July 16, 2017 Santa Fe Folk Art Festival. Dinner Harry’s Roadhouse

July 16, 2017 Santa Fe Folk Art Festival. Dinner  Harry’s Roadhouse

I ate ½ bagel with Lax and showered and dressed and we drove to Santa Fe at 9:00.  We were transported by bus to the Folk Art Festival, which is and aggregation of over 100 craft cooperatives from all over the world, mostly sponsored by American galleries they own or are affiliated with.  We walked through all the galleries.  I was not in a buying mood, but enjoyed watching Suzette examine things.  We met a Doug Turner and both admitted to each other that it was hard to buy stuff when we already had houses full of stuff.  Doug mentioned, “Like Mom and Dad,” referring to his Mom and Dad, Bill and Regina Turner, who have travelled and lived all over the world.  I said, “Yes.”

The items we saw this year that intrigued us more than anything else were clothing items combining felt from Uzbekistan. Suzette bought a garment that combined aspects of a vest and a cape that one can wrap around oneself in four different ways and we bought four scarves that combined fabric prints combined with colored felt to give the scarf a cashmere feel.  We also bought a 48 inch round multicolored grass rug dyed with natural dyes.  Suzette bought a pair of sandals and a woven reed runner from Malaysia bound in an intricate pattern of red threads.

The reason why we go on Sunday is because after 1:00 the booths can discount their prices.  We garnered discounts of from 20% to 50% with just a bit of bargaining and ended up paying a total of $400.00 plus tax.  The Ghanaian rug was the most expensive item with an original price of $250.00 that we bought for $150.00.

After viewing the sixty or seventy booths below the plaza we went to the plaza area where there were another sixty or so booths.  It was noon by the time we arrived at the upper plaza and we were hungry, so we began looking for something to eat.  We first went to the .museum Café, but it did not have a special International menu this year, so we removed our name from the reservation list and explored for more interesting food. In the northeast corner of the plaza we found The Tres Colores food booth, which Maureen later told us is a good Mexican restaurant in Santa Fe.  We were attracted to it because it was serving fresh squash blossom burritos.  I asked the owner if we.could buy a plate of food without the tortilla and he said, “Yes.”

He took one of those five by eight inch shallow rectangular bowls and began filling it with beans, chicken, beef, onions with cilantro, lettuce, grated cheese, and fresh squash blossoms.  He filled a small container of salsa, but I did not take it.  The bowl of food with a Coke was $10.00.  We took our plate of food with two forks and ate in the artist hospitality room in the Anthropology Research building.  We liked the Tres Colores food, that reminded us of the delicious food one finds all over Mexico.  We were pleased that Tres Colores was kind enough to cater to our special dietary concerns.

After eating we visited the plaza booths and found the felt scarves.  By 2:30 we had seen and bought all the items we wanted,  so we took the handicapped golf cart shuttle to the bus stop and made or way back to the PERA parking lot by 3:15.

We called Amy and arranged to meet her at Harry’s Roadhouse for a late Sunday Lunch.  There were two specials on the menu.  Amy and I chose one of them; Enchiladas Suizo and Suzette chose a Curried Chicken Salad.  Suzette had a margarita, Amy drank a Chardonnay and I drank a Negra Modelo.  I think Harry’s Roadhouse always serves interesting well prepared food that rarely is exciting and today was not exception. The enchiladas Suizo were lightly baked tortillas wrapped around a squash, chicken, and mushroom filling cooked in a slightly picante tomatillo cream/white sauce and were served with stiff refried black beans and Mexican rice.  Suzette’s salad looked lovely with it richly yellow colored curried chicken on a bed of organic greens.

We enjoyed our meal at a table under the trees in the verdant garden among the hollyhocks.

After our late lunch we drove back to Albuquerque and collapsed after our big day of shopping.  We watched Masterpiece Theatre and then Suzette went back to bed at 10:00 and I blogged a bit longer.

Bon Appetit

July 17, 2017 Lunch – Ichiban. Dinner – Stir fried Pork with beech mushrooms, onion, corn, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, and sweet bok choy

July 17, 2017 Lunch – Ichiban. Dinner – Stir fried Pork with beech mushrooms, onion, corn, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, and sweet bok choy

I ate the other half bagel smeared with goat cheese and garnishedvwith sliced onion, Lax , and Roma tomato for breakfast and then we rode north to a Campbell Rd. and back.

