August 6, 2017 Lunch – Crisp bacon with a Spinach, green onion, mushroom, and cheese omelet. Dinner – Grilled Teriyaki Tuna with Steamed asparagus and snow peas on creamed cauliflower

August 6, 2017 Lunch – Crisp bacon with a Spinach, green onion, mushroom, and cheese omelet.  Dinner – Grilled Teriyaki Tuna with Steamed asparagus and snow peas on creamed cauliflower

I had some granola, yogurt, tropical fruit and milk and then after the Sunday morning news at 10:15 we rode to Rio Bravo and back.

We then worked a bit and at noon I fried four strips of thick bacon and made an omelet with two sliced mushrooms, two diced green onions, ½ cup of fresh spinach and 2 oz. of sliced Comte cheese.

Then we went to Sears where I ought underwear and tee shirts.

At 4:00 we drove to Gruet and tasted a flight of Tête-à-tête de Cuvee and then I bought a case with 3 bottles of 2012 vintage Blanc de Blanc and 4 Rose Sauvage and 5 bottles of the Rose of 100% Pinot Noir raised on the new 30 acre vineyard on the Santa Ana Pueblo.

These are my favorite Gruet wines.

We then took our wine home and Suzette went through the fridge and found some snow peas.  We decided to make whipped cauliflower and steam asparagus and the snow peas with the PPI teriyaki aji tuna.

Suzette blanched a head of cauliflower and then puréed it in the Kitchenaid with butter and half and half.

We decided to drink the PPI St. Michelle Riesling Susan had given us after her party last Sunday.

Suzette plated our plates with a pile of whipped cauliflower and then lay the steamed tuna steak on top and the asparagus on either side of the cauliflower and sprinkled snow peas over the top of the tuna.

The presentation was elegant and the simple flavors of each of the ingredients was elegant.  This was a great low calorie meal.

THE COBBLER

After dinner I peeled four peaches I had bought at Sprouts for $.99/lb. and Suzette added some blueberries I had bought at Sprouts last week for $1.98 for 18 oz. and made a cobbler with sugar, flour, and butter.  When the cobbler was baked to dark brown we ate some of it with a squirt of Reddi Whip whipped cream with a cup of tea.

Bon Appetit

August 5, 2017 Center for Ageless Living and Japanese Destination Dinner at Japanese Garden at Albuquerque Botanic Gardens

August 5, 2017 Center for Ageless Living and Japanese Destination Dinner at Japanese Garden at Albuquerque Botanic Gardens

Sometimes it is all about the food and other times it is all about the atmosphere and destination.  Think of the difference between a lobster dinner in your house and a lobster dinner on the beach in Maine.  Same food, but the different location makes the experience different.

That was particularly evident in today’s lunch and dinner.

I ate some granola, fruit salad, yogurt and milking then we rode to Rio Bravo and back.  Suzette confirmed what I am feeling and thinking; that we are getting into better shape, losing weight and feeling much better on our new regime of increased exercise and low carb and sugar diet.

After showering we drove to the Center for Ageless Living in Los Lunas and arrived at 10:15, just in time for my facial with Amy in the Spa, after which she gave me a hair cut in the salon, after which I walked to the large tent set up in the park where many of the residents were assembled around tables waiting for lunch and the musical performance on the stage in the park.  There was a smaller food tent where kitchen staff was grilling hamburgers.  So the lunch was planned to get everyone outdoors and have a picnic lunch in the park and enjoy a musical concert.  This is a example of how changing the destination and atmosphere changes the dining experience.

I asked Suzette if she needed any help and she said, “Everything is under control.”  So I walked to the restaurant to order lunch because Suzette had described some of the new menu offerings and I wanted
to try several.  One of my favorite menu items in the past has been Ann Sedler’s cold Cucumber


Soup, which is now back on the menu for Summer.

The bowl of cucumber soup was just as I had hoped; cold, a loose soup of puréed cucumber in a picante sour milk base infused with garlic.

Then  I ordered the new salad, a Shrimp Cobb Salad.  I am fond of Cobb Salad and the addition of shrimp was enticing.  I was very pleased with the Shrimp Cobb Salad that was served on a plate on organic greens with areas filled with different ingredients, such as diced tomatoes, crisp crumbled bacon, chopped hard boiled egg, and bay shrimp sautéed in a Cajun spices.  When asked what type of dressing I wanted I said blue cheese and the salad was served with a ramekin of creamy blue cheese dressing and a slice of fresh baked French bread that had been buttered and toasted. I drank lemonade.

