August 9, 2024 Lunch - Leftover duck and Cannellini beans. Dinner - Pappardelle Pasta with Italian Sausage Spaghetti sauce.

August 9, 2024 Lunch - Leftover duck and Cannellini beans. Dinner - Pappardelle Pasta with Italian Sausage Spaghetti sauce.

Suzette fixed me a bowl of Elaine’s Granola with Greek yogurt and sliced figs and peaches for breakfast. Earlier I had heated a pain au chocolate and drank a cup of Earl Grey tea with it.

At 7:30 we walked next door to Johnathan and Beth’s house and Batik studio for a batik lesson. I tried to do a sunflower that turned out to be  quite a lot of work. It required stenciling a design on a cloth with a graphite pencil and then waxing four or five areas and dying each and letting the dye dry, which took all day and I will need to return for the last waxed area application and dying in the morning.

I got groggy toward 5:00 and Suzette had to help me finish an RSS  monogram for a handkerchief.

We went back to the apartment for a lunch break at 12:15 to 1:00.

Suzette made each of us a bowl filled with the leftover cannellini beans and slices of duck breast from last bight’s meal.  I also sliced two slices of Baguette and lay slices of Manchego cheese on them and melted the cheese in the microwave for a filling lunch.

At 5:30 when we returned to the apartment I napped from 6:10 to 7:00, while Billy made a spaghetti sauce with tomato paste, Italian sausage, and parsley and boiled Pappardelle pasta to serve it over. We opened the bottle of Tempranillo we brought and said it was good, a 2021Luis Gurpegi 

After dinner everyone went to the Mercantile to see the Arianna Bros.. a duo of New Mexican singers.

I rested for a few minutes and drank the last glass of the Tempranillo and then walked the two blocks to meet them. I enjoyed the music. Many of their songs came out of the Mariachi and American folk traditions.

At 9:00 we returned and watched some Olympics and went to bed.

Bon Appetit

August 7, 2024 Lunch - Breakfast - Bagel with Gravad Lax, Lunch - Hot Dog at Costco, Dinner - Spaghetti with Crab and Smoked Pork Cutlet Cream and white Wine Sauce with Broccoli

August 7, 2024 Lunch - Breakfast - Bagel with Gravad Lax,  Lunch - Hot Dog at Costco, Dinner - Spaghetti with Crab and Smoked Pork Cutlet Cream and white Wine Sauce with Broccoli

I got up early and worked at my desk from 6:00 until 10:00 when I toasted a bagel and preadolescent it with cream cheese and garnished it with slices of red onion and Gravad lax and drizzled it with a few capers.  I drank a cup of Earl Grey tea.

Then at 11:45 I drove to my dentist and made an appointment for teeth cleaning on Monday and bought a tube of toothpaste.

I then went to Pres for a 12:30 exam to see if I had any infection or possibly Covid. After my exam I was swabbed for a lab test.

At 1:00 I drove to Costco where I ate a hot dog for lunch, bought a flannel shirt, and picked some meds.

I returned home at 3:00 and checked my portfolio. I discovered that the early gains had been wiped out and my portfolio had another losing day.

That makes a reduction in my portfolio of 10% in the last two weeks. Rather dismal.

I lay down to nap and got up at 5:30. 

We decided on a simple recipe for dinner using the ingredients we had available. Suzette reheated the spaghetti we made last week and sautéed the leftover crab from Sunday with a minced smoked pork cutlet, minced broccoli, and 1/2 shallot. She then added white wine, cream, nutmeg and a bit of lemon juice to the crab to make a light sauce.  Suzette opened a botyle of Kirkland Pinot Grigio Fruili from Venezia to add to the sauce and we drank it for dinner. I love this wine and for $4.99 at Costco, it is an unbeatable value.

After dinner we watched the news and did a little yard work to get water to several plants.

Suzette tried to adjust the sprinkler system to water the beds every other day. We hope it works.

Kamala had a massive 14,000 person crowd in Michigan today, so the Democratic wave keeps rolling. The polling seems to have turned in her favor in Michigan which is good news for her chances at being elected.

We went to bed at 9:30 after cognac and chocolate covered mandarin peel.

Bon Appetit

August 5, 2024 Lunch - Enchiladas and rice. Dinner - Dungeness crab salad

August 5, 2024 Lunch - Enchiladas and rice. Dinner - Dungeness crab salad 

I ate a pain au chocolate and a latte macchiato for breakfast again.