I then went to the liquor license hearing at 9:00 where VinDacia was approved for its wholesaler license.

I worked until 11:30 and then drove to Ichiban at the northwest corner of Alameda and Coors where I met Bill Tryon and his paralegal, Pete, for lunch and a discussion of a real estate property problem that they asked me to help them with.

I ordered a Chirashi lunch and specified what fish to include and which to not include.  The sushi chef followed my instructions perfectly.  I think there is no resistance to following a diner’s request because the chef appreciates that the diner knows the food well enough to make an informed reasonable request.  I ordered green tea and again was pleased with the quality of the tea.

Bill and Pete ordered tempura.

I talked so much that I was unable to eat much of my chirashi and took quite a lot of it home.

I thawed a pork chop out when I arrived home for dinner.  My idea was to combine the PPI Pork and stir fried vegetables with more fresh stir fried pork and vegetables.

When Suzette arrived we discussed several options and settled on sautéing the Pork, onion, zucchini, and Beech mushrooms and then bok Choy  and combining it with the PPI Pork and stir fried vegetables.   I first minced 1 ½ T. of ginger root and about ½ T. of garlic, which I added to the diced pork and beech mushrooms, which I cooked until the pork turned gray from red.  I removed the pork and mushrooms from the wok, leaving as much of the garlic and ginger as possible to which I added the zucchini and onion, which I cooked covered for about fifteen minutes until they were cooked.

Suzette wanted to add fresh basil instead of soy and Chinese Cooking wine, so she ran to the garden and plucked a small handful of basil leaves and chopped them and added them to the stir fry when I added the bok choy. I stir fried the mixture for a couple of minutes and then returned the pork and mushrooms to the wok and added the PPI stir fried vegetables and cooked the mixture uncovered to try to drive off as much liquid as possible.  Soon everything was cooked and ready to eat.  I filled our plates with the pork and vegetable dish.

 

Suzette declared the dish wonderful and said that most diets recommend protein and vegetables, which is what we achieved this evening.

Suzette drank PPI rose’ wine and apple cider and I drank a mojito with dinner.

We each ate a piece of chocolate later in the evening with a glass of spirits; cognac for Suzette abs Calvados for me.

We are beginning to feel our bodies responding to our increased exercise and new diet.

Bon Appetit

July 15, 2017 Brunch – Pork and Eggs. Dinner – Broiled lobster and steamed clams with Steamed Broccoli and Cauliflower with Mornay Sauce

July 15, 2017 Brunch – Pork and Eggs.  Dinner – Broiled lobster and steamed clams with Steamed Broccoli and Cauliflower with Mornay Sauce

I ate granola, yogurt, grapes, and milk for breakfast.  Then we rode the 15 mile Southern Loop.

We were tired when we returned and Suzette was hungry, so she made an omelet with PPI pork from last night’s dinner plus some mushrooms.

It was delicious.  We then spent several hours planning and booking our trip to Maine.

At about 2:30 we drove to Home Depot to buy a toilet mechanism for the house and several of Suzette's projects.  I was so jazzed to be going to Maine that after HD we drove to Talin to buy a lobster and clams for dinner.  I bought a beautiful 2.6 lb. lobster and we bought 12 medium sized clams that Suzette thought looked particularly nice.

When we returned home around we discussed wines and decided upon a Sancerre.  I went to the basement a found a bottle of Sancerre and put in the freezer to chill while Suzette took the mini to get it washed.





Then I heated a pot of water to the boil and boiled the lobster for three or four minutes to kill it and then removed the lobster from the water.  I then de-flowered 1/3 head each of a broccoli and cauliflower and steamed them.

Mornay Sauce

While the vegetables were steaming I made a mornay sauce. I started by melting three T. of butter plus pressed two cloves of garlic and three T. of flour cooked in a sauce pan for three minutes to cook the flour.  I also added ¼ tsp. of salt, a dash of white pepper, and a dash of nutmeg to the skillet.  Then I began adding milk and whisking the mixture to thin it out  and then stirred it to allow it to thicken. I sliced about 2 oz. of Jarlsberg cheese and added that to the sauce and stirred the sauce to blend the cheese into the sauce.  After a bit when the sauce had thickened, I added 2 T. of Amontillado sherry.