The waitress opened the sliding door beside my table so we could hear the music from the stage. I finished my lunch soon after the music started.  The concert featured a man plying a guitar and a lady playing an accordion singing Gram Parsons and Amy Lou Harris laconic country folk ballads in lilting voices for which she is so famous.  They did a good job of covering the songs. It was a sunny warm day, so I sat in a chair in the shade of a tree behind the tent.  Suzette and one of the resident came over and sat beside me.  Suzette had a plate with a deconstructed hamburger with a grilled

hamburger patty and slices of lettuce and tomato, but no bun, staying true to her commitment to our
low carb diet.

As soon as she finished she said, “Let’s go.”  And we drove home.  I rested for thirty minutes until 2:00, when Suzette awakened me with the command, “it it time to go to the Antiques and Art show
The Antiques and Art Show is an annual event located at the Manuel Lujan Building on the State Fair
grounds.  Several private dealers who we have bought art from lately, namely, David McCullough and a Steve Saylor had arranged with Suzette to bring Anne Keener paintings for her to look at buying.  We drove to the fairgrounds at 2:30 and soon found David McCullough and Steve’s booths and looked at David’s Keener watercolors and a nice Gauche of the Canoncito church of Steve’s but
Suzette and I decided not to buy any of them.  Then we decided to walk around and look at all the
other booths.  There was an amazing array of highly collectible items, mostly Indian and Western frontier items, like saddle blankets, baby pack boards, turquoise jewelry, and lots of different types of art.  

I finally saw a Sheldon Parsons painting in the Manitou Gallery that I was attracted to.  We started looking at the other pieces and there was a Nordfeldt pastel for $1,500 and a nice Haddock watercolor for $900.00.  The Parsons was priced at $7,500.  The dealer, Mr. Nelson knew what the pieces were worth and we negotiated.  He candidly told me he had $4,300 in the Parsons and we discussed the wholesale prices of the Nordfeldt and the Haddock.  Finally Mr. Nelson told me to pick a price I would pay and I said I would pay $6,000 for all three and he figured in his head for a second and said, “Yes?"

We had to go home for a check and returned to pick up our pieces, which we did at 4:00.  The show was due to close at 5:00.  When I gave Mr. Nelson my business card and the check, he said, “I am a recovering Attorney.” So,  we talked lawyer stories for a few minutes and then I bought a black melon bowl but Angela Baca from Santa Clara Pueblo.  After he wrapped and bagged it, we walked out together and he helped me carry the pictures and pot to Suzette’s waiting car curbside in front of the entrance a few minutes before 5:00.

We drove home unloaded our paintings, changed our clothes and dressed for dinner and left for the Botanic Gardens at 5:30.

When we arrived a bit before 6:00 at the front of the Botanic Gardens and Aquarium.  After we waited a few minutes we were directed to the overflow parking lot beside the Heritage Garden, so we returned to our car and drove through several parking areas on the BioPark’s elaborate internal drives until we came to the parking lot.  The gate was closed so I left Suzette and walked to the Japanese Garden door, which was closed, where a few people were waiting, and told the security guard and a garden employee of the need to open the gate.  Then everything seemed to go into slow motion.  It seemed as if it took ½ hour for an employee to arrive with a key to open the gate.  Then I walked with
Suzette and Dale Alverson and Jennifer Bean back to the Japanese Garden gate and waited with the
crowd a while longer.  Finally the gate was opened.  As the crowd surged through the gate we were confronted by two large displays of food and beside it a bar serving wine, beer, and mixed drinks.  One was a long table with a large wok in the center and four large bowls on either side filled with food on skewers, including chunks of spicy eggplant, a ground chicken kebab, and a beef liver kebab.  Then we saw a large three tiered table laden with slices of aji tuna and salmon sashimi and piles of pickled ginger, green, red, and black flying fish eggs and wasabi.  The only problem was there were no eating utensils or plates.  There were some cocktail sized napkins that everyone used as plates, so soon everyone was holding handfuls of assorted items and eating them with their fingers.  We stopped at the bar and bought two Dos Equis and then took skewers of eggplant, beef liver, and chicken and found a rock near the lovely lake to lean on and place our beer while we ate the food with our fingers.  We met a pleasant couple who worked for the federal government who were our age and dealing with some of the same health issues.  The husband told me about losing 80 lb. on his
triple play diet of no fat, no sugar and no carbs.  We shared the same rock that was strategically located beside the large sashimi display and talked and ate for what seemed like ½ hour.  Finally a
line formed and seemed to begin moving along the path around the lake toward the dining area set up on a patio on the other side of the lake from the gate and the food tables we were at, so we got in the line.  As the line slowly moved forward we saw that its slow movement was due to people filling bowls with something.  As we neared the dining area we saw that there was another long table filled with platters and bowls of cubed tofu, raw ribeye steak slices, diced green onion, shredded carrots,
shredded daikon, fresh enoki mushrooms, a nearly empty tray of what may have been roasted burdock or mushrooms, and a large pot of broth at the end of the table. I immediately realized this
was a make it yourself Shabu Shabu table and grabbed two bowls, handed one to Suzette, and started filling my bowl with the ingredients.  As I filled the bowl a wait staff person brought a large cauldron of broth, but when we dipped the ladle provided into the broth I found it to be luke warm.


