March 17, 2018 Lunch – PPI Pork with apples and onion and spinach. Dinner – Grilled Ribeye steak, Sweet Potato slices and asparagus with Béarnaise Sauce and Ratatouille.

March 17, 2018 Lunch – PPI Pork with apples and onion and spinach. Dinner – Grilled Ribeye steak, Sweet Potato slices and asparagus with Béarnaise Sauce and Ratatouille.

I started the day with yogurt, granola, and Tropical fruit salad.

I then wrote my memoir for the book club.

Suzette came home for lunch.  We heated the PPI Roasted Pork, onions, and apple slices and added the last of the black beans and calabacitas and finally stirred in a pile of spinach leaves for a very tasty meal., especially with glasses of Gruet Rose Brut champagne.

I spoke to Amy for a while this morning and when she mentioned that they were coming to Albuquerque and going to Costco, I invited them for dinner.  When she asked, “What can we bring?”, I told her we were going to grill sweet potatoes and ribeye steaks, she suggested, “What if we bring asparagus?

“That sounds great. We can do an all grilled dinner.”, I replied.

So after lunch Suzette made a Quince and blackberry cobbler for a dessert for dinner and the at 1:30 returned to her seminar on Ageless Living.

I called Willy to tell him that Mom and Vahl were coming for dinner, finished my memoir, and at

about 4:00  rode to Montano and back against a 10 mpg head wind.

When I finished my shower and dressed and went to the kitchen Amy and Vahl and Willy had arrived and Suzette was slicing sweet potatoes, the two ribeye steaks, and the asparagus for grilling.

Suzette had poured glasses of Gruet Rose Brut champagne, leaving a glass and enough champagne for me.

I poured the last champagne in my glass and went to the garden and picked a T. of fresh Tarragon and a  garlic chive stalk.  When I returned I put the tarragon and the chopped garlic chive in a small enameled sauce pan with ¼ cup of white wine! ¼ cup of white wine vinegar, a dash of salt and a dash of white pepper and heated it rapidly to reduce it by ½.

Amy and Suzette put the PPI Ratatouille in a sauce pan and heated it.

I fetched a pound of butter from the garage fridge and in a larger enameled sauce pan whisked three egg yolks.  When the tarragon and wine was reduced I took it off the heat and put the egg yolks on and started adding 1 T. slices of butter and then the slightly cooled wine reduction.  I added about 19 eseoz. of butter and about I then asked Amy to stir the sauce.  I went to the wine fridge and looked for a bottle of Pinot Noir.  I settled on a 2007 Londer Anderson Valley Pinot Noir, which I poured because Suzette had brought in the grilled steak and asparagus wrapped in aluminum foil to keep warm.  When Suzette brought in the sweet potatoes we were ready to eat.  She sliced the steak and we each took slices of steak and sweet potato and several asparagus and doused them liberally with creamy Béarnaise Sauce and added spoonfuls of Ratatouille to our plates.

The Ratatouille  was very hearty and delicious.  The béarnaise was delicate. The grilled steak, sweet potato slices, and asparagus were rather paleo.  Except for the Bearnaise Sauce and wine we could have been eating this dinner 40,000 years ago.


But the Béarnaise sauce and wine brought us back to the present and elevated the meal to a really good meal.  The 2007 Londer was incredibly smooth and elegant.  It had lost all indication of the fires that year.  Sipping it reminded me why Anderson Valley Pinot Noir is my favorite American Pinot Noir, and perhaps my favorite Pinot Noir period.

After we finished the pinot, Amy opened the bottle of 2016 Ferrari-Carano Fume Blanc. When I tasted it I was surprised by its body and complexity.  The label revealed that the winemaker had aged a portion of the Sauvignon Blanc in oak barrels with malolactic fermentation, which gave the wine a buttery, vanilla taste and made for a rather pleasant wine with enough character to hold its own as an after dinner drinker.