   Notice how the sauce has thickened and become homogeneous by constant stirring .

When Suzette returned we decided to broil the lobster with butter compounded with tarragon and thyme and garnished with lemon slices.  Suzette picked tarragon and thyme in the garden .  I split the lobster open from head to tail with a knife and lay it flattened on a baking tray.  I then removed about 2 T. of the leaves from the stalks of the tarragon and thyme and chopped them with a clove of garlic and Suzette pushed those ingredients into about four oz. of softened butter to make a Beurre Marie and we coated the exposed lobster meat with the compounded butter mixture.  Suzette then heated the

broiler on the stove and placed the lobster into the oven.

She then filled a large Le Creuset Casserole about 1/3 full with water from the pot used to kill the lobster plus some butter and PPI white wine and placed the clams into the broth.  I threw in a sprig of thyme and we lidded the Casserole and turned up the heat under it to get the broth to a boil to open and cook the clams.

   Notice how Suzette stacks the clams into the Casserole.

I then poured glasses of Sancerre and melted 4 oz. of butter in a bowl in the microwave to which I added the pan dripping from the compounded butter when we removed the lobster from the broiler after about ten minutes of broiling.  Suzette removed the ten clams that had opened and I poured about two cups of the broth in which we cooked the clams into a Pyrex measuring cup to dip the clams into and to drink.  My favorite part of steamed clams is the clam broth.

The meat of the lobster had just congealed and we both realized that it needed more cooking after we removed the meat from the tail section.  Suzette heated her plate Of lobster and vegetables coated with the mornay sauce for 45 seconds, which proved to be a bit too much because the lobster meat toughened and lost its soft watery texture.  I heated my plate for 22 seconds and that seemed to firm the meat without it toughening.  Voila.  After we ate the tail meat we refreshed our vegetables and mornay sauce and attacked the claw meat with hammers and forks.  The combination of clams, vegetables, mornay sauce laced with garlic, tarragon, thyme, and nutmeg and lobster meat drenched in butter sauce was very delicious, but quickly satiated us.  I could not finish my claw meat and a
clam, so it became a PPI.

    The broiled lobster

   The plated lobster tail beside the steamed vegetables coated with mornay sauce

We threw the remaining small claws, tumuli, and lobster shell into the pot of water in which the lobster was boiled plus the remaining clam broth and cooked it while we finished the bottle of Sancerre and watched “Lion”, the story of a five year old Indian boy who gets lost and is raised by a family in Australia, who at the age of 26 figures out where he grew up and returns to India and finds his birth mother.  A lovely story.

We took an intermission from the movie to pour ourselves a glass of cognac and Suzette had a chocolate.

This one one of the greatest meals from a quality of food perspective in a very long time.

The lobster was $18.88/lb. for a total of $50.00.  There was a feature on the financial news on Friday that said that in this year’s harvest of lobsters is larger than usual but the price per pound has not collapsed as it did in the past because sales of lobster to the Chinese market has increased from $1 million about seven years ago to an estimated $84 million this year and that a lobster the size of our 2.5 lb.er would be $100.00.  So, I am happy for the lobstermen, the Chinese, and the ability of the global distribution system for lobster to deliver a beautiful live 2.5 lb. lobster to my local fish market for a reasonable price.

Bon Appetit

July 14, 2017 Lunch – PPI steak, Chinese Vegetables, and Sautéed Squash. Dinner – Roasted Pork, onion, and Apple Tapa with sautéed Squash and onion and basil

July 14, 2017  Lunch – PPI steak, Chinese Vegetables, and Sautéed Squash. Dinner – Roasted Pork, onion, and Apple Tapa with sautéed Squash and onion and basil

We rode to Rio Bravo and followed Pierre’s suggestion of starting and stopping the bike with one of our feet on the curb.  That reduced the strain on Suzette’s hip considerably and she felt invigorated and we had a great bike ride.

Luke called during the morning with the news that he had been hired by the juice bar chain that he had interviewed with for the job of assistant manager near his home in Silver Lake in L.A.  We congratulated each other on the fact that he was on his way to financial stability.