Dale Alverson came to us as we were gathering our soup ingredients to tell us they had reserved two seats for us at a round table beside the stage that was beside the lake on which another bar was
located.

We took our bowls of soup to the table and sat with Dale and Jennifer and met the other table mates, Bob, Jeremy, and Ryan.  Soon the empty seat next to me was filled by a Hawaiian young lady named Kanomi, who is an analyst for Isleta Casino.  Bob is controller for Lovelace.  So our eight table mates included four interesting young people with good jobs.  Soon the delay was explained by one of the organizers who made an announcement from the stage, “The delay is due to a breakdown in the oven in the on site kitchen for which we apologize.  The Mayor has aided in getting the oven repaired and in light of the delay has made this an open bar event, so enjoy.”

We were next to the stage, so several of us jumped up onto the stage and fetched drinks.  Each place was set with a small plate on which was a pile of thin cold wheat noodles studded with flying fish eggs and a small pile of shrimp plus a side bowl of seaweed salad, as our appetizer and salad.  There were also two bottles of a sweet peach sake and two bottles of water on the table.  We enjoyed talking
and drinking with our new found friends.  Soon the M.C. returned to the stage and asked those who had been to prior Destination Dinners to identify themselves.  There apparently have been six or seven such dinners and I realized the dinner was organized by the City to introduce folks to different City amenities.  The M.C. said the next meal will include petting the baby giraffe, so I assume it will be at the Zoo.  We loved the food and the concept of creating a menu of Japanese food served in the Japanese Garden.  The only problem with the concept was its lack of organization.  For example, about ten or fifteen minutes after the gates opened someone brought more napkins and after another ten minutes someone brought lovely bamboo plates to the sashimi table, after most of the sashimi had been eaten on cocktail napkins.  Likewise, several items at the Shabu Shabu table were not
replenished when we arrived, even though fresh broth did arrive.  The deficiencies in food service were made up for by free drinks and rather diligent table service after we were seated.  For example it appeared that Kanomi did not have a seaweed salad, so we asked and were brought a seaweed salad quickly.


After a few more minutes the wait staff removed the flower centerpiece arrangements and began bringing out wooden platters each of which was filled with two roasted whole sea bass plus a pile of sautéed or grilled shishito peppers.  One platter was placed in the middle of each round table.  I took the initiative of filleting and serving the fish and peppers.  I did one fish and after a few minutes I served the second fish which was better cooked because it was more moist and tender.  Everyone had enough fish and there was still about ¼ of the second fish left.

       

                   The Shabu Shabu ingredients

              The platter of fish and shishito peppers

As the sky darkened Jeremy, I believe, turning on the light app on his I Phone and placing one of the green glass water bottles on the light to illuminate the bottle and table.  Then he balanced one of the paper fans on two illuminated bottles to make a lamp.  Suzette followed suit on our side of the table with the white frosted glass sake bottle and other water bottle.  We soon were sitting in the warm glow of light while most other tables were sitting in darkness.