I watched Olympic beach volleyball and indoor volleyball in the morning and mixed doubles skeet. The Norwegians buried one US beach volleyball pair but the other US team prevailed over a Brazilian pair.  The most amazing win was a comeback by the Italians to beat the Japanese after being two sets down.

I made rice at 11:15 that was ready when Mike came at 12:00. We heated enchiladas and rice and drank beer for lunch. Then Mike helped me load four bundles of shakes into the Prius. Then Mike picked sage, thym e, basil, mint, and rosemary from the garden To take home to cook with.

We then picked a flat of peaches and Mike left with a bag of peaches and the herbs and my thanks for the help.  Mike said he had run 10 1/2 miles this morning, which made my ride of 1 mile on the recumbent bike insignificant.

I registered 2640 steps today, although many of them were out in the hot sun, so I felt 5hem more.

After Mike left I rested and napped and watched Spain beat Morocco in soccer and the last few minutes of France beating Egypt in soccer and slept until 3:30 when Suzette arrived.

I drove to RWC to return the bundles of shakes but when I arrived a few minutes after 4:00 they were closed. I will go back tomorrow morning.

When I returned Suzette was hungry, so I asked her to mince a shallot and cover the pieces with lemon juice.  When I went to the kitchen around 5:30  

I added catsup, a tsp. of horseradish, and 2/3 cup of Mayo to make my crab dressing.

Suzette put ice on a tray and put the crab on it. 

I sliced two tomatoes into wedges, three green onions, 1/2 of a peeled and seeded cucumber into sticks, five lettuce leaves, and Suzette steamed the remaining large handful of asparagus for a salad for the crab. We opened and drank a bottle of Gruet Blanc de Noir champagne ($11.99 at Costco).

Later Suzette made us parfaits with vanilla ice cream and fresh sliced peaches. After that I poured cognacs with a blood orange Lindt Lindor.

We went to bed at 9:00.

Suzette to sleep and I to blog and read.

Today there was a historic drop in the market of over 1000 points on the Dow. That has not occurred in over two years. The precipitating factor was the sudden and dramatic rise in the Japanese yen.

Bon Appetit

August 2, 2024 Lunch - Lax and Bagel. Dinner - Wine, charcuterie, and cheese at Crystal and Doug’s

August 2, 2024 Lunch - Lax and Bagel. Dinner - Wine, charcuterie, and cheese at Crystal and Doug’s

I ate a burrito filled with the leftover sautéed chicken livers and egg for breakfast with a drizzle of hoisin sauce.

For lunch I broke with tradition and ate a toasted bagel spread with cream cheese and garnished with slices of Gravad lax and red onion plus a few capers with a glass of orange juice. I wanted to see if the Gravad lax was still good and it was. In fact it was delicious.

We put together a cheese board with Affinois, Humboldt Fog, Asiago, and Camembert plus figs with goat cheese and slices of peach from our tree. We took the board with bread and a bottle of Le Pointe 2016 Lonesome Ranch Pinot Noir from the Dundee Hills and a bottle Italian red to Doug and Crystal’s for an evening of wine and cheese and charcuterie.

Crystal had gone to Tully’s and bought four types of meats, mortadella, a spicy salami, a mild salami, and prosciutto With olive crackers, nuts, and fig jam.

It was a lovely evening of food, wine, and conversation. Doug and I are dealing with the same issue of trying to decide how to ease off the peddle in our law practice, so we will have more time to travel.

We walked over and back and I clocked about 4000 steps today. 

The market was a disaster again today so I did not even look at its result.

Bon Appetit

August 3, 2024 Lunch - Pita Sandwich, Hot dog, and Hamburger. Dinner - Yellow Squash and Chicken Enchiladas

August 3, 2024 Lunch - Pita Sandwich, Hot dog, and Hamburger. Dinner - Yellow Squash and Chicken Enchiladas 

I woke up early again and watched the men’s road race of 170 miles until 5:45 when I went back to bed for 2 more hours’ sleep and then after I awakened again watched the end of the race under the Eiffel Tower.  Remco Evenpoel, a Belgium who came third in the Tour de France won today’s road race to go with the gold he won last week in the time trial. This double gold was quite a feat, but Evenpoel is the current world champion time trial rider and won a time trial in the Tour de France several weeks ago.p, so was favored to win the race today.

Apparently, I missed the U. S. Women soccer team beat the Japanese, but I saw two of the other quarterfinals, Germany beating Canada and Spain beating Colombia, both on penalty kicks.

