix fixe menu, I did not recognize all of the dishes but it looked great with a pleasing price of only $19.95 for the four course Thai meal.

Suzette and I each chose the Thai prix fixe dinner.

Soon we were brought a small bowl filled Tom Yum Goong; a spicy soup with a broth of lime juice and a Malay seasoning base with red chili in which were three shrimp, lots of chunks of soft tofu, wood ear threads, fresh galanga root, and slices of red onion slices.  The soup was very spicy and I coughed a couple of times from its hotness but soon my taste buds adjusted and I ate the soup to the last drop.  The spices flavoring the soup are mortared by the chef to mix their flavors and reduce them to a paste that can be cooked into the broth without losing the brightness of their flavors.

I drank lemonade and Suzette drank a beer to wash the spicy exciting food down. 

Soon after we finished the soup, we were served the most unusual dish of the night, a banana flower filled with a scoop of banana flower salad.  The salad was similar in consistency and taste to a light cole slaw with a light lime juice dressing made with a bit of water and chili instead of mayonnaise.  The salad combined julienned threads of cucumber, banana flower, daikon, carrot, red bell pepper and green onion into a crisp, light flavorful, cool salad.  I had never eaten banana flowers and I had to ask how they were prepared.  Chef Derren told me he soaks the sliced inner leaves of the banana flower in lime juice in order to soften them and remove their alum flavor before making the salad.  I loved the salad, especially since I had never eaten a banana flower.   There were several other couples in the restaurant who were eating the Thai dinner and they were also amazed at the bright flavors and interesting textures of every dish.

Banana  Flower Salad

Our entrée was chicken served in a green curry sauce with vegetables.  The chef had cooked coconut milk and green curry paste until it thickened to a creamy texture.  As the sauce thickened, for the last few minutes he added boiled chunks of potato and julienned strips of icheban eggplant and red onion.  The combination of chunks of chicken and potato stewed in the sauce with the red onion and eggplant strips was delicious beyond description.  I have never had such a wonderful green chicken curry. 

The dish was even more interesting because, instead of rice, the curry was served next to a pile of crunchy deep fried cellophane noodles.  The juxtaposition of the crunchy noodles with the thick spicy creamy chicken curry was amazing.  We had forgotten how hot everything was and ate every bite of the curry, although I kept drinking lemonade and Suzette ordered a second beer to wash everything down. 

Finally, dessert was served and we had another surprise.  Three surprises in one night, what a meal.

The dessert was Sweet Coconut/Mango Rice;  a large scoop of cooked sweet rice with an alluring flavor served with slices of green mango and garnished with a coconut milk, lime and palm sugar cream.   Again I had to ask the chef how he made the dish.  He said that he soaks two parts liquid to one part Japanese sweet rice for ½ hour.  The liquid contains star anise, coconut milk and some palm sugar.  Then the rice is boiled at a very low heat with the lid ajar stirring regularly.  As the rice coagulates, the heat is turned down and when the liquid is almost evaporated, the lid is slid onto the pan and the rice is allowed to sit for one hour so the rice will absorb the remaining liquid and become sticky. The chef uses slightly green mangoes because their acidic slightly sour taste contrasts nicely with the slightly sweet rice and sauce.  The sauce is simply coconut milk, palm sugar and lime juice cooked until it thickens.   The sticky rice dessert was another beautiful and delicious dish.

I know of no better Thai prix fixe menu for $19.95.  Chef Derren has convinced me that great thing are yet to come from his kitchen at the Bistro.

The Bistro is featuring a special regional cuisine each month with a fixe prix menu. June is Moroccan Cuisine, July is Spanish, August is the Art of Food (for Restaurant Month) and September is Chinese Cuisine.

Chef Derren grew up in Australia near Perth and has lived and cooked all over the Pacific Basin before moving to the U.S., so he is very familiar with what we view as the exotic foods of the Far East.

If you want to eat some really delicious an authentic Thai food you should rush to the Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery as soon as possible to try the fixe prix menu for $19.95.   