For lunch I went to the garden and picked a few more snow peas and de-stemmed them and added them to the six or seven other peas and peas Sprouts I had collected in the last few days and lay them on a plate and covered them with PPI Chinese Vegetables with Pork  and lay next to that pile the remaining small pile of PPI squash and onion and remaining three pieces of steak from last night’s dinner and heated them in the microwave.

Later in the afternoon I spoke to Willy about coming over for dinner at 6:30 after Suzette finished her nail appointment at 5:00, so at 5:30 I ate a peanut butter and honey on toasted nine grain bread sandwich with a cup of tea.

I then sliced 1 ½ gala apples and 1 onion and went to the garden and picked six stalks of oregano for the Roasted Pork Tapa from Jose Andres’ Tapa Cookbook recipe.

Suzette returned at 6:00 and we decided to dice the remaining ½ of the yellow squash she brought home yesterday and sauté it with ½ half of a medium onion diced and asparagus stalks diced as the vegetable.  I snapped and diced ten stalks of asparagus and cubed the onion and squash and two cloves of garlic and went to the garden and topped the basil plants and sliced the dozen leaves I picked.  While Suzette was sautéing the apple and onion slices in Spanish olive oil for the tapa, I sliced the pork tender into nine ¾ inch thick slices.  When the apple and onion slices had softened Suzette lay the pork slices in the sautée pan and placed the oregano sprigs on top of the ingredients and roasted them in a 300 degree oven for fifteen to twenty minutes to cook the pork.

After placing the pork in the oven Suzette heated butter and olive oil in a large skillet and added the vegetables and we sautéed them for a few minutes to coat them with grease and then covered them with a wok cover to steam and lowered the heat until they were cooked and then added the strips of basil and tossed the ingredients together.

When the pork was cooked, Suzette finished the tapa dish by removing the pork slices from the sauté pan and adding ½ cup of chicken stock to the sauté pan with the onion and apple slices and stirring it until the sauce thickened slightly.  She then added 1 T. of cognac instead of the recipe’s specified Spanish brandy and returned the pork slices to the sauté pan to heat and coat them with sauce.

Willy arrived at 6:45 and started his laundry and we decided to eat at the table under the gazebo in the garden.  I filled the Mexican copper wine bucket ¼ full with ice and water and then placed the bottle of 2015 Carayon Rose’ and the PPI 2015 Benton Lane Rose’ of Pinot Noir in the bucket and Willy took it to the garden table.  I heated the small container containing the remaining PPI Paella and Suzette plated the dinner and we carried our plates to the garden.  There was a slight breeze that cooled us and we heard music in the air, perhaps from the Zoo as we enjoyed our favorite pork tapa dinner with the lovely light French Carayon rose’ in the twilight and talked about houses, since a Willy is interested in buying a house.

After dinner we watched Honduras play Canada to a 0 to 0 tie in CONCACAF Gold Cup competition until 10:00 when we went to bed and said  goodnight to Willy, who stayed to finish his laundry.

Bon Appetit

July 13, 2017 Lunch – Sumo Sushi. Dinner – Grilled Ribeye steak, mango salsa, and sautéed squash and onion

July 13, 2017  Lunch – Sumo Sushi.  Dinner – Grilled Ribeye steak, mango salsa, and sautéed squash and onion

It was raining so we did not ride this morning.  I watched the finish of Stage 12 of the Tour de France which was very exciting because Aru beat Fromme by 22 seconds and went into the yellow jersey as leader of the race by 6 seconds.

I talked to Pavn and Moran Johal and they told me they were going ahead with the purchase of the land in Fairfield, so I re-wrote the purchase Agreement.

I also had a good conversation with Andres Rosales who is the tenant at the candy store and said he was ready to move forward with the project, which is also good news.

I met Robert Mueller for lunch at Sumo Sushi, which is connected to Amerasia at 800 3rd Street around 1:00.  Robert had his dog, Lothar, with him, who lay beside him under the sushi bar.  I looked at the menu and decided to get my usual of stuffed tofu and Pork filled steamed buns from the Amerasia kitchen.  Robert is also watching his diet and ordered a sashimi salad which was a pile or organic greens covered with ten slices of sashimi.  He seemed to like the salad, but I was put off of it because it cost $16.95.  My lunch cost $7.50.

   

         The sushi bar at Sumo Sushi

        My steamed buns and stuffed tofu

After lunch I went home and was pleasantly surprised that the market and Apple stock had ticked up today.

