October 14, 2019 Lunch – Caesar Salad. Dinner – Green Pork Mole

October 14, 2019 Lunch – Caesar Salad. Dinner – Green Pork Mole

This was a day to clean up my diet.  I ate granola, milk, tropical fruit salad, sliced banana, and yogurt for breakfast.

Today was a milepost in my recovery.  I walked a mile at a steady pace without and stop or pan.

For lunch I made a large Caesar Salad with the last of the Romaine, some spinach, croutons, a small tomato, a radish sliced, and lots of fresh mozzarella and dressed the salad with the excellent fresh Caesar salad dressing I made recently.

I rested after lunch.

We invited Macon for dinner to eat some more of the green mole.

We did not need to prepare anything.  Suzette added some water to loosen it a bit and heated the PPI green mole and rice. I had cleaned a colander full of fresh spinach leaves and we replicated the green mole and rice and spinach we have fixed several times in the last week.

The good news is that we had eaten enough of it that Suzette was finally able to store the remaining green mole in a plastic container in the fridge

We fixed drinks at the beginning of the evening and Macon drank her vodka tonic with her meal while Suzette and I drank Negra Modelos.

After dinner we amazed Macon when Suzette served her a perfect crème caramel or flan.  Suzette and I shared a crème caramel also.

Macon has been traveling extensively. She recently visited LA also.

It was fun to hear about her travels.

We watched the last half of the Antiques Roadshow and then Macon said goodnight.  We watched the news and Green Bay beat Detroit and then went to bed.

Bon Appetit

October 13, 2019 Brunch – Sautéed Smoked Pork Chop with Potato, egg, cheese, and Mushroom scramble Dinner – Grilled Lamb Chops, Asparagus, and Potatoes

October 13, 2019 Brunch – Sautéed Smoked Pork Chop with Potato, egg, cheese, and Mushroom scramble  Dinner – Grilled Lamb Chops, Asparagus, and Potatoes

I wakened at 7:00 and watched the news and Elimination matches for Rugby World Championship until 10:00.  Suzette then made a lovely brunch of sautéed smoked pork chop and then made a scramble of spinach, cheese, mushrooms, and eggs.  Suzette made a Bloody Mary and I drank Clamato juice with lime juice.  We had a pleasant meal in the garden and enjoyed the colorful zinnias.  After brunch we brought in the large planters of flowers from the garden and then peeled about 10 pounds of quinces. Suzette Poached them in water and sugar after I peeled them.

At 11:30 we rode bikes north to Mountain road and back.  I then lay down and napped until 3:30 when I ate an artichoke and some popcorn that Suzette made.

We peeled quinces and watched football and American pickers and at 6:00 we started cooking.  We decided to cook the bedraggled ingredients that were starting to go bad, specifically three lamb chops and a bunch of asparagus.  We decided to grill some potatoes with them.  Suzette cut the potatoes into flat strips and we brushed the potatoes with PPI mint and chili sauce.

While Suzette Grilled I opened a bottle of 2013 Plaza Puerta Reserva Spanish red wine from Catalunya (Trader Joe’s $5.99).  I also finished the last glass of the La Gitana Rioja (Costco $11.99).

We loved the ugly unruly dinner of misfit ingredients.  We dipped the grilled potatoes in the mint chili sauce and the lamb into mint jelly.  Suzette Grilled the lamb chops to a perfect rare by turning them on their bone end down.  See the photo.

The Spanish wines were perfect with the grilled dinner of lamb.
After dinner Willy arrived and we heated him a plate of spinach, rice and green Pork mole.  After he ate Suzette warmed and served him a crème caramel. He loved it.  We shared a crème caramel also. I drank a cup of chai with my crème caramel.

Willy watched The Durrells in Corfu with us and then left.  We watched Poldark and then went to bed after a relaxing day.