It seems to me that Chef Derren actually tailors his exotic dishes to the tastes of American and New Mexican tastes.  Dishes are selected that appeal to American tastes and although spicy, the heat is not so over powering that you can not taste all the flavor components in the dish.  If you want your dish spicier, ask for the small bowl of chopped Thai bird chiles and toss some on your dish.  I found the dishes hot but not too hot to enjoy.

chopped Thai bird chilis

Bon Appétit

P.S.   Be sure to save the date June 21, 2014 because you will want to go to this year’s annual Field to table feast at the Center for Ageless Living that features all local ingredients and wines,   This year’s special ingredient is thyme and the theme of the meal is Thyme to Celebrate.  If you have never eaten an entirely local gourmet meal, you owe it to yourself to attend this year’s meal on the summer solstice for a special meal to celebrate a special evening and the event is for a good cause.  The Center’s non-profit foundation, SC, Inc., that will hopefully raise enough money to build a greenhouse at the Center to grow vegetables and herbs year round to deliver fresh vegetables to the home bound elderly citizens of Valencia County.

                

May 8, 2014 PPI Vichyssoise and Boiled shrimp

May 8, 2014 PPI Vichyssoise and Boiled shrimp

Today I went to Pro’s Ranch Market to buy vegetables and fruits.  After buying some limes and onions, I noticed that there was a special on large 26 to 30 count heads off shrimp for $8.99/lb. so I bought a pound, because Suzette loves shrimp.  I went back to the other end of the market and bought a 40 count bag of fresh corn tortillas for $1.79 and shredded cheese for enchiladas and went home and made a shrimp quesadilla for lunch.  I sautéed slices of tomato, onion and three shrimp sliced in half.  Then I heated four of the still warm tortillas and sandwiched the ingredients and slices of Dubliner cheddar cheese between each set of tortillas and pan heated them until golden brown and the ingredients were melted.

When Suzette arrived around 6:00 she was up for anything with shrimp.  I had planned to make shrimp enchiladas but we decided to make a simpler dinner of a bowl of the PPI vichyssoises in our fridge and boiled shrimp.  Actually we have been eating vichyssoises for the last few days with salad and other companion dishes. 

We heated a pot of water and added a couple of bay leaves and a thick slice of onion and a squeeze of lemon and boiled the shrimp.  Suzette made a cocktail sauce using ketchup, Long’s fresh horseradish and lemon.  I filled soup bowls with the vichyssoises and went to the garden and picked five or six stalks of chives and sliced them in thin ringlets to garnish the soup. 

We opened a bottle of 2009 Wellington Roussanne white wine.  The wine did not go particularly well with the rich soup and shrimp.  The delicate Roussanne needed to be drunk with a light cream sauce dish, such as crab Newburg.

After dinner Suzette made several pieces of toast and we ate smeared creamy Delice cheese on bread.

Bon Appétit

May 4, 2014 New Recipes: Crab Louie stuffed avocado salads with minted potato salad

May 4, 2014 New Recipes: Crab Louie stuffed avocado salads with minted potato salad 

We woke up feeling better as the stomach bug that has bedeviled us for the last few days subsided and began thinking about a more interesting menu.  My original idea was something really bland like a crab omelet, but when we went to our garden this morning and Suzette saw all the mint growing she mentioned that since the Kentucky Derby was yesterday, we should  make mint juleps.  So we decided to make mint juleps, which meant that we needed to go to Costco to buy a new bottle of bourbon.  

When we uncovered our raised bed that we had planted before we went to Europe we saw beautiful Mbuna and red giant radish leaves (two oriental greens) and decided to make a crab salad instead of an omelet. 

When we returned to the house and examined the avocados I had bought the other day at Pro’s Ranch Market (4 for $.99), Suzette suggested that we make avocados stuffed with crab meat.  Since we had PPI cocktail sauce from our fresh oyster dinner last week, I suggested that we use that dress the crab meat and stuff the avocados with Crab Louie,  

For the potato salad, I had bought a 10 lb. bag of potatoes for $1.49 at Pro’s Ranch Market last Wednesday when I bought the oysters and avocados.  Suzette suggested that we make a light, cool meal by making potato salad with fresh celery and mint from our garden.

This is the mental process that led to the menu for tonight’s menu.

 

After we uncovered the raised bed with the greens and radishes and turnips and beets, we cleared that bed and the old garden of weeds a bit and filled the bird bath, adjusted and replaced several non-functioning sprinkler heads in the garden, uncovered and washed down the chairs and tables from their winter hibernation and arranged the tables and furniture in our back yard and the garden to make them ready for a dinner party. 