After dinner and another round of drinks, dessert was served.  It was a plate with a small bowl filled with cubes of mocha coffee flavored jello garnished with a squirt of whipped cream and three slices of mochi on a bed of lychee compote.  Kanomi explained that mochi is any type of baked pounded rice flour cake that in Hawaii it is often filled with a sweet bean paste or fruit stuffing.  Here is the Wikipedia definition:  Mochi (Japanese: 餅, もち) is Japanese rice cake made of mochigome, a short-grain japonica glutinous rice. The rice is pounded into paste and molded into the desired shape. In Japan it is traditionally made in a ceremony called mochitsuki.

We lingered over our desert and another round of drinks.  Each place was set with a small sake cup.  After dinner  Kanomi and I poured cups of the sweet peach sake that was the perfect after dinner drink, fruity, slightly sweet, and very refreshing, while the others drank more American drinks. Suzette drank a Jameson Irish whiskey and Jennifer drank a Crown Royal Canadian whiskey, for example. I also drank a gin and tonic to help digest dinner.

Finally, at 9:30 we left the dining area as the tables were beginning to be cleared and were escorted back through the garden to the parking lot.

What a full day of fun and food diversions.

Bon Appetit

 

August 4, 2017 Lunch – Sushi Hana. Dinner –New Recipe Squash, meat, and mushroom Lasagna

August 4, 2017 Lunch – Sushi Hana. Dinner –New Recipe  Squash, meat, and mushroom Lasagna

I went to lunch with a Bill Turner at Sushi Hana at 521 Central NW.

We both ordered bento boxes.  Bill ordered Shrimp Yakisoba for $11.95 and I ordered grilled eel for $13.95.  Besides the entrée each the compartments in the bento box are filled with an egg roll, tempura, four pieces of nori sushi roll and a piece of watermelon.  I asked that salad be substituted for the usual rice that gave me a double helping of salad a bowl with salad served with the Miso soup before the meal and the large rice section in the bento box filled with salad instead of white rice), which was great because I loved the crisp romaine lettuce dressed with a sweet ginger dressing.

The grilled eel was interesting also; dark tender meat tasting of both land and sea.
Today the tempura fried shrimp really captured my attention also.  The combination of grease, crisp, fried tempura batter, and white fluffy shrimp when dipped into the teriyaki sauce that metamorphosed their individual characteristics and flavors into a unified new food experience, like a good corny dog dipped into the mixture of mustard and catsup.

After lunch Bill and I talked about history, books, his family, and water law for another one and one-half hours in his office.  I treasure my lunches and discussions with Bill.

Suzette had agreed that we would use the meat and mushroom spaghetti sauce to make a lasagna utilizing fresh squash from our garden instead of pasta.

So at 4:00 I drove slowly to El Super through the congested construction zone on Central at the river
crossing.  I knew what I needed and quickly found spinach for $.79 per bunch, requeson (Mexican ricotta style cheese) for $2.59 per lb., shredded Monterrey jack cheese for $3.29 per lb. and two ½ lb. containers of nice white mushrooms for $1.29 each.  I also bought about ¾ lb. of bacon trimmings for $2.29 per lb., two 30 oz. cans of black beans on sale for $1.50 and a small ½ oz. bag of dried bay laurel leaves for $1.29 that smelled wonderful, to replenish our larder.

I finally lay down for ½ hour and watched the business news at 5:00 when I returned home and unloaded the items until 5:30. Although my hip pain is almost gone I find it helpful to take weight off my hip when possible. After the business news at 5:30  I fetched the spaghetti sauce from the garage fridge and brought the approximately ½ gallon of sauce to a simmer by adding about two cups of water to it and heating the pot of sauce at medium heat on the stove to cook the tomatoes a bit more and emulsify the sauce a bit and add some moisture to the lasagna.

Suzette arrived just after I began stirring the pot of sauce a bit after 5:30 with three medium sized yellow squashes and a handful of baby yellow squashes from her Center for Ageless Living organic garden in Los Lunas and I got up and arranged the food and baking dish for the lasagna.  We decided to go to the garden to harvest several of our squashes.  As we walked out to the garden Suzette suggested that we add a layer of fresh basil to the lasagna, so we picked the tops off the two basil plants plus several of the large leaves that hang down.