Bon Appetit

October 12, 2019 Breakfast – Breakfast Burrito. Lunch – Egg Salad with garden fresh tomatoes, dinner – Pork Green Mole with rice and spinach

October 12, 2019  Breakfast – Breakfast Burrito. Lunch – Egg Salad with garden fresh tomatoes,  dinner – Pork Green Mole with rice and spinach

We slept a bit later today.  I made tropical fruit salad with papaya, pineapple, green mango, and oranges with a squirt of lime juice.

While I was making the salad Suzette fried bacon and cottage fries, scrambled eggs and toasted two flouR tortillas for our breakfast.  I drank camomile tea with my burrito.

At 10:00 Suzette went to Willy’s to receive his reupholstered sofas and I watched the Texas v. OU Red River Showdown. Unfortunately, OU won but nay one touchdown.  Suzette came home and worked in the garden. After the game we ate a light lunch of PPI egg salad with cherry tomatoes.

Then we moved the two large pots of plants in from the garden for the winter and covered the pond.

The plumbers came and turned on the heating system.  I lay down and read my book club book Appetite for America.

At 5:00 we started fixing dinner.  Suzette selected a recipe for flan from Jose Andres Tapa Cookbook.

She made the caramel by browning sugar and then we painted it into the inside of ramekins.  She then made the custard and filled the ramekins and baked them in the steaming oven at the setting for baked custard and they were perfect.

                                                  Please compare to picture in Cookbook

Mike arrived at 6:00 with Negra Modelos.  We heated the green mole and I made 1 cup of basmati rice with 2 cups of water, a tsp. of dehydrated chicken stock and 1 cup of rice cooked on low heat for 30 minutes.

I also de- stemmed a colander full of spinach leaves and rinsed them and put a handful in each bowl.  Then Suzette spooned a large spoonful of rice onto the spinach in each bowl and finally a scoop of mole.

We ate outside in the gazebo. When we finished our mole we came inside and ate our cream caramels with cognac.  I made a cup of tea.  We watched some of LSU v. Florida football, said goodnight to Mike and then watched Death in Paradise and went to bed after a restful, yet busy, day with lovely food.

Bon Appetit

October 11, 2019 Lunch – Baca Boys Restaurant. Dinner – Neighborhood Cocktail Party

October 11, 2019 Lunch – Baca Boys Restaurant. Dinner – Neighborhood Cocktail Party

I awakened and showered and ate a quick breakfast of granola, blueberries, banana, milk, and yogurt and then drove to an appointment.

We worked until 11:15. My clients, Felipe and Mariam invited me to go to lunch.  Miriam suggested Baca Boys, which I never had heard of, so we walked the two blocks to it.  It is located on 4th St. just north of Central.

The menu was intriguing.  Felipe and Miriam tend to eat more vegetable dishes.  Miriam loves Baca Boys because it serves a vegetable burrito. Felipe selected Susie’s Special, which is a salad garnished with fresh raspberries and a piece of grilled salmon served with a thick raspberry dressing, which was the most interesting, creative and best dish of the meal.  Miriam ordered her favorite vegetable burrito without chili or cheese.  I ordered an beef enchilada plate with calabacitas and beans and an egg.  My dish was so heavy I could only eat half.  Next time I will order Susie’s Special.

After lunch I returned home and finished a draft of the lease for the building and enjoyed the 320point lift that the administration’s comments with the Chinese in the Oval Office in a show trial arrangement of advancing talks on trade accomplished.

As most people have said it is a partial deal.  For example, 250 billion of tariffs on Chinese goods still exist.

I rested until 4:00 and then destemmed tarragon and watched news until Suzette came home.  Today was a huge news day.  The administration lost three appeals in court, the denial of refugee status to those who can not pay for health care, the funding for the wall by poaching from appropriations for other purposes, and disclosure of Trump’s tax materials.  Also, the former ambassador to Ukraine that he withdrew testified to three house committees for nine hours about what the administration was doing in Ukraine.  The Ukraine is one of many abuses of power but seems to be the most egregious and the one the House is pursuing for articles of impeachment.

