June 5, 2017 Lunch – Ichiban. Dinner – Penne with Italian Sausage and Mushroom Spaghetti Sauce

June 5, 2017 Lunch – Ichiban. Dinner – Penne with Italian Sausage and Mushroom Spaghetti Sauce

I got a call from Robert Mueller at 11:30.  I asked him if he was free for lunch and he said, “Yes,  and I am buying if you want to meet at Ichiban at Alameda and Coors.”  I of course obliged him and drove to Ichiban, which is one of my favorite sushi restaurants in Albuquerque for two reasons, they have The best green tea of any sushi restaurant and they usually put seaweed salad on the Chirashi Donburi lunch bowl.

Today was an exception but they gave us extra tuna and yellowtail, which are my favorite fish.

 

We had a lively conversation from noon until 1:30, mostly law stuff.

I then drove to the bank and home and worked until 5:00.

At 6:00 I decided to make Spaghetti sauce with mushrooms, Italian sausage, and the ripe Roma   tomatoes I bought at El Super last Wednesday.  I first peeled and minced four heads of fresh garlic from our garden that Suzette had picked yesterday (about 2 T.).  I then diced a large onion. Then fetched two additional sausages from the garage and went to the garden and picked about a dozen stalks of fresh oregano.  I gave the sausages to Suzette, who skinned and chopped the sausages and then sautéed them in a skillet.  She also sautéed the onion, garlic and some of the minced oregano in the large Le Creuset casserole with olive oil.  I then sliced about ten shiitake and four white mushrooms.  I put ½ of them in the skillet with the sausage to cook.  Suzette took over and cooked the last half of the mushrooms (about 2/3 cup) in the skillet after we put the cooked sausage and mushrooms into the casserole with the onions and garlic.  I then chopped enough oregano to yield about ½ cup total and put it into the casserole.  I then diced the Roma tomatoes and put them into the casserole.  Suzette put 4 oz. of tomato paste into the sauce and we reduced the heat under the casserole on low heat so it would simmer and integrate the ingredients.  We cooked the casserole Willy arrive around 7:30.  While the sauce was simmering Suzette brought a pot of water to a boil and  cooked a lb. of penne pasta.

  

 

I opened a bottle of 2014 DOCC Chianti Torrato from Total Wine that cost $7.99 that did not taste as good as the Aquino Reserva sold at Trader Joe’s for $5.99 because it lacked body and character.  As it opened it got smoother but did not gain any character.

Suzette added 1 tsp of salt to the sauce.

We served ourselves and I put the bottle of Chianti on the table.  There were some tough pieces of sausage due to freezer burn but I was amazed by how well it integrated into the sauce.  I liked the uneven chunky sausage flavor because it had absorbed some tomato flavor and was not foreign to the sauce and yet retained some unique texture of its own.  In fact I consider this meal a rare treat that usually only occurs at the end of summer when tomatoes vine ripen.  The Roma tomatoes I selected were all fully ripened and bursting with flavor.  This gave the simple sauce a wonderful rich and yet fresh flavor.

Bon Appetit





June 5, 2017 Lunch – Ichiban. Dinner – Penne with Italian Sausage and Mushroom Spaghetti Sauce
Today was an exception but they gave us extra tuna and yellowtail, which are my favorite fish.

We had a lively conversation from noon until 1:30, mostly law stuff.

I then drove to the bank and home and worked until 5:00.

At 6:00 I decided to make Spaghetti sauce with mushrooms, Italian sausage, and the ripe Roma tomatoes I bought at El Super last Wednesday.  I first peeled and minced four heads of fresh garlic from our garden that Suzette had picked yesterday (about 2 T.).  I then diced a large onion. Then fetched two additional sausages from the garage and went to the garden and picked about a dozen stalks of fresh oregano.  I gave the sausages to Suzette, who skinned and chopped the sausages and then sautéed them in a skillet.  She also sautéed the onion, garlic and some of the minced oregano in the large Le Creuset casserole with olive oil.  I then sliced about ten shiitake and four white mushrooms.  I put ½ of them in the skillet with the sausage to cook.  Suzette took over and cooked the last half of the mushrooms (about 2/3 cup) in the skillet after we put the cooked sausage and mushrooms into the casserole with the onions and garlic.  I then chopped enough oregano to yield about ½ cup total and put it into the casserole.  I then diced the Roma tomatoes and put them into the casserole.  Suzette put 4 oz. of tomato paste into the sauce and we reduced the heat under the casserole on low heat so it would simmer and integrate the ingredients.  We cooked the casserole Willy arrive around 7:30.  While the sauce was simmering Suzette brought a pot of water to a boil and  cooked a lb. of penne pasta.