Suzette took a shower, while I peeled, rough cut and boiled six potatoes and three eggs for the potato salad.  When the potatoes and eggs were cooked, Suzette peeled the eggs and put them and the potatoes into a bowl in the fridge and I fetched a bottle of champagne and a bottle of 2012 Le Pont Bandol rosé from the basement and put them into the fridge.

We drove to Home Depot for additional garden sprinkler supplies and Costco around 1:30.  Costco was packed.  It seems like lots of out of town folks come to Costco on the weekends, but since we were hungry and needed to replenish our liquor, we grabbed a cold drink and a basket and wound our way through the crowd of busy shoppers.  We went to the liquor department first and selected 1.75 liter bottles of each of bourbon, dark rum, and gin, a bottle of Mac Murray Ranch Pinot Gris, and a case of Modelo beers with 12 bottles each of Negra and Especial.  Then we foraged the food sample stands.  We liked the chicken tamales the best, but also tried beef and bean burritos, and pulled beef on tortillas.  After satisfying our hunger, we picked up lamb chops, a bag of lemons, a container of fresh blueberries, a container of Fage Greek style yogurt, a carton of eggs, pretzels, coffee, and several other items. 

At 4:30 after a short nap, we went to the kitchen to start dinner.

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Potato Salad

We decided to make the potato salad first.  Suzette handed me three stalks of celery and one-half of a white onion that I finely chopped and Suzette went to the garden and plucked the leafy heads of several stalks of celery.  She then took the chopped onion and celery and placed them in the Cuisinart bowl with 1 ½ cups each of loose mint leaves and the fresh celery head leaves and blended them with 2/3 cup of mayonnaise and 1 Tbsp. of lemon juice and a dash of white pepper into the dressing, while I cut the eggs into small squares with a egg slicer.  We then dressed the potato salad by folding the dressing into the eggs and potatoes.

Crab Louie

I opened a 16 oz. can of Harbor Seafood crabmeat (which looked like mostly claw meat) we had bought at Sprouts Farmer’s market and put it in a bowel.  Then I added about ½ cup of mayonnaise to the approximately ¾ cup of PPI cocktail sauce (ketchup, Long’s horseradish and lemon) and added a little lemon juice, ketchup and a Tbsp. of capers to it bring it to the right taste.  I then added the Louie sauce to the crab and stirred it until it was mixed in but the crab meat was still intact.  Then we covered the crab meat with the Louie sauce with saran and put it in the fridge to chill.

  

At around 6:00 Cynthia and Ricardo arrived, bringing a bottle of bourbon.  When it became obvious that neither Suzette or I knew how to make a proper mint julep, Ricardo started making the mint juleps.  He crushed the mint in a mortar and pestle with crushed ice and the bourbon.  Then he added that to the glasses with some of the simple syrup we had made that morning and more crushed ice and topped the drink off with a sprinkle of powdered sugar.  We all grabbed our glasses and went for a tour of the garden (Cynthia, who is a landscape architect, had helped us design the raised bed area) and sat outside in the new gazebo area and talked until Amy, my ex-wife, arrived at around 6:45.

When Amy arrived we plated up the salads.  I sliced avocados into halves and put two halves on each plate.  We filled the avocados with the crab Louie and I freshened up the PPI lemon and olive oil dressing, sitting on the counter top and lightly drizzled the salads with dressing.  Then we put a scoop of potato salad on each plate and I garnished each plate with two caper berries.

Garden with gazebo on left in back

Crab Louie and potato salads

    

I toasted slices of whole grain bread from Costco and took the bread to the table and we sat in the garden and ate our dinners.  The Bandol had an exquisitely light taste and a golden peach color in the setting sunlight, which went well with the crab Louie. Actually, the slightly pasty texture of the prepared mayonnaise in the crab Louie actually overpowered the refined elegance of the Bandol a bit, but alas, we had chosen not to make our own mayonnaise.

After dinner Suzette and I decided to open the Fage Greek style yogurt and we placed a dollop of yogurt into small bowls with fresh blueberries we had bought at Costco.  In France yogurt is referred to as “white cheese”.  