We never made it to dessert.  Amy said she loved fruit cobbler for breakfast, so I packed a large slice of cobbler in a plastic plate and covered it with Saran for them to take home.

Later Suzette and I tried the cobbler. It was a little dried out, so it appeared that I slightly over cooked.  Suzette moistened her cobbler with heavy cream and sipped a cognac with it and said it was delicious.

I drank a cup of tea and a sip of Calvados with mine and enjoyed its cake like quality.  It definitely was not gooey, but what had happened was that when the juice dried out it created a very tasty sweetened crust on the bottom of the dish.

                                            Note the brown crust on the bottom of the dish

We watched a bit of Saturday Night Live and went to bed.

Bon Appetit

March 15, 2018 Lunch – East Ocean. Dinner – Pan Fried Cod with Black Beans and Calabacitas and Mango Salsa

March 15, 2018 Lunch – East Ocean. Dinner – Pan Fried Cod with Black Beans and Calabacitas and Mango Salsa

I ate Tropical fruit salad with granola and yogurt for breakfast.

I called Peter Eller and we decided to go to lunch at East Ocean.  I had one of the best lunches I have had in ages.  I ordered Fried tofu and mixed vegetables.  Peter wanted a seafood dish and I recommended clams.  I ordered them cooked in a spicy Szechuan sauce.  Both dishes were wonderful.  We ladled rice onto our plates and then the clams on one side of our plate and the mixed vegetables in their Mandarin sauce I of chicken stock, a bit of soy sauce and cornstarch.  We ate the vegetables and then the sauce soaked rice and then clams and their spicy sauce soaked rice.  Wonderful and the bill was $19.52 before tip.

After lunch Peter was good enough to go with me to Sprouts to shop.  I did speed shopping of mostly specials.  I bought 2 6 oz. containers of blackberries for $.77 each, a bag of Brussels sprouts for $.99/lb., an eggplant for $.99 each, and 1 ½ lb. of fresh cod filets for $7.99/lb.

I called Willy and invited him for dinner and he said he had two meetings this evening but would be available for dinner between 7:00 and 8:00.  I called Suzette and she decided to cook the cod and serve it with the PPI Black Beans and Calabacitas.  Because cod does not have a lot of flavor I suggested making mango salsa.

Mango Salsa

I finely diced 2 oz. of red onion and two mangos and two small avocados and 1 small Roma tomato and added the juice of two limes and a dash of salt and a little fresh Serrano chili and a dash of Cholula hot sauce.i  stirred the ingredients together until they became a bit creamy.

Suzette dusted the filets in a freezer bag with about 1/3 lb. of all purpose flour and a dash of salt and pepper.  She then heated peanut oil and sesame oil in a non-stick skillet and sautéed the cod filets.

She put the PPI Black Beans and Calabacitas in a pot and heated them on the stove.  I fetched the vichyssoise.  When Willy arrived at 7:10 Suzette was just finishing sautéing the first skillet full of cod.  I offered Willy a bowl of Vichyssoise and we talked while Suzette sautéed the second skillet full of cod to golden brown.

Suzette plated our dishes by ladling Calabacitas on Rotherham plate, then stacking pieces of sautéed cod on top and garnishing the cod with a dollop of mango salsa.

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I went to the garage and fetched beers. (Kirtland craft beers $199.99 at Costco).  Willy did not want a beer so I poured him a French apple cider from Normandy (Trader Joe’s for $4.99).  I drank a brown ale and Suzette drank a India Pale ale.

We enjoyed our simple dinner and talking about interesting stuff Willy is doing at work.  The cod was incredibly tender.  It fell apart at the touch of a fork.  I loved it, but Suzette thought it was previously frozen because it seemed to be a bit water logged.  I suggested that it was equally possible that the cod filets had become water logged from sitting melting ice in the meat tray in the meat counter.

Later, after Wily left at 8:00 we ate pieces of Quince tart and hot tea.