I ate a pain au chocolate with a cup of Latte macchiato mixed with the last bit of my hot chocolate from last night around 9:00. When Suzette went to work. Today was the first concert in the park at the Center.

Then at 12:30 I made a pita sandwich by stuffing a warmed 1/2 pita with salami, feta, labni, lettuce p, and tzatziki.  A few minutes after I ate Suzette returned from the concert and lunch with two cheeseburgers, a hot dog, and a scoop of potato salad made with dill pickle chunks in a take out box that she heated. We shared a Negra Modelo and we each ate a cheeseburger and I ate the hot dog for a big lunch.

I rode 1 mile in the morning and 1 mile in the afternoon on the recombinant bike and accumulated 2750 steps or 1 mile of steps. One mile on the stationary bike results in about 850 steps.

I napped in the afternoon and at 6:00 we started dinner. 

Dinner - 

Suzette blended a can of tomatoes with Clamato juice to make 3 cups of thick tomato Sauce.

I downloaded the recipe for The Shed’s red chili sauce. Here is the recipe.  We substituted tomato sauce for water and I made the chili sauce. Then I sliced three yellow squash, minced three cloves of garlic, and diced a medium onion. I then diced the boiled chicken meat.

Suzette sautéed the onion, garlic and squash while I fetched a lb. of sour cream and a lb. of requeson from the garage. We then soaked blue corn tortillas in a mixture of chicken broth, red chili and water and lay a layer of six soaked tortillas on the bottom of a 9 x 16 Pyrex baking dish. We then added the squash and drizzled it with sour cream and red chili, then we added another layer of chili soaked tortillas, then the chopped chicken meat and requeson and red chili, Finally we added a third layer of six chili soaked tortillas on top of the chicken. I grated the wedge of Asiago cheese and we covered the top of the tortillas with grated cheese and the rest of the red chili.

We placed the baking dish on a cookie sheet and then baked the enchiladas for approximately 45 minutes to melt everything.

I fetched two Negra Modelos and we drank beer and ate enchiladas for dinner.

After dinner we watched swimming and at 9:00 Death in Paradise. 

Suzette went to bed at 10:00. Finally around 10:30 I watched Katie Ledecky win the 800 freestyle, but she was pressed by Titmus of Australia.

At 11:00 I went to bed to blog this blog entry and read. 

Bon Appetit

August 1, 2024 Breakfast - pain au Chocolat and Granola. Lunch - Dirty Rice, Roasted Root Vegetables, and Mashed Potatoes. Dinner - Chicken liver Omelet with Asparagus and Brie cheese

August 1, 2024 Breakfast - pain au Chocolat and Granola. Lunch - Dirty Rice, Roasted Root Vegetables, and Mashed Potatoes. Dinner - Chicken liver Omelet with Asparagus and Brie cheese

I woke up at 3:00 a.m. to see the early Olympic competition and ate a pain au Chocolat with a cup of chai at 5:30 then I went back to sleep from 6:00 until 7:30.  At 8:30 I ate a bowl of granola with milk, yogurt, a sliced peach and a sliced fig from our garden.

At 11:00 I filed a probate in the County Probate Court and then visited Bill Turner until 1:15 when I returned home and heated a plate with dirty rice, mashed potatoes, and Roasted Vegetables.

After lunch I watched the US women basketball team beat Belgium and then downloaded 2023 Credit card statements to complete my taxes.

I cleaned a few pots and unloaded the dishwasher before Suzette arrived.

She accepted my suggestion for dinner of a chicken liver omelet and added Asparagus to the recipe. I chopped a shallot and three cloves of garlic and diced a handful of asparagus and fetched the sherry and Suzette cooked the asparagus, shallot, garlic, and chicken livers in one skillet and made a four egg omelet with melted Brie cheese in another skillet. 

I had chilled a bottle of Gruner Vitliner and poured glasses as Suzette divided the omelet in half and plated each half on a plate and poured the sautéed chicken liver mixture over the omelet.

The omelet was very filling and neither of us could finish our portion, so we will save it for breakfast tomorrow.

After dinner I lay down with a glass of cognac and blogged and read the Mapmaker’s Wife until zsuzette called me to help make the strawberry and banana flambé dish with vanilla ice cream for dessert.

The market jerked downward again today and I lost about half of what I gained yesterday.

The big news is the US. was successful in obtaining the release of five Americans and three Russian activists held in Russian jails for the release of a similar number of  Russian criminals held by Western countries.

 

Bon Appetit