When we returned to the kitchen, I sliced the larger of the two squashes from our garden into rounds.  The center of the squash contained soft pulp and seeds, so I removed the central core of pulp, which left a 1 inch thick side wall of dense squash with a rather tough shiny mottled skin that I cut into thin
round slices about three inches in diameters diameter 1/16 inch thick.  The long straight yellow squashes were much softer, so I used our Swiss cheese slicer to slice them into long thin 1 inch wide
1/16 inch thick slices.  I then fetched the two cheeses and sliced about ¼ lb. of mushrooms as Suzette began to assemble the dish in alternating layers of squash, meat sauce, and cheese, with a layer each
of mushrooms, spinach, and basil.

Soon we slid the over full baking dish onto a baking sheet and into a pre-heated 375 degree oven and

baked it for about 45 minutes, tested the middle and put it back in to bake for an additional 15 minute for a total of  one hour.  There were several basil leaves left, so I sliced them into thin slices to garnish the dish.

I went to the basement and fetched a bottle of 2013 Aquino Chianti Riserva ($5.99 at Trader Joe’s)
and then watched Brooks and Shields, my favorite news commenters on PBS while Suzette finished the cooking and opening the wine.

At 7:00 we were ready to eat our new creation.  It was a little runny at first but became firmer as it cooled.  Suzette cut squares of the lasagna and then we used a spoon to capture some of the sauce created by the combining of the liquid juices released by the squash, the cheese, and the meat sauce.

The two types of squashes we used in this dish

     

         The meat sauce with the sliced basil leaves and the requeson on the right side of it.

This is the first time we have made this type of dish.  Next time I might not add as much water to the spaghetti sauce, although we both loved the rich brothy sauce.

I ate three helpings and we drank the entire bottle of wine.  Willy and Robin arrived around 8:00 and ate several helpings and I opened a bottle of 2024 Chianti Torrado produced by  Piazzini ($7.99 at Total Wine) that I did not like as well as the smoother aged riserva.  Riserva Chianti must be aged at least 38 months. Regular Chianti can be aged as little as 3 months.  The Piazzini Chianti had a young tannic bite to it that Robin and Suzette actually liked.  I preferred the smoother softer taste of the
Aquino Riserva.  I guess aging tames and mellows the tannins.

I ate a bit of chocolate and drank a small shot of Ironworks grappa Suzette brought me from her trip to Canada last year with Melissa to settle my stomach.

Soon after Robin and Willy left around 9:20 Suzette went to bed and I talked to Mohan until 11:00 about the pending sale of the California land by our LLC to him.

Bon Appetit
 

August 3, 2017 Lunch – East Ocean. Dinner – Sautéed Teriyaki Aji Tuna with Stir Fried Spinach and Onion

August 3, 2017 Lunch – East Ocean. Dinner – Sautéed Teriyaki Aji Tuna with Stir Fried Spinach and Onion

Our diet is evolving quickly toward protein and vegetables, today was a good example.

I toasted ½ bagel for breakfast and smeared it with the last of the cream cheese and garnished it with slices of onion and Gravad Lax.  I ate ½ of the half and then we rode briskly north to Campbell Rd. and back at 7:00 because Suzette had a 9:00 meeting in Los Lunas.

I then revised the Reply for the Water case appeal to the Court of Appeals by 11:30 when I got hungry and drove to East Ocean and ate an entire plate of Moo Goo Gai Pan and Sweet and Sour Chick

I then returned home and finished the reply and drove to the Court of Appeals in Albuquerque to file it.  After filing the Reply I drove to Sprouts because I had seen in its weekly brochure that is mailed to me that it was offering scallops for $9.95/lb. and Aji tuna steaks for $7.99/lb.  I called Suzette from the COA parking lot and her preference was the tuna, so I bought a lb. of scallops and two nice tuna steaks that weighed just over 1 lb.  I looked at the vegetables and saw that large bunches of fresh spinach were on sale for $.99, so I bought a bunch and bought milk.

I then drove home and made an easy teriyaki sauce at 3:30.

Easy Teriyaki Sauce

1/3 cup each soy, Aji Mirin, and sake and 1 T. of sugar heated until the sugar dissolves.

I let the teriyaki Sauce cool in the fridge for a few minutes and the put it and the tuna filets into a sandwich bag and put them into the fridge to marinate and then worked on the arrangements for the August 15th mediation of a commercial dispute of one of my corporate clients.  I then rested and read O Pioneers by Willa Cather until Suzette came home at 5:45.  We were both hungry so we decided to cook an early dinner.