The fact I liked the best is that the former ambassador had been told by her State Department employer not to testify to Congress but when she was served with a subpoena she responded to the Congress’ subpoena.

It shows that some career government officials honor the Constitution over the will of the President.

The other really interesting thing was that yesterday two associates of Rudy Giuliani involved in his actions in Ukraine were arrested by the FBI as they were boarding a plane to leave the country and charged with arranging illegal donations by a Russian oligarch to Donald Trump’s re-election campaign to get him to withdraw the Ukrainian ambassador. It appears again that Trump is doing the opposite of what he says.  Instead of trying to stop corruption in Ukraine, he and his cronies are trying to force a foreign country to influence our 2020 election by creating false facts about Joe Biden and his family, by coercion, namely by refusing to allocate federally adopted foreign aid to resist Russian aggression until they announce that they  have started an investigation into the Bidens.

Suzette suggested that we make honeydew melon wrapped in prosciutto as appetizers for the cocktail party.  She also said she had a hankering for egg salad, so she hard boiled three eggs and washed the honeydew melon we bought at the Farmers Market several weeks ago and I split it in half and de-seeded the half and cut it into slices about 1 ½ inch wide and cut off the rind and then sliced bite sized pieces.  Suzette peeled the eggs when they were cooked and I fetched German deli mustard, mayo, and tarragon. Suzette sliced the eggs and mixed in the other ingredients and we ate egg salad on crackers while we made the melon appetizers.  I sliced sheets of prosciutto into thirds, so they were the same width as the melon pieces and Suzette wrapped them around the pieces of melon and secured them with toothpicks with frilly plastic tops.

At 7:00 we drove to Susan McKnight’s for the party.  I took a bottle ofCloverdale Winery Viognier we bought when we visited the winery in Pennsylvania.  It was probably seven or eight years old and had darkened to a deep yellow color and turned to a sherry like flavor but super fruity.

There was an amazing array of food. Almost everyone prepared dishes instead of buying prepared foods. I filled a plate Mediterranean salad (cucumbers, onion, tomatoes, and avocado chunks), fresh peaches, and an interesting chicken and rapini sauté.  We watched the PBS Weekend Edition news program at 8:00 with Susan, who taught Luke at Sandia Prep and left around 9:00.

I was not feeling well, probably from the Enchiladas, so we made the bed with clean sheets and got in bed and watched Rachel Maddow and went to sleep.

Bon Appetit

October 10, 2019 Lunch – Cosmos. Dinner – Roasted Pork Tapa and Catalan Spinach

October 10, 2019 Lunch – Cosmos. Dinner – Roasted Pork Tapa and Catalan Spinach

I was up four hours last night so I slept til 7:30, then made breakfast of granola, blueberries, milk, and yogurt and ate it at my desk as I worked.  I prepared and filed three pleadings to add a party that I had failed to include in my previous pleadings per the court’s instruction and called Peter Eller to see if he wanted to go to lunch.  He invited me to join him and Dottie for lunch at Cosmos at noon.  I sent part of the morning de-leafing the basil I picked two nights a

In then rode the short four mile loop around Tingley beach and to Marquez and showered and dressed and drove to Cosmos.

I ordered fish and chips with coleslaw, sweet potato fries, and fresh house made tartare sauce, which is not on the diet, but is a very delicious way to eat fish.  Peter ordered only a slice of apple pie, so I gave Peter ½ of one of the two pieces of battered and deep fried Alaskan cod and a few potatoes.

Dottie ordered a thick burger with sautéed mushrooms, onions and melted cheese that she ate open face.