I had decided to celebrate this first evening dinner party since our return from vacation with a sip of good port, so I opened a Fonseca 2005 Late Bottled Vintage Port (Costco $20.00 in 2013).  A one day tour to the port growing area in Portugal does not make me an expert on port, but based on what we were told at Quinta de Tedo in the Duoro River Valley, I think i can explain the production of late bottled port. All port starts from the common crush of all the grapes within the vineyard’s growing area that are fermented and placed in large 1500 liter wooden oak barrels to age.  Some of the wine is placed in smaller approximately 300 liter wooden oak barrels.  The port in the smaller barrels is the tawny, because it takes on a lighter, more brown color and a nutty more caramelized taste.  Tawny can be aged in the smaller barrels for long periods of time.  We drank a forty year old tawny.  The remaining port in the big barrels is ruby port.  After two or three years, if a vintage is deemed to be exceptional, it is awarded a designation of “vintage”.  Some of the ruby is then bottled as vintage port and allowed to age in bottles as vintage port.  The rest of the ruby port is either sold as ruby or after several more years of aging in the large tank may be bottled as “late bottled vintage” port.  Since I bought my late bottled vintage port in 2013, it is impossible to know when it was bottled, but we were told that it is usually sold within a year after it is bottled.   Although the label said unfiltered, I never say any sediment in the bottle, so it must have been carefully bottled to avoid any sediments.  We loved the port and several of us sipped several glasses.

At around 9:30 we all said goodnight after a lovely dinner party in the garden.      

Bon Appétit

May 6, 2014 Lunch Pasqual’s Dinner Grilled Halibut and Couscous with chopped kale and tomato

May 6, 2014 Lunch  Pasqual’s    Dinner Grilled Halibut and Couscous with chopped kale and tomato

We went to Santa fore for a mediation and got a lunch break at 11:L40.  Sally wanted green chili so we walked one block from the Court of Appeals to Pasqual’s.  It has been forty years since I ate at Pasqual’s and then it was actually named the Golden Temple and run by Sikhs.  So I did not know what to expect, although I knew it had a national reputation.  Seeing two James Beard awards as we entered the restaurant helped reassure me that we were in the right place for a good meal.   I was not familiar with the menu so I ordered Mexican food, the Primo Plate with a Chili relleno and a chicken tamal with red sauce.  Both were really good.  The relleno was battered with Pasqual’s omelet batter that was really light, not like the heavy cornmeal coating at  La Salita.  The tamal was full of chicken and had lots of tasty masa coating it and the red chili sauce on it was excellent.  The two items were served with refried black beans that were delicious, cilantro rice and a jicama and orange and chili salad (light spicy and fruity, all at once).  My dish was $16.00 but I would probably try Pasqual’s again sometime. Sally and Bill both ordered sandwiches, which they liked that were served with chopped kale salads.

Sally's chicken breast sandwich

 

The Primo Plate with tamal and Relleno

Bill's BLT Sandwich

Shredded kale salad

I rode and came home about 6:00. Suzette was at home and we knew we needed to eat the fresh halibut steak I had bought at Talin yesterday, but we had to discuss what to cook with it as a vegetable.    We finally decided to make couscous with kale and chopped tomato.

 

Suzette made a compound butter with chives and butter and stuffed the stomach cavity with the butter, while I went to the garden and picked a basket full of two kinds of kale.  I chopped up the kale and one Roma tomato and put them in a sauce pan with water to boil and soften.  After a few minutes of boiling I added a cup of couscous to the pot and cooked it covered for about fifteen minutes while Suzette grilled the halibut on a bed of lemon slices.  A hint to how to simplify cooking dinner is to cook one dish instead of two dishes. For example, if you mix vegetables and a starch in one dish as we did tonight you cut down a lot of cooking time.
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I fetched a bottle of Leese and Fitch Sauvignon Blanc ($7.99 at Jubilation) from the basement and we were ready to eat when Suzette took the halibut off the grill.  We sat on the back patio under the awning with its superb view of the raised bed garden and confirmed how much we loved living, cooking and dining with each other and discussed lots of other things like how to get the best seafood in Albuquerque (it is not easy.). 

After dinner Suzette wanted some cheese and bread with some red wine.  I fetched the new wedge of Delicata cheese I bought at Costco last week and toasted three small pieces of bread.  Instead of going to the basement for a red wine I suggested we open a bottle of port because it might go better with the sharply acidic Delicata.  We had a bottle of Mogrado ruby port (Trader Joe’s $6.99) next to the kitchen and we poured glasses of it.  In fact, the cheese and the port were so delicious together that we sipped almost one-half bottle and reminisced about our recent trip to Portugal and the types of port we drank there.