Bon Appetit

March 14, 2018 Lunch – The Range. Dinner – PPI Roasted Cornish Game Hen with sautéed onion , potato, and spinach

March 14, 2018 Lunch – The Range. Dinner – PPI Roasted Cornish Game Hen with sautéed onion , potato, and spinach

I did something heroic today.  When I went with Max to The Range for lunch I abandoned all tradition and devotion to culture and ordered a Chef’s Salad instead of Chicken fried steak.  This is the ultimate commitment to the new regime of leafy green vegetables instead of the appetite for greasy fried food from my Texas upbringing.

Max ordered a bowl of green chili stew.

After lunch I took two paintings to Ari for conservation and on the way back stopped at Café Istanbul, where I purchased, pita bread, pickled Labne in garlic, dried Moroccan black olives, a jar of cracked green olives in herbs, tahini, and chocolate halavah.

When I returned home a bit before 5:00 I made a snack plate with a tomato sliced into wedges, a dill pickle, several green olives and several black dried olives, a pita, and two balls of labne.  I made a wine spritzer by adding some club soda to some PPI mulled wine from the Christmas party.  I made small sandwiches by tearing off pieces of pita, opening them and  stuffing tomato wedges, pieces of pickle and labne into the pita pockets.

At 5:45 I went to meditate.

When I returned a bit before 7:00 Suzette was at home and had had a snack.  Neither of us were particularly hungry or interested in cooking.

Instead of grilling the two ribeye steaks  I had thawed out, Suzette put together a hasty dinner by heating the PPI lemon and rosemary stuffed roasted game hens and chopping up three previously baked potatoes to which I added a small chopped onion and she  sautéed in the same sauté pan we used last night.  I fetched the bag of spinach we bought at Costco from the garage and de-stemmed a small pile of spinach leaves that we added to the sautéing potatoes and onion for a quick vegetable accompaniment for the microwaved game hens.

I fetched a bottle of French apple cider from the garage for our drink.

After dinner I drank several cups of tea and ate several bites of Nutella from the jar.

We switched back and forth between the Locally produced PBS programs “Painting Santa Fe” and later “Painting Taos” and the latest political revelations on the national news programs until 10:00 when we went to bed.

Bon Appetit

March 13, 2018 Lunch – Salad with cheese Knackebrod Dinner P- Roasted Pork with Apples and Onions Tapa with steamed asparagus and potato soup

March 13, 2018 Lunch – Salad with cheese Knackebrod Dinner P- Roasted Pork with Apples and Onions Tapa with steamed asparagus and potato soup

I ate ½ onion bagel with cream cheese slices of red onion, Lax, and capers for breakfast.

Then at noon I went to the covered beds and picked a basket of lettuce to which I added 1 chopped Roma tomato, ¼ sliced cucumber, a few slices of red onion and 1 hard boiled egg.  I sautéed a small handful of roasted potatoes and Cornish game thigh in a skillet to warm it added that. Finally, I added the last eight kalamata olives.  It was a beautiful salad.  I sliced slices of Manchego cheese and piled them on to two round knaekebrod I had bough at IKEA and melted it for 16 seconds.

Suzette arrived late, so I cut the whole Five pound pork sirloin into chops except for the tenderloin tip that I butchered into pieces by removing the tendons.  I also put a bottle of 2016 Bieber Pere & Fils Sabine Rose from Aix-en-Provence into the freezer.  I forgot to mark this bottle but I think it is from Trader Joe’s and probably a $5.99 or $6.99 bottle.

I also sliced an apple and an onion.  When Suzette arrived she had worked 12 hours straight she she rested while I cooked the pork dish.  I decided to see if I could shortcut the recipe. I sautéed the apple and onion slices in 1 T. of butter and 2 T. of olive oil until they were golden brown.  I then added the pork and about 1 T. of Oregano leaves.  I salted and peppered the meat and ladled the cooking liquid over the meat and placed the sauté pan into a 300 degree oven for twenty minutes.