Some of Peter’s apple pie 

                                                 Some of Dottie’s hamburger

The most amazing thing happened that will inspire me forever and was very heart warming.  I had met with Dottie to discuss a case she had.  It involved litigation and since I am not taking on new litigation for non-clients, I referred her to another lawyer who does real estate litigation, who referred her to Joe Werntz, who does real estate litigation for title companies.  She told me that Joe had initially cautioned that he could not take the case, but then changed his mind and called her back and agreed to take the case, after apparently calling me to find out about the case and what I thought about it.  She said she had talked to several attorneys and they all thought highly of me and the fact that I had talked to her for two hours and analyzed the theory of her case correctly and referenced a case on point, influenced Joe to take the case.  She was thrilled that Joe was representing her and told me I am held in the highest regard by the members of the bar.

That sent my ego through the roof and encouraged me.  We discussed how I merited such a reputation and the latest diplomatic blunder by Trump of green lighting the incursion of the Turks into Syria, which I am very upset about.  I probably upset them when I told Peter how I felt, but he had shown me a book titled the Conduct of War 1776 to 19?.. and I ended up saying that the actions of the US in the Syrian war will be another chapter in the next book because someone will have to explain how  we can fight with the Kurds to rid the world of the ISIS caliphate and then stand down our US troops and watch as our Kurdish brothers in arms are slaughtered by the Turks after a phone call between Erdogan and Trump.

The only logical answer I have is that the Russians green lighted the Turkish invasion of Syria to attack the Kurds and Erdogan conveyed that message to Trump and since Trump is beholden to Putin for some unholy reason and will do whatever is best for the Russians, he agreed to the plan.

It puts the entire Middle East into war and shatters the Nato Alliance, which the Russians must love.  The gain greater control in the Middle East and their greatest opponent, NATO, is weakened, as they strip the bulwark on Europe’s southEastern flank away from Europe.

After lunch I drove home and worked for a while and saw that the Market recovered from its slide of the last two days, but then became sleepy, so I lay down for a 1 ½ hour nap. I got up at 4:17 and wrote a check for the contractors for the building and and talked to a client about a problem that will cause me to meet with them in the morning and then I drove to the Friends meeting house to meditate.

I returned home around 6:30 after a long discussion with Dennis about Agnes Pelton and Nicholas Roerich’s role in the Transcendental art movement.

Suzette was feeling better today and she was willing to cook the roasted pork tenderloin tapa and Catalan Spinach tapa that we like so much.  I sliced an apple and the pear we had and an onion and she sautéed them in olive oil and butter and added slices of the pork and oregano and then roasted it in the oven.  While she was cooking the pork tacos I de-stemmed a colander full of spinach and diced an apple and fetched the roasted cashew pieces and made a cup of chicken stock her to use to sauce the dish and deglaze the skillet.  She added some cognac to the skillet at the end and flatbed it, also.

Suzette sautéed the meat with the vegetables to save time and it poached the meat and integrated the vegetable and fruit flavors into the meat, which was a pleasant variation of the recipe.

She then sautéed the spinach with butter, raisins, cashew pieces, and the diced apple into a lovely melange in a covered skillet to steam the spinach.

The flambé 

 

The fresh oregano from the garden 

I opened a bottle of 2015 La Gitana Gold Reserva Rioja I had bought at Costco yesterday for $11.99 that garnered  a 94 rating by Wine Enthusiast.

 Here is the review.
94
POINTS
La Gitana 2015 Gold Label (Rioja)
Editors' Choice

Smoky, toasty oak takes center stage on the nose of this fine Rioja. It's full and fruity on the palate yet has enough levity to allow the flavors to breathe. Strong barrel notes frame its salt, dried red fruit and cocoa flavors. Complex, ageworthy and high in quality, it will be best from 2020 to 2030.

I did not let the bottle breath and it was still tight when we drank it with the meal. I guess I need to buy some more bottles and put them down for a few years.

After dinner I ate some Swedish chocolate with hazelnut with a Calvados.

We watched an episode of Doc Martin at 8:00 on PBS and then went to bed.

 I awakened at 2:20 and wrote this blog.