Finally at around 9:00 p.m. we went inside the house.

Bon Appétit           

May 3, 2014 Beef noodle soup and photos of garden

May 3, 2014 Beef noodle soup and Garden photos

This morning we went to the Farmer’s Market at around 8:45, which this week was located in the parking lot behind Java Joe’s because the City still has the park at 8^th and Central fenced off to grow grass for the summer.  A lovely new addition to the new location is a crepe making stand erected by Java Joe's, next to their restaurant beside the parking lot where they were making fresh buckwheat crepes,  I felt like I was at a Farmer's Market in Brittany, France.

Suzette gave out cards announcing her Summer Solstice Local organic food meal which is set for June 21^st this year.   I bought a 12 oz. bottle of honey produced in the south valley in the shape of a bear with a squeeze top for $6.00.  I also bought an almond croissant from my favorite French baker for $3.50.  Suzette dropped me off at home and I ate ½ of the croissant with a couple of cups of tea with milk and sugar.   I could only eat ½ of the rich buttery croissant before I began to feel poorly, so I lay down and read the new New Yorker for a couple of hours and then I rode to Rio Bravo and back and showered.  At around 2:30 I became hungry and decided the best way to readjust my gut to New Mexico was to eat some fresh vegetables from our garden.   The garden is beautiful and voluntarily productive this year.  Here are some pictures.

I decided to make a noodle soup using all fresh ingredients from our garden.  I picked a stalk of lovage, five stalks of celery, a yellow onion, two carrots, a basket full of chard and a garlic plant.  I chopped up the garlic, onion, celery and carrots and sautéed that mirapoix in butter and olive oil.  Then I added  water to the pot and a beef bouillon cube.   After another twenty minutes I added some slices of rib eye beef steak and about five baby portabella mushrooms sliced.  Still later I added the noodles (a bunch of rice sticks, a bundle of mung bean noodles and a round of vegetarian wheat noodles and finally I added the chard and lovage and cooked that for another twenty minutes. 

The soup's flavor could have been greatly enhanced with some brown miso and tofu, but I ate a quick bowl of soup, while watching California Crimson comfortably win the Kentucky Derby and ran to the Bike Coop to fetch my tandem by 5:00.  Greg did such a good job working on my old Andy Gilmour tandem that I stayed for an hour and watched him, mesmerized, as he worked through the issues needed to be addressed: tightening the front stem, hammering the outer sprocket to straighten it, greasing the chain, adjusting the gear shift settings, examining the sprockets and chain for wear, tightening the 48 spokes on the rear rim and the gear box closure that holds the ball bearings for the cranks for the peddles, and re-taping the handle bars. 

Bikes are like cars, the more you do the better they perform.

When I got home I ate another bowl of soup and began to feel a bit better.  Suzette could not eat anything except a buttered piece of toast and commented that there must be a bug going around that has affected us (When I offered to open a bottle of red wine so we could eat some of the new wedge of delicata cheese with bread and wine, she made a very weird face and said she could only eat a piece of bread).   

I am not sure whether I should thank the bug or the need to readjust to New Mexico’s food and water or Michael Pollan’s new book Cooked, but one or all of those factors has influenced me to eat the right kind of food and it is happening.  I knew when I paid $6.00 for 12 oz. of local honey, which is delicious by the way. 

     

Suzette went to bed around 9:00 and I lay down and fell fast to sleep at 10:00.

Bon Appétit 

May 1, 2014 Teriyaki Tuna steak with stir fried chard and water chestnuts.

May 1, 2014 Teriyaki Tuna steak with stir fried chard and water chestnuts.

I went to lunch with Robert Mueller at Azuma.  We both ate Chirashi Donburi and it was delicious as usual.

I stopped at Costco after lunch and picked up two tuna steaks ($13.99/lb.), a bottle of olive oil, a bottle of MacMurray Pinot Gris ($13.99), a 3 lb. jar of chocolate covered almonds, and two loaves of whole grain bread.   I have decided to try to eat whole grain bread from now on.

When I got home I rode ten miles to Montano and then made a teriyaki sauce with sake, aji mirin, soy sauce and a teaspoon of sugar and put one of the tuna steaks into the teriyaki marinade to marinate and then turned it over after a couple of minutes. 

I then went to the garden and picked a basket full of tops from the chard that was growing in profusion.   I de-stemmed the chard leaves and fetched a small can (6 oz.) of sliced water chestnuts.  