I opened a bottle of 2014 DOCC Chianti Torrato from Total Wine that cost $7.99 that did not taste as good as the Aquino Reserva sold at Trader Joe’s for $5.99 because it lacked body and character.  As it opened it got smoother but did not gain any character.

Suzette added 1 tsp of salt to the sauce.

We served ourselves and I put the bottle of Chianti on the table.  There were some tough pieces of sausage due to freezer burn but I was amazed by how well it integrated into the sauce.  I liked the uneven chunky sausage flavor because it had absorbed some tomato flavor and was not foreign to the sauce and yet retained some unique texture of its own.  In fact I consider this meal a rare treat that usually only occurs at the end of summer when tomatoes vine ripen.  The Roma tomatoes I selected were all fully ripened and bursting with flavor.  This gave the simple sauce a wonderful rich and yet fresh flavor.

Bon Appetit

June 4, 2017 Breakfast – Lax, pimiento, cheese, and onion omelet. Lunch – Pork Stroganoff,   Dinner – Grilled Red Snapper, retried Black Beans and Mango Salsa

We worked in the garden before 7:00. At 8:00 we made a Lax, pimiento, onion, fresh feta cheese omelet with feta we bought from Old Windmill Dairy last Saturday.

At 10:30!we drove to Hime a depot so a Suzette could shop.  Then we drove to Talin, where we soy sauce, shallots, and a whole 1.85 lb. Red Snapper from Mexico.

We then went home and I chopped onion and three types of mushrooms, shitake, white beech, and  white. Suzette shaved thin slices of Mexican squash and carrot to resemble noodles.  Remember, no carbs.  Then she cubed the pork tenderloin and sautéed the onion and mushrooms and added 1 T. of tomato paste and ½ T. of minced sage from the garden and a dash of nutmeg.  Then she added the cubed pork and after it was fully sautéed, added cream and heavy cream.

I opened a bottle of La Granja Rose’ (Trader Joe’s $5.99, which is 100% Grenache) and poured us glasses.  Suzette plated the vegetable noodles and we each served ourselves Stroganoff.  We took our plates outside and ate under the gazebo.

After lunch we took naps until 4:00.  I then made a clafoutis until I realized that we had only two eggs and I needed three eggs.

Suzette said we needed Avocados and cilantro, so I drove to El Super, where I bought three mangoes for $.99, 18 eggs for $1.77, corn chips, a bunch of cilantro  for $.19, a bunch of green onions for $.25, and four avocados for $1.98.

When I returned home I completed making the clafoutis.  We baked it in a 375 degree oven for 55 minutes.  I used Rainier cherries and 1/3 cream and 2/3 milk.  By accident I let the milk come to a full boil and then let it cool in the fridge while went to El Super, which seemed to coalesce the milk curds somewhat, which gave the clafoutis a more creamy uniform consistency.

  The clafoutis and a bag of Rainier cherries

We decided to grill the whole red snapper on the grill and serve it with a mojo de Aja sauce, which is a sauce made by cooking  garlic in butter.

At 6:00 Suzette went to the garden and harvested six or seven stalks of garlic and cleaned them.  I had started making the mango salsa, by chopping more onion and two of the avocados and the three mangoes and ½ of a medium jalapeño plus the juice of 1 lime and ¼ cup of cilantro.

I then cut the heads of garlic from four of the stalks, removed the outer layers of  husk and the inner  membrane from around the individual cloves of garlic and chopped them for the sauce.

While I was preparing the mango salsa and chopping the garlic Suzette opened two cans of refried black beans and added a dried avocado leaf, several dried hoja santa leaves and a handful of fresh chopped epazote to the beans to add flavor to them.

Suzette stuffed the stomach cavity of the red snapper with lemon slices and secured it in a fish shaped grilling rack.

I minced about four T. of fresh garlic in two waves.  Suzette cooked the first wave in butter to baste the fish while grilling And I cooked the second two T. of garlic to make a pouring sauce for the fish.