Bon Appetit

October 9, 2019 Lunch – Safari Grill. Dinner – PPI Vietnamese Miso Noodle Soup

October 9, 2019 Lunch – Safari Grill. Dinner – PPI Vietnamese Miso Noodle Soup

Ai started with a bowl of granola, milk, blueberries, and yogurt.

At noon I met Jay lunch at Safari Grille at 3001 Central.  I was amazed to find out it was owned by my friend who is a member of the Ismailia community who moved here from Dar es Salaam and who manages the Taj Mahal restaurant in the evenings.  That is why the menu has both African and Indian dishes on it.

The menu is extensive with lots of interesting items and many sauces with varying degrees of spicy up to inferno.

I ordered a bowl with a housemade beef and lamb sausage with rice pilaf and safari sauce with house slaw from the build it yourself lunch menu.  Jay ordered the chicken tikka sandwich from the long list of sandwiches on the menu.

The rice pilaf was rice fried with a bit of onion dusted with a bit of turmeric.  Not terribly exciting texturally but quite flavorful.  The four or five sausages served on the rice were lovely.  Fresh, pink in the middle and flavorfully grilled. The slaw was served as part of the bowl and I ordered a cool cucumber sauce that I dumped into the bowl to cook the slightly spicy Safari sauce down a bit.  I found it an interesting dish, but not anything I could not replicate at home and not better than the dinner we were yet to eat today.

Jay liked his chicken tikka sandwich served with fried potatoes dusted with a medley of spices.

After lunch I drove to Costco to pick up a prescription and also bought a 2.5 lb. bag of spinach so we can make Willy’s favorite Catalan Spinach dish for dinner with the roasted pork tapa.  I also bought a 94 point rated Spanish red named La Gitana for $11.99.

Costco specializes in good bottles of wine for moderate prices.

After Costco I worked until 5:00 filing two pleadings after I found out that my client’s Order Granting a Supersedeas bond was granted.

This was the first supersedeas bond I have ever sought for a client and it was great getting it issued.  The supersedeas bond will allow him to continue to pump water to irrigate his crops while his appeal is pending.

I then went to the garden and picked another ½ shopping bag full of basil and plucked tarragon leaves from their stalks until Suzette arrived at 6:15.  We then drove to the Thirsty Eye Brewery for Jim Burbank’s poetry reading.  I was really impressed with his stage presence and animated delivery of his poems including his repartee with the audience as they commented on his poetry.  We drank a beer abandoned when he finished at 7:00 left and came home.  Suzette had worked 12 hours and did not feel like cooking so we decided to heat up the PPI Vietnamese Miso Noodle Soup with clams and smoked pork I made yesterday.

Willy came by and he and Suzette measured him and ordered the sports jacket and pants he will wear at Drew’s Wedding in Portland, Maine at the end of the month.  I heated the last of the French Onion Soup and toasted a slice of whole wheat bread to make a crouton and sliced Jarlsberg cheese to melt on the bread to make a classic presentation of a bowl of French Onion Soup.  He ate it heartily and then went home.

We watched the news until 9:20 and then half of an interesting nature show on PBS about animals that commute to or from urban centers around the world, like a Monitor water lizards that get to be 110 pounds that live in the sewers of Jakarta that commute to a pond in the zoo to be fed lunch from the scraps of the zoo restaurant or Mallard ducks that winter in ponds in Calgary heated by co-generated water that fly to the farms outside Calgary to glean the fields of grain daily, and finally hippos that live in the river near St. Lucia in South Africa that walk into town at night to eat the green grass of lawns and sleep and return to the river in the morning.  An interesting show demonstrating how animals have adapted to their changing habitat as the habitats have become populated by humans.

I told Willy we could make the roasted pork tapa and Catalan Spinach dish tomorrow night and then he left at 9:00..

 We then ate bowls of ice cream during the nature program and went to bed at 10:00.