I talked to Willy and told him we were going to make Squash Lasagna tomorrow evening at 5;30 and then Suzette and I decided to cook an early dinner.

We noted to each other an increase in energy, appetite, and stamina apparently due to our new regime of diet and exercise.  We also are losing weight and feeling better. Much of the pain in my hip area is gone.

Suzette decided to stir fry crispy spinach and onion with peanuts.  I sliced ½ small onion and three cloves of garlic while a Suzette cut off the spinach stems and cleaned the bunch of spinach in a sink of cool water and I shelled and crushed ¼ cup peanuts.  She then heated olive oil, peanut oil, and sesame oil in the wok and stir fried the onion and garlic, then added the spinach and finally the peanuts, while she was searing the tuna steaks in a cast iron skillet.  I fetched the PPI Matua Sauvignon Blanc that Susan brought us and poured glasses of it. Suzette set the table and plated a pile of stir fried spinach and then lay the seared tuna steaks on the spinach.

We enjoyed out early meal of tuna and stir fried spinach, onions, and peanuts.  We both ate some clafoutis after dinner and I had a cup of tea with mine.  We still had energy so we went to the garden and weeded some of the garden and pulled out the snow pea bushes that had greatly diminished in their production until it became dark around 8:00.

I went to bed around 8:30

Bon Appetit

August 2, 2017. Lunch – Taj Mahal. Dinner – steamed Yellow squash with Mushroom and ground beef spaghetti sauce

 August 2, 2017. Lunch – Taj Mahal.  Dinner – steamed Yellow squash with Mushroom and ground beef spaghetti sauce

Today was another busy day.  I started with signing documents for the sale of the land in California, then I met Aaron and Karin for lunch at Taj Mahal.  I love the clean week seasoned food at the Taj.  Today there was a new dish, chicken curry with broccoli, plus chickpea dahl.  I got my usual, tandoori chicken, onions, tamarind sauced meatballs, saag, and the broccoli curry plus riata.

The line of dishes at Taj Mahal.

After lunch I went to FedEx to overnight the signed documents to the title company in California and then went to a meeting at 1:30.

I had not slept well so I went home and napped from 3:00 to 4:00.

I listened to Mad Money for a few minutes and then went with a Willy to a meeting with his apartment to straighten out his apartment lease.

After the meeting we went next door to the Monk’s Table Taproom at 3rd and Silver.  Willy drank a beer and I drank a Boxing Bear apple cider.

I then went to meditate from which I returned home at 7:00.
When I returned home I heated the spaghetti sauce I made last night and Suzette cooked the sliced yellow squash she had sliced with a vegetable peeler.

Willy arrived a little after 7:00.

I went to the basement to find a bottle of Chianti, but instead found a bottle of 2009 Sangiovese from Umbria named La Carrara from that I thought needed to be drunk, since it was 8 years old.  It was delicious and poured glasses of it.  Suzette plated the steamed  squash and I ladled spaghetti sauce onto them and we took our plates and glasses of wine to the garden.  The evening was cool and we enjoyed a pleasant meal in the garden.  We are advancing our low carb diet by substituting steamed squash slices for pasta and it gives the dish a less heavy texture and is more wonderful when the squash is fresh from the garden as this yellow squash was.  It was grown in Suzette’s organic garden at the Center for Ageless Living.

Later I opened the container of Brie I had bought about 1 month ago and ate a piece of Brie with the last of the wine and then a piece of chocolate with a cup of tea and a shot of grappa.

The cheese had aged nicely and was very pleasant and slightly creamy without and nutty or ammonia flavor.

Bon Appetit

July 31, 2017 Lunch – PPI Chile Relleno. Dinner with Susan and Sandi. New Recipe Sautéed Pork steaks with a Port, Butter, and Plum Reduction Sauce, Steamed Asparagus, Baked Squash stuffed with cranberries and pecans, and Caprese Salad.

July 31, 2017 Lunch – PPI Chile Relleno. Dinner with Susan and Sandi. New Recipe  Sautéed Pork steaks with a Port, Butter, and Plum Reduction Sauce, Steamed Asparagus, Baked Squash stuffed with cranberries and pecans, and Caprese Salad.