At 5:30 I went to the garden and picked two zucchini and three snow peas.

Suzette came home at 6:00 with a yellow squash, so we decided to grill one of the ribeye steaks I bought yesterday and make mango salsa and sautéed squash and onion for dinner.

Mango Salsa

4 mangoes diced

1/3 Vidalia onion finely diced

2 oz. poblano chili finely diced

Juice of two limes

½ cup of finely diced jicama

I combined all the ingredients in a bowl and tossed them to coat them with lime juice.

Sautéed Vegetables

1 zucchini diced

½ yellow squash diced

½ cup fresh minced oregano

½ onion diced

1 clove of garlic minced

Suzette sautéed the ingredients in butter and olive oil and grilled one of the ribeye steaks to medium rare.

Suzette complimented me on my precise cutting of the cubes of squash which gave the squash dish an orderly composition.

I opened a bottle of 2015 Barbera di Asti from Trader Joe's.

We ate our simple but delicious meal at the table under the gazebo in the garden.

Later I ate a few green grapes for dessert.

Bon Appetit

July 12, 2017 Lunch – PPI Stir fried Vegetables, fried tofu, and Pork. Dinner – Reconstructed Paella

July 12, 2017 Lunch – PPI Stir fried Vegetables, fried tofu, and Pork. Dinner – Reconstructed Paella

I are granola, cherries, ½ mango, yogurt and milk for breakfast before Suzette and I rode to Montano by way of the new Aldo Leopoldo path starting at the Nature Center and going north.

After two appointments in the morning I had a bite of cold PPI vegetables before dashing to a bankruptcy hearing at 1:15.

After the meeting I drove to the bank and then to Costco to re-fill my new  prescription, where I tried a new chicken and cilantro dumpling that was quite delicious, so I bought a 3 lb. bag of them for $5.99.

I decided to go shopping for groceries.  I receive the weekly flyers from the grocery stores that describe their featured items.  This week I noticed that Albertson’s was featuring boneless rib eye steak for $4.97/lb. I actually made an error when I went to Albertson’s because I thought Wednesday was senior discount day when seniors receive an additional 10% discount.  I found out at the checkout counter that the senior discount is only available on the first Wednesday of the month,  still, Boneless rib eye steak for $4.97 is the cheapest price I have seen in a long time, so I bought almost ten pounds of them.  I also bought a dozen extra large eggs for $.77 and a nice large avocado for $.97.

I then went to El Super because their flyer offered ataulfo mangoes for 5 for $.99.  I bought ten and regretted having bought 3 mangoes at Sprouts last Sunday for $.50 each.  I also bought two chayote for $.89, a head of cauliflower and a head of broccoli for $.50/lb., a pineapple for $.89/lb., a papaya for $.50/lb., and limes for $.33/lb.  Tropical fruit salad is on the menu for next week.  I also bought five tomatillos for $.50/lb. a bulb of jicama at 4lb. for $.99.  It is the period of greatest abundance or produce and fruits in Mexico.

I remember being in PV for my birthday at this time of the year once when Scott and I went shopping for groceries at a mini Super up the hill in the center of town and I was the 10,000th customer and won a twenty two pound bag of mangoes.  That is how abundant mangoes get at this time of year.

It was after 4:00 by the time I returned home.  I unloaded all the groceries and heated the bowl of vegetables, fried tofu, and pork and ate my lunch while watching Cramer on Mad Money.

        The PPI Paella was 1/2 of this quantity

    The PPI salmon with sorrel was 1/4 of this quantity

     This is the Vegetables, fried tofu, and Pork dish I ate for lunch

I then worked until 5:45 and went to the Friends Meeting Hall to meditate with Todd.  When I returned at 7:00 I found Suzette slumped in her chair unable to move after a long day of work that did not end until after 6:00.  She said she was unable to cook, so I decided to reconstruct the Paella, with the PPI Paella, PPI sausage, PPI sorrel glazed grilled salmon from Saturday night’s dinner party, and a handful of green beans we bought at Sprouts on Sunday.  I first minced two cloves of garlic from our garden, a shallot, and snapped the string beans into bite sized pieces and sliced the two small pieces of sausage and sautéed all of those ingredients in a large skillet with ½ T. of olive oil until the string beans were cooked and the sausage began to sizzle and fry a bit.