Bon Appetit

October 8, 2019 Lunch – Miso Noodle Soup. Dinner – Pork Green Mole

October 8, 2019 Lunch – Miso Noodle Soup. Dinner – Pork Green Mole

Some days you just need to cook.  It is turning cooler, so Noodle Soup is on the menu.  The two dishes I made today were dictated by the PPIs.

Miso Noodle Soup from PPIs

For lunch I combined clams and spaghetti, rice and vegetables, and some black beans and vegetables with a diced smoked pork chop, three types of noodles, seaweed, tofu, red miso, water, a pho seasoning cube and dehydrated dashi. It produced a thick flavorful broth.  I garnished the soup with sliced green onions and doused it with Sriracha and hoisin.

Pork Green Mole

Around 3:30 when I finished my work for the day I looked up a recipe for pork green mole on the internet.  I was pleased to find a recipe that called for the addition of chayote as a vegetable to the mole stew because I had peeled, cubed and cooked the four chayote I had bought last week for $.99 at El Super and I wanted to use them in or with a dish.  I had guessed correctly that chayote is a vegetable accompaniment to green mole because it was served with rice as vegetable accompaniments when I ordered green mole in Merida last year.  Also, I chose green mole because we now had fresh frozen hierba Santa leaves we bought in LA, which is an ingredient.

Here is the recipe I found and chose to make.

I drove to El Super and bought 8 fresh tomatillos, a white onion, a 1 lb. container of green mole sauce that’s first ingredient was ground sunflower seeds (Pipian) plus chili Arbol, some oil, and a couple of other ingredients, a 1 oz. bag of sesame seeds, 3 Serrano chilis and 1 Padilla chili.

Here is a picture of the green mole prepared sauce.

When I returned home I started cooking. I followed the recipe by dicing a 1 lb. pork tenderloin and covering with water and adding several bay leaves and cooking it slowly in a large enameled casserole. I removed the husks and stem portion from the tomatillos and cooked them vigorously in a sauce pan covered with water for about ½ hour until they turned whitish and collapsed. I destemmed a bunch of cilantro, and chopped the small white onion, and  fetched and chopped four Romaine lettuce leaves and two hierba Santa leaves Suzette had frozen and toasted ½ cup of sesame seeds and put all those ingredients plus about ½ of the prepared mole sauce into the Cuisinart and purred it and poured it over the pork that had reduced and started to brown just like the recipe instructed.

I then diced a zucchini and added the diced pieces.  Finally I added the cooked cubed chayote to the green mole stew.  As the mole simmered slowly I added additional prepared green mole to increase

the chili flavor.  I never added the Serrano or pasilla chilis because the slight chili flavor of the prepared mole was enough for us.

Willy came by at 6:00 and we picked herbs from the garden. He picked an assortment and I picked a bag each of tarragon and basil, but Willy did not stay for dinner.

I then cooked a cup of rice.

When Suzette arrived at 7:00 dinner was ready.

We spooned rice into bowls and spooned the green mole over it.  This was a incredibly rich dish. We could only eat one bowl of it. Suzette fetched bottles of Negra Modelo from the garage that we drank with dinner for a truly Mexican dinner.  We had been amazed lately how cheaply and well can eat.  This dinner is a good example.  The pound of pork cost $1.77, the four chayote cost $.99, the sesame seeds cost about $1.00, the prepared green mole cost $4.99, the tomatillos cost $.60 and the rest of the ingredients were negligible and it made about six pounds of food and we could only eat about 1 pound for both of our dinners.  So our cost was less than $1.00 each for dinner.  Now the problem is that we have five pounds of authentic green mole left.  It is time to plan a dinner party.

We ate around 7:30 and went to bed at 8:30.

It is hard to get your mind around a dinner such as green mole.  It is so different.  It is peasant food, but not of the European variety we are used to.  The flavor profiles are so different, driven by fresh vegetables and herbs that there is no meat centric flavor.  You just must accept the differentness of the dish and accept it as an expression of the indigenous Oaxaca culture and ingredients from which it was created.

Bon Appetit