Suzette started the grill and I started to stir fry in the wok.  I chopped about 1 Tbsp. of pickled ginger and heated some peanut oil and added ½ tsp. of garlic chili sauce.  Then I added the water chestnuts and then the chard and added about 2 Tbsp. of the marinade and covered the wok with a lid to steam the chard.  In a minute of two the chard started collapsing and Suzette brought in the tuna steak.  She cut the tuna steak in half and plated one-half on each plate and we served ourselves spoonfuls of chard.

Suzette drank a beer with her dinner and I drank cups of green tea. 

We ate chocolate covered almonds for dessert.

Bon Appétit  

April 30, 2014 Fresh oysters on the half shell and steak with mushrooms and salad

April 30, 2014 Fresh oysters on the half shell and steak with mushrooms and salad

After applying to refinance my HELOC at Wells Fargo at around 5:20 I went by Pro’s today to replenish our larder.  I bought key limes (finally they have gone down to $.79/lb.), white onions (3 lb. for $.99), small avocados (4 for $.99), ab out one-half pound of mushrooms ($3.29/lb.), Roma tomatoes (2 lb. for $.99), cilantro ($.20 per bunch).  Then I went by the fish department and saw that they had fresh oysters.  I asked the attendant how much they were and he said $7.99 per dozen.  I knew Suzette had been looking for fresh oysters during the entire trip to Europe and we never found any, except at Mitchell’s Restaurant in Clifden in Ireland, where we had one each with our seafood platter.

   

So I went through the lot of oysters with the attendant and culled the dead ones from the living and selected a dozen of the better live ones.  When the attendant handed me the bag of oysters he also handed me a free oyster shucking knife, which impressed me as being so Mexican and so wonderful.  When I got home I put them into the fridge and punched a hole in the bag.

When Suzette arrived home she was thrilled and not the least because we could make a great cocktail sauce with the fresh Long’s Horseradish we had bought at the in Lancaster Central market a few days ago.

Suzette fetched fresh lettuce from the garden and spun it in the lettuce colander, while I made a simple dressing with some white wine vinegar and lime and Grey Poupon and then some herbs of Provence and olive oil.

I fetched the catsup and Long’s and Suzette immediately started making a cocktail sauce with the catsup, horseradish and fresh lime juice.

I started shucking the oysters.  I am really rusty in my shucking skills.  Finally I got the hang of opening the oysters.  You must thrust the knife through the shell near the point in the front where the large muscle holds the shell shut and try to sever the muscle.  When you do that you can then open the shell.  Suzette put some ice cubes into a deep walled Chinese steel tray and I put the oysters on it.  After about twenty minutes I had shucked all 12 oysters.

While I was shucking the oysters Suzette sliced the mushrooms and started sautéing them in a skillet with butter and olive oil.

 

When the oysters were shucked I fetched the chilled bottle of La Granja Cava from the fridge and we went to the garden to eat our oysters.  We loved the oysters and sparkling wine.

As you probably know, the champagne growers of the Champagne region in France have taken legal action to stop the use of the word “champagne” for any sparkling wine not produced in Champagne.  I think the Champagne growers’ strategy has back fired on them in the sense that there are so many wonderful sparkling wines made using the champagne method, which now must be called classical method or traditional method, that the distinction they have forced on the world has made bubbly drinkers more aware that there are wonderful sparkling wines made all over the world and not just in Champagne.  It may still make a difference in France, but for folks in other countries a good sparkling wine is a good sparkling wine.  For example, in Albuquerque we have a wonderful sparkling wine, Gruet, that is made by a French family that also owns vineyards in France and makes champagne in Albuquerque in the way they do in France.  That is true all around the world.  I would just as soon drink Roederer’s Anderson Valley sparkling wine than their French made champagne.   In fact the same wine makers usually make both.

After the oysters were eaten and about half of the bottle of Cava drunk we decided to grill the steak.  Suzette put the steak on the heated grill and I attended to the mushrooms.  I added a clove of garlic and in about ten minutes a splash of sherry to the mushrooms when Suzette brought the steak in from the grill. 

We had a lovely meal of grilled steak garnished with sautéed mushrooms and fresh salad from our garden with glasses of Spanish La Granja Cava and agreed that it was wonderful to be back home and cooking for ourselves again.

Bon Appétit