I turned the TV to the NBA finals at 6:40.  When Willy arrived around 7:15 Suzette started grilling the red snapper.  The fish was almost done in 15 minutes.  I added a bit of water to the beans every 20 minutes and stirred them to keep them from scorching.  The fish flesh offered slight resistance when I tried to filet it, so we immediately covered it with aluminum foil and put the tray it was on into the still warm oven from cooking the clafoutis for a couple of minutes.  Then I filleted the fish onto the pan and Suzette plated a small pile of it onto each of three plates and added a small pile of beans garnished with flakes of requeson cheese (Mexican cottage cheese, bought at El Super).

I put the mango salsa on the table with the corn chips and Suzette toasted two flour tortillas on the outdoor grill.  Toasting the tortillas on the outside grill dried them out.  They would have been softer and more delicious if heated on the gas grill on the stove where the heat coverage would have been controlled better.  Neither Willy or I said anything negative about the tough tortilla, but Willy did not eat his and I did not eat all of mine.

The red snapper was cooked to perfection, moist in the middle and flaky at the edges.  The beans were delicious also with their hint of avocado and hoja Santa.  Willy particularly liked the mango salsa; I suspect because the sweetness of the mangoes balanced the spiciness of the jalapeño and the fresh onion, cilantro and tomato gave a fresh vegetable flavor to the salsa, so that no one ingredient dominated.  Suzette had added a bit of salt to the salsa

We watched Golden State win its second game in the finals against Cleveland. While we watched I brought the clafoutis to the table and Suzette brought bowls and spoons.  Suzette and I ate a few spoonfuls of clafoutis.  It is the best one I have made this year, perhaps because the cherries have ripened in the last two weeks and are sweeter or because the Rainier cherries are a sweeter cherry or because I used a little more sugar or because I scalded the milk until a tower of bubbles rose from the pan.  Baking is tricky.



Bon Appetit

 

June 3, 2017 Breakfast – Flying Star Lunch – shrimp Italian salad, Dinner – PPI Red cooked Chicken with fresh chard

June 3, 2017 Breakfast – Flying Star   Lunch – shrimp Italian salad,  Dinner – PPI Red cooked Chicken with fresh chard

I ate a bowl of blueberries and yogurt at 7:00 and drove to Flying Star for a meeting at 7:30 with Marty and Aaron, my Railway partners.  Aaron brought his daughter,  Cecile, and ordered her a plate of blueberry pancakes with fruit slices.  She only ever a few bites so I ate some of what she left.

At 10:30 I drove home.  By 11:30 I was hungry, so I toasted two slices of seeded rye bread and spread crema on them and then lay slices of Lax on one and pieces of Swedish sherry flavored herring (Talin, Larsen’s) on the other.

When Suzette arrived we rode to Rio Bravo and back.

When then made lunch of salad greens and the first five or six snow peas from our garden garnished with PPI Swedish Italian salad combined with chunks of the PPI shrimp we boiled on a Sunday.

We rested after lunch until 3:00 when we drove to Gruet Winery for champagne and fresh oysters to celebrate Laurent’s birthday.  We each ate a dozen oysters and drank a glass of Gruet’s Rose’ Sauvage champagne.  We enjoyed speaking to Laurent and his wife.  Laurent told me his newest project is to create a dessert wine, which will be released in the next few weeks.

                   Gruet's tasting room with a view of the racked French oak barrels filled with Pinot Noir.

It  turned out something was wrong with the Italian salad or an oyster because it upset my stomach and I got a wave of diarrhea later in the evening.

For dinner we ate PPI red cooked chicken sautéed with fresh chard I had picked in out garden, de-stemmed, sectioned and cleaned and the PPI vegetables and fried tofu from our Friday night dinner at East Ocean. I did not find the lack of rice with the dish unpleasant, even though I had the feeling that I was eating to live rather than living to eat until I realized that the opposite was true; that by losing weight and exercising I am learning to live a longer happier life, hopefully.

           The final dish with the addition of the heated and pulled   red cooked chicken

    The vegetables cooking in the wok.

We watched game three of the Stanley Cup Finals between Pittsburgh and Nashville that was played in Nashville.  Nashville played inspired hockey for its hometown fans and won 5 to 1 to bring the series to 2 games to 1 in favor of Pittsburgh.

We went to bed around 9:30.  Suzette still has her cold.

It is 4:30 on June 5, 2017 as I write this.  I awoke with a stomach ache at 4:00 a.m., probably from the cream in the clafoutis plus the added fish to my system, so I gave the enzymes in my stomach a fresh meal of yogurt and the situation seems to be settling down.