I ate a couple of spoonfuls of tropical fruit salad and then we rode to Rio Bravo and back at 7:30 a.m.

I met with a new client until 12:45 when I heated the PPP Chile Relleno and carne adovado that Suzette had brought home on Saturday and ate it with slices of jicama and a generous dab of sour cream because of its spiciness.

We had invited Sandi, Willy, and Susan for dinner at 5:30 but I was able to get in a 30 minute nap at 4:30.  There was very little prep.  All I did was dice 3 oz. of onions and fetch the pecan pieces and cranraisins I had bought at Sprouts last week for the stuffing for the partially pre-baked squashes that Suzette brought home from her organic garden at the Center for Ageless Living last week.

Willy called to tell us he was not joining us, so we decided to eat at the round table in the TV room.

Suzette and I had a discussion about the pork chop dish.  Since it was raining, we decided to sauté them in a skillet inside and we decided to make a sauce with the lovely plum sauce Suzette made from the plums she picked from Megan’s plum tree. Suzette decided to deglaze the pan after sautéing the chops with 2 oz. of the six grapes port, Linda and T.R. gave us last weekend when we visited their house and then added 2 oz. of plum sauce and then 1 ½ oz. of butter and then 2 more oz. of plum sauce to increase volume of the sauce a bit.  The result was a unique sauce that was well balanced between fruit, fat, and alcohol.  Everyone seemed to like it and we poured it over our pork chops and I even poured it over the baked squash.

Sandi brought an elegantly simple Caprese salad of fresh tomato slices and basil leaves from her garden arranged with slices of exquisitely fresh mozzarella and drizzled with an olive oil and balsamic dressing.  The flavor of the fresh mozzarella and garden fresh tomato slices made a perfect salad.

Susan brought a package of fresh asparagus from Costco.  E snapped 20 stalks and steamed them for the green vegetable.

The other unique dish was the stuffed squash.  I am not familiar with this small round squash with yellow meat that was a little mealy and not sweet.  Suzette prepared them by filling their round cavities with butter, brown sugar, chopped onion, pecan pieces, and cranraisins and baking them.

This was our first dinner with Sandi and it quickly became apparent that she is knowledgeable about wine.  I asked her what she wanted and we soon settled on red wine.  She said she wanted to try a Portuguese wine. So I poured her the last of the open bottle of Quinta das Carvaljas Douro red.  Her immediate reaction was, “This wine is a little old.”

So I opened a bottle of Tuella, which Sandi liked very much.

This. Initiated a discussion about wine. Sandi mentioned liking Oregon pinots.  I mentioned that I had chilled a bottle of Anderson Valley Rose of Pinot Noir,  I asked Sandi if she had tried the Archer’s Summit Rose’ of Pinot Noir and she had not, so I ran to the cellar and grabbed a bottle and put it in the freezer and pulled the Toulouse 2010 Rose’ of Pinot Noir.

When the asparagus and squash were ready we plated them with a pork chop, asparagus, and a squash and Suzette scooped the plum sauce into a pitcher, and I poured glasses of Archer’s Summit rose’.

Sandi’s surprised smile when she tasted the Archer’s Summit was priceless.  When I told her that Archer’ Summit was on the Dundee Hills just above Drouhin and Chateau Serene and Sandi said, “I visited Drouhin and Serene.” I knew Sandi was a knowledgeable oenophile.

We will have more dinners in the future with Sandi to try more wines.

Sandi had to leave to relieve her baby sitter at 7:00 so at 6:50 I served the clafoutis and ran to the fridge in the garage for a can of whipped cream.  Suzette put some clafoutis into.a plastic container and Sandi asked and got a shot of whipped cream on her clafoutis.  We said goodnight at 7:00 to Sandi.

Susan stayed for about 15 minutes to smooze and eat finish her clafoutis.

By 7:20 we were able to turn on Antiques Roadshow and I took a couple of phone calls as I sipped a Trimbach Grand Reserve Plum Brandy.

We went to bed by 9:25.

Bon Appetit

August 1, 2017 Lunch – Lamb Meatball Salad with tzatziki dressing Dinner – Grilled hamburger, corn on the cob, and chayote

August 1, 2017 Lunch – Lamb Meatball Salad with tzatziki dressing
Dinner – Grilled hamburger, corn on the cob, and chayote

Today I was busy.  I ate a late breakfast of fruit salad and granola, yogurt, and a splash of milk at 10:30.