Then I added the PPI Paella and the PPI salmon.  I then made 1 ½ cup of chicken stock with Knorr dehydrated chicken stock and water and added that to the mixture which allowed me to emulsify all the ingredients.  I stirred and broke up the clumps of rice in the Paella until it became a homogeneous mixture with the new ingredients.  I cooked the mixture until the it absorbed the stock and became gooey, which is how I like my Paella.

The result was a hot delicious Paella with more flavor and more fish, vegetables, and sausage than the first batch.

I poured glasses of Benton Lane 2015 Rose’ and we had a fabulous Paella dinner as we watched the Tour de France and Rachel Maddow and Last Word until 9:00 when we both collapsed into bed.

Bon Appetit

July 11, 2017 Lunch – Lax, goat cheese, onion, and caper Bagel with asparagus and a deviled egg. Dinner – Stir fried Vegetables, Fried Tofu, and Pork

July 11, 2017 Lunch – Lax, goat cheese, onion, and caper Bagel with asparagus and a deviled egg. Dinner – Stir fried Vegetables, Fried Tofu, and Pork

I did not eat breakfast.  I ate Brunch at 11:00 with Aaron.  I made a plate with three stalks of steamed asparagus, a veiled egg and a bagel, smeared with goat cheese and layered with onion slices, capers, and slices of Lax.  I drank hot tea with milk and poured Aaron a glass of Benton Lane Rose’.

I had a snack at 5:00 of two slices of nine Gran bread; one covered with melted Jarlsberg cheese and the other smeared with peanut butter and honey, again with cups of hot tea and milk.

I started cooking at 5:30 before Suzette arrived.  I wanted to replicate my new favorite Lunch dish at East Ocean, Moo Goo Gai Pan.  We bought pork tenderloins at Costco on Saturday for $2.49/lb. so thawed out a package of two in the afternoon.  They were thawed enough to pull apart by 5:30, so I put them in separate bags in the fridge.

I then chopped vegetables, first,  4 stalks of sweet bok choy, then ½ of a vadalia onion, then I julienned a carrot, then I cut the kernels from two ears of cooked corn, then diced about ten stalks of steamed asparagus, then I split a stalk of celery and sliced it into pieces, then I trimmed ½ package of white beech mushrooms, I then sliced the rectangles of fried tofu we bought at Talin on Sunday, then about 1 T. of ginger, 1 medium bulb of fresh garlic from our garden.  I then fetched bottles of soy sauce, sesame oil, Chinese Cooking wine, oyster sauce, and peanut oil and a box of corn starch.

My menu idea was to fix a delicious, filling pork, fried tofu, and vegetable stir fry dish that could be eaten without rice.

I separated the ingredients into four different bowls, the meat cut into strips with the ginger and garlic, the green tops of the bok choy with the diced asparagus, the corn and tofu, and the white bottoms of bok choy with the mushrooms, celery, and carrot.  The reason for separating ingredients is to divide them according to each’s different cooking times.

I first sautéed the meat with garlic and ginger in 2 T. of heated peanut oil.  Then I removed the meat from the wok, leaving as much of the ginger and garlic as possible.  I then added the onion, white stalks of bok choy, carrots, and celery and stir fried that for about ten to fifteen minutes.  While the hard vegetables were cooking I made 2cups of chicken stock in a bowl.  Then I made a  thickening/seasoning sauce with 1 tsp. of sesame oil, 1 T. of soy, 2 T. of Cooking wine, 1 T. of oyster sauce,  and 1 cup of chicken stock.

I then added the green vegetables and conked them for a few minutes. Then I added the corn and tofu and ¾ cup of chicken stock to the wok and stir fried all the ingredients to mix them and then covered the wok to steam the ingredients for about ten minutes.  When Suzette said she was ready I added the thickening sauce.  It over thickened the vegetables, so I added the remaining ¼ cup of chicken sauce and then another 1/3 cup of watered down chicken stock until the sauce was thinned out a bit and did not glob onto the vegetables but instead flowed a bit.

 


We poured glasses of mint and lavender flavored green iced tea and enjoyed our bowls of vegetables with fried tofu and pork and watched the second half of Michael Cook’s PBS presentation called the History of China, while we ate, which seemed completely appropriate for tonight’s meal.

Bon Appetit