Bon Appetit

June 2, 2017 Lunch – East Ocean. Dinner – East Ocean

June 2, 2017 Lunch – East Ocean. Dinner – East Ocean

I had a telephonic hearing at 11:00 that was over about noon.

I drove to East Ocean at 12:30 and ordered Moo Goo Gai Pan without rice, which is my new favorite dish now that I have reduced my rice consumption.

I ate about half of it. Boxed the balance and drove to resume the hotel Closing.  We closed at 3:54 and then disbursed.

I arrived home tired at 4:30 and rested for a while while Suzette was working.   I Loved the vegetables in Mandarin sauce in the Moo Goo Gai Pan, so I suggested we go to East Ocean and eat Roasted Duck ($10.95 for 1/2? Duck) and Fried Tofu with Mixed Vegetables ($7.95 for a heaping platter)

I called in the order before we left home and it was served at the same time as our hot tea.  Suzette has a cold and is not as hardy a diner as usual.  We ate about ½ of the fried tofu and vegetables and a bit more of the duck.  Since I have sworn off rice, I have become more fond of East Ocean’s vegetable medley.  It includes, canned mushroom slices, fresh snow peas, canned water chestnuts, baby corn, and bamboo shoot slices, fresh celery, onion, and bok choy.  I suspect the fried tofu is purchased pre-prepared.  You can buy it pre-prepared at a Talin, if you want to make your own, but it needs to be used soon after you buy it.  I have found that it does not have a very long shelf life.   It is stir fried and sauced with a thickened chicken stock sauce.  I love the variety of the vegetables and I find the dish very satisfying without any rice.

We tried once to find the least expensive way to prepare duck.  We bought ducks and prepared them.  Suzette bought duck breasts in bulk.  We finally determined that for a quick, delicious duck dinner that the best value was to order Roast Duck at East Ocean. The texture of the meat is tender while the skin is crisp with lots of areas of Super crispy duck skin.  It is actually a tea smoked duck and is served with a light smoked tea sauce, which is probably the cooking medium.

 

East Ocean is the type of restaurant that if you asked for the traditional accompaniments to roast duck: Mandarin pancakes, hoisin sauce, and shredded scallions, I bet you could get them.

We loved dinner.  Where else can two persons eat roasted duck and fried tofu and vegetables to their fill for less than $20.00?

We boxed the uneaten duck and vegetables and tofu and went home happy.

Bon Appetit

June 1, 2017 Lunch Jimmie John’s sandwich. Dinner – Red Cooked chicken with Stir Fried Chard with piñon Nuts, raisins, Apple, and bacon

June 1, 2017 Lunch Jimmie John’s sandwich. Dinner – Red Cooked chicken with Stir Fried Chard with piñon Nuts, raisins, Apple, and bacon

I had a coffee hot chocolate for breakfast.

Today was spent closing the sale of the hotel transaction I have been working on for almost a year.  We started at 9:15 and by 3:00 it became apparent that it would not close today.  Shane ordered Jimmie John’s sandwiches on his mobile phone.  He ordered four sandwiches and only two were delivered.  The delivery person said the computer system was not working well.  Shane sent the delivery man back to replicate the order so we would have four sandwiches.  This worked out well for me because we split the sandwiches that had been delivered.  One was a sliced turkey and provolone with a bit of avocado on an Italian roll that was very pleasant.  I ate half of this one first.  Then on the second delivery I ate 2/2 of a tuna salad on nine grain whole wheat bread with a slice of provolone and sliced tomatoes.  On the second sandwich the thick homemade tasting bread was the star.  I thought the sandwiches were well made and used fresh ingredients, but it is the first bread I have eaten in several days.  Suzette and I and most of the people I know are on low carb diets.  Traditionally, I do not prosper on a low carb diet, but I am trying it.  That is why I welcomed the sandwiches at lunch.      
         

   

    

 

For dinner I cooked red cooked chicken.  This is a simple recipe from the 1000 Recipe Chinese Cookbook.  I skinned 6 chicken thighs.  Then I heated in a large Le Creuset Casserole 1 cup each of soy sauce, Amontillado sherry, and water and added 1/3 cup of brown sugar.  When that came to a boil I added the six thighs and two slices of fresh ginger and two cloves of garlic and simmered the dish for an hour, turning the chicken pieces after thirty minutes to submerge all parts of the chicken.