Then a bit after noon I decided to make a salad using the PPI lamb meatballs that I quartered and heated with the warned grilled onions and placed those warm ingredients in a pasta bowl with romaine lettuce, two diced Roma tomatoes, and I diced five cucumber stalks, four celery stalks, and threw in a small handful of radish slices.  I added about 1 ½ T. of olive oil to the ½ cup of PPI tzatziki and dressed the salad with it.

I drank a glass of Tuella Red wine from the Douro Valley in Portugal with a couple of ice cubes in it to dilute it and chill it.

I decided to make spaghetti sauce with ground beef and mushrooms, which is my favorite. Instead of spaghetti we intend to imitate spaghetti by making strips with squash from the garden.

I thawed out about 3 pounds of ground beef and began cooking at 5:30 after stopping at Lowe’s Grocery on the way home from the bank to pick up a can of Hunt’s spaghetti sauce with meat and a can of crushed tomatoes.

I diced two medium onions and ten cloves of garlic and began sautéing them in a large pot with 2 T. of olive oil.  Suzette came home and we decided that the spaghetti sauce would not be ready until 8:30 or 9:00 so we needed an alternative dinner plan.  Suzette suggested making hamburgers with 1 lb. of the ground beef.  Since I had invited Willy, she made three 1/3 lb. hamburgers.  I fetched three ears of corn from the garage and Suzette suggested that we made a simple grilled dinner and grill chayotes also.  So after I added the remaining 2 lb. of ground hamburger to the pot of spaghetti sauce ingredients and stirred it to break up any big chunks, I peeled, removed the seed, and sliced each chayote into four slices.

I then sliced ½ lb. of white mushrooms and added them to the sauce. Then I went to the garden and
picked a large handful of oregano and removed the leaves from the stalks and chopped the oregano

that amounted to 1 cup of chopped leaves and added them to the sauce.

When the mushrooms had cooked for a few minutes, I added a 24 oz. can of Hunt’s meat spaghetti sauce to the pot plus one can of water and then diced four Roma tomatoes and added the diced tomatoes to the sauce pot.

Suzette soaked the ears of corn in water and started grilling the hamburgers, and then added the corn and slices of chayote to the grill and grilled them until they were charbroiled and slices of French Roquefort cheese melted on the hamburgers while I sliced an avocado and poured the last ½ of the bottle of Tuella we opened last night (Trader Joe’s $6.99).

Suzette then went to the garden and picked four small orange tomatoes and Willy picked a few leaves of basil and he cut cross- hatched slits in the top of each tomato and placed a basil leaf in each slit and drizzled each tomato with Balsamic vinegar and placed the tomatoes on the plates and we were ready to eat our grilled dinner.

I added catsup to my plate to dip the grilled hamburger into.

After dinner Suzette checked the tomato sauce and decided it needed more tomatoes, so she added the 28 oz. can of crushed tomatoes I had bought at Lowe’s and we cooked the sauce for another hour or two.

After dinner Willy took a walk and we watched TV and ate bowls of Clafoutis topped with squirts of canned whipped cream.  The cold Clafoutis with whipped cream was really delicious with a cup of hot Earl grey tea with milk.

I put the spaghetti sauce into the garage fridge at 9:00, said goodnight to Willy, and retired to bed to blog for a few minutes until tiredness caught up with me.

 We enjoyed our spontaneous grilled dinner and we now have the main ingredient for a spaghetti dinner tomorrow evening.

This was an especially wonderful day financially.  I deposited the rent check from Binswanger and the Children’s candy store and a small check for the divorce I started yesterday and Apple had a good quarter that sent the stock up $8.00 in after market trading to a point that should result in my portfolio realizing a 50% gain since September 5, 2013; the day Willy left for graduate school in Dublin, Ireland, plus the documentation for the sale of the property in Fairfield, California arrived, which will distribute enough money to me to become debt free for the first time since I was 22 years old.

I was so thrilled that I had to share our good fortune with Willy.  Then Willy told me he made his first stock investment in Royal Bank of Scotland today, and I was doubly thrilled because he was starting to invest and grow his wealth.

Bon Appetit