Stir Fried Chard with raisins, apple, piñon nuts and bacon

While the chicken was cooking I went to the garden and harvested a basket full of chard and about a dozen garlic scapes.  I de-stemmed the chard and cut the leaves into bite sized pieces and diced two scapes.

I also cored and diced a gala apple and peeled and diced 1/3 of a medium yellow onion.  I also diced about ¼ cup of bacon ends that I had bought at El Super on Wednesday.

I then sat down with a glass of cold Crayon rose’ and a Suzette took over the kitchen duties.

When the chicken was ready Suzette fetched 1/3 cup of raisins and rehydrated them in a bowl of hot water.  She then heated the wok and stir fried the bacon, onion and garlic scapes.  Then she added  the Apple and raisins and finally the chard.  At this point Willy called and Suzette told him what we were cooking and invited him over.  He said he really liked the dish with pine nuts also.

When Willy arrived Suzette plated dinner.  We drank green mint tea and Crayon rose’.
 

Red cooked Chicken is my favorite Chinese recipe for cooking chicken.

Here are the recipes.

The addition of bacon to the chard was wonderful.  It gave the dish a decidedly meat oriented flavor rather than a vegetable oriented flavor, especially since bacon grease was used as the cooking medium.  As Suzette says, “Everything tastes better with bacon.”

During and after dinner we watched the first game of the NBA playoffs.

We were rooting for The Golden State Warriors, who easily beat the Cleveland Cavaliers by twenty points after Curry’s long range shooting got on target.  It was fun to see so many talented players on the court.

This is a fun time of the sports year with both NBA and Stanley Cup finals.

Bon Appetit

May 31, 2017 Lunch – Pork Fried Rice Egg Foo Young. Dinner – Swedish Italian Salad with Artichokes

May 31, 2017 Lunch – Pork Fried Rice Egg Foo Young. Dinner – Swedish Italian Salad with Artichokes

I worked all morning on the hotel closing documents and a pleading in the water case.

At 11:30 I stopped for lunch.  I decided to make one of my favorite quick meals, Egg Foo Young.  It is simply whatever PPIs I have mixed with egg and cooked into a cake like consistency in a wok.  Today I used the PPI Fish fried rice from Sunday’s dinner and the Fried tofu and mixed vegetables from yesterday’s lunch.  I usually add fresh ingredients.  Today I cut the end off of a thawed pork tenderloin and diced it into ½ cubes and diced ½ of an onion and two mushrooms, plus 1 T. of garlic and 1 ½ T. ginger root.

I stir fried those ingredients in 1 ½ T. of peanut oil for a couple of minutes on high heat and then added about 1 ½ cups of the PPI fried rice and stirred that for a minute.  Then I added the PPI tofu and vegetables with their sauce.  I the added about ¼ cup of tamarind juice I found in the fridge and some Chinese Cooking wine and some sesame oil and stirred the mixture together.  It was rather liquid at this point.  I then made a well in the Center of the mixture and dropped two eggs into the well and began stirring them into the mixture from the center outward until the entire mixture was coated in egg.

I then cooke d the mixture and turned it occasionally until it dried out enough to brown on the parts touchin g the wok surface.  You can eat it either wet or dry.  I prefer it in between, like a French omelet.

I could not eat all of it.  Here is a picture of the dish.

Todd called and said he had a school commitment.  We decided to meet at 7:45.  So Suzette and I discussed dinner.  We immediately decided that the PPI shrimp had to be eaten.  Suzette is off carbs, so that eliminated our usual go to recipe of pasta with scampi.  We also had artichokes that needed to be eaten.  Suzette said we had a sauce already side for the artichokes, which we took out of the fridge and tasted.  It was very lemony.  Since we had a mayonnaise sauce and dill pickles and hard boiled eggs already,  I suggested that we make a Swedish Italian Salad with shrimp and artichoke hearts and eat the artichokes with it.  Suzette warmed to the idea and suggested adding the last of a bag of asparagus in the fridge instead of the apple.  I found the recipe for Italian Salad in my Swedish Cookbook.  Here is the recipe:



I chopped a cup of carrots. Suzette blanched the carrots, frozen peas, and asparagus, while I diced the pickles and expanded the sauce by adding more mayonnaise.  I the separated 1 cup of sauce from the artichoke sauce and added a tsp of Swedish mustard (sennap) and 1/3 cup of heavy cream to it to make the sauce.  I diced the asparagus and shrimp and Suzette mixed all the ingredients to make the salad.  We decided to drink the French Chardonnay fro Burgundy that Charlie had given me last Thursday.  I went to the garden and picked some dill and chopped it and added it to the artichoke sauce plus 1 tsp. of capers to differentiate the sauces a bit.

We loved the dinner.  No carbs, lots of flavors.  The combination of French Burgundy with shrimp in a mayonnaise sauce was wonderful.

Bon Appetit

May 30, 2017 Lunch – East Ocean Dinner Party at Cynthia and Ricardo’s House

   
 

This morning Ioana, Aaron, and I drove to Santa Fe for a 10:00 hearing at the Alcohol and Gaming Division for approval of the Wholesaler License for New Mexico for VinDacia.  The hearing went well.  Aaron had to return to Albuquerque, so we returned after the meeting.  I asked Ioana if she wanted to go to lunch and she said, “Yes.”  We discussed options and I suggested East Ocean.  She said she had not been there in a long time but would like to try it again.  So we drove there separately.   Ioana said she liked seafood.

I asked, “Do you like clams?”

She said, “I love clams!”

So I ordered Manila Clams in a Szechuan Sauce for $9.95 and Fried tofu with mixed vegetables from the dinner menu for $7.50.  The waitress asked if we wanted rice and said that rice was extra. Ioana said she was not eating rice, so we did not order rice.  We were served hot tea, which we both drank voraciously.  Soon the waitress brought two heaping platters to our table, one filled to overflowing with clams in Szechuan Sauce and the other filled with large flat cubes of tofu and the same multitude of vegetables that one gets with Moo Goo Gai Pan, sections of baby corn, bok choy cabbage, onion, water chestnut, bamboo shoots, fresh snow peas, and mushroom slices. In a thickened chicken broth Mandarin sauce.   I love this combination of vegetables.

Ioana loves spicy food.  She loved the Szechuan Sauce, which I found  a little too spicy for my taste today.  I ate a few clams after removing the flakes and seeds of red Szechuan pepper.  Ioana devoured the rest of the clams and even scooped up much of the remaining sauce with a spoon.  She clearly thought the Szechuan Sauce was the best part of the meal.  I enjoyed the fried tofu and vegetables and ate a lot of it, but we were unable to eat all of it and I boxed the remaining small pile. Ma, the owner and chef, came by the table while we were eating and I introduced Ioana to him.  He said he was going back to Hong Kong for a visit this year.  I had previously told Ioana that East Ocean is my favorite Chinese seafood restaurant because Ma is a real Hong Kong trained seafood chef.  She loved Lunch and said she would return.

We were invited to Cynthia and Ricardo’s house for dinner, which was lucky because I had to work until almost 6:30 reviewing closing documentation for the sale of a hotel.  I grabbed a bottle of Chateau Haut Sorillon red Bordeaux Superiore wine and Suzette took the PPI gazpacho and we drove over.  Ruth and Melissa joined us for dinner.

The menu was shrimp coctel, black bean, corn and mixed vegetable salad, Mexican rice and Grilled NY strip steaks.

We ate at the table on the patio.  It was fun listening to all of Melissa and Ruth’ stories.  We started with bowls of gazpacho.  Then Cynthia brought new bowls and the coctel was served.  The coctel was boiled shrimp and chopped avocado in a liquid made with salsa, Clamato and lime juice.  I loved it.

Then Ricardo grilled the steaks on the new grill in the outdoor kitchen area he recently completed constructing.  I took the darkest most charred steak and it was delicious, cooked to medium rare.  Melissa brought a bottle of Rose’ and a bottle of red, both from Costco and both quite good.  Ricardo had selected a bottle of Bogle Phantom, which is mostly Petit Syrah and really lovely.  I drank a glass of rose with the soup and a glass of Phantom with the steak.

Cynthia made a lovely, healthy dessert of mango ice cream with fresh fruit.  We are all on this craze to lose weight and seem to be outdoing each other to create low calorie healthy dishes.  We all agreed that Cynthia’s chard custard from a week ago was the best dish so far.

We talked and ate and drank until after 10:00.

Melissa thanked us for making her last night in Albuquerque so pleasant.  She was returning to New York the next morning.

I loved the evening.  A big steak dinner really connects me to my Texas roots.

Bon Appetit