At this point Suzette was revived and went into action.  She fetched the asparagus from the fridge and cut the tough ends off and filled the steamer with water and steamed the asparagus.  She then went to the garage and fetched the PPI Vichyssoise I made on Sunday, while I made ½ cup of chicken stock and fetched the cognac and poured glasses of rose wine.  She ladled Vichyssoise into bowls and we ate a bowl of the cold soup.

She then took the sauté pan; from the oven and added the chicken stock to the pan and reduced the sauce on top of the stove over medium heat and then added the cognac and lit the cognac for a flambé effect.

When the asparagus and pork dish were ready, she served us each a plate with seven or eight asparagus and we each ladled the pork dish onto our plates.

The dinner was lovely and complemented by the rose that was one of those special French roses from Coteaux D’ Aix-en-Provence that are intentionally made as a rose, not a by ptoduct of other wine production.  The wine was 52% Grenache, 23% Syrah, 14% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Cinsault, and 3% Rolle.  A serious rose’.

We loved it with the pork dish with its creamy amalgamation of apples, onions and pork bound together by chicken stock and cognac with more than a hint of oregano.  This is one of our favorite pork dishes and is found on page 236 of Andre’ Tapa Cookbook.  We shortened the cooking time by
almost ½ by cooking the apples and onion together initially, increasing the heat in the oven to 300 degrees, and not removing the ingredients from the sauté pan at the end and simply saucing the entire dish.

After dinner Suzette wanted to eat some of her quince tart.  I asked her to heat it and to go to the garage for a container of Reddi-Whip whipped cream, which she did.  I made tea and poured us cognacs and suggested we micro-grate some lemon zest onto the whipped cream garnished tart, which gave the dish an extra lemon zip.

I finished my second piece of tart with a bit of Trimbach Maribelle Brandy.  We went to bed a little after 10:00 after watching the election returns from the Pennsylvania 18th Congressional District election in which it appeared that the democrat Conor Lamb won.

Bon Appetit

March 11, 2018 Brunch – Shrimp Omelet. Dinner – Roasted Cornish Game Hens with Rosemary, Lemon and garlic and Calabacitas and black beans

March 11, 2018 Brunch – Shrimp Omelet. Dinner – Roasted Cornish Game Hens with Rosemary, Lemon and garlic and Calabacitas and black beans

It was lousy weather today so we cooked.  While I watched the morning news programs and made a Tropical fruit salad with pineapple, papaya, orange, Mangos, and juice of a large lime, Suzette made a shrimp omelet with Melted Jarlsberg  cheese garnished with slices of avocado.

We had a wonderful breakfast that reminded us of vacations in Sayulita.  We discussed what to do and I mentioned going to the art museum.

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Then I took a nap, but Suzette awakened me at 12:30 to remind me that we had discussed the museum, so we dressed and drove to the Albuquerque Museum of Art.  We saw three interesting exhibits, a contemporary design exhibit from Africa, a political poster exhibit, an$ a U.S./Mexico Border exhibit.  My favorite piece was a Mexican blanket repurposed as a large kinetic string piece.  Here is a picture of it.



We went by Lowe’s on our way home for flour and milk, so Suzette could make a quince tart.  When we returned home Suzette made the tart.  Her secret is that she uses wine in the crust that gives the crust a lovely flavor.  The quinces were grown in the orchard at the Center for Ageless Living last summer.

While suzette was making the tart I sliced 4 cups of leeks and 41/2 cups of peeled potatoes and simmered them in 2 quarts of water and 1 T. of salt to make potato soup.

Willy called and said he would arrive at 5:00 for dinner, Suzette started prepping the Cornish game hens as soon as the tart was in the oven.  We peeled about 30 cloves of garlic and Suzette made a chicken stock and white wine sauce for the hens.  She stuffed them with a wedge of lemon and fresh rosemary from the garden, poured the sauce over them and added the cloves of garlic and roasted
them in the oven for 45 minutes at 350.

We also reconstituted the PPI Calabacitas by adding a 25 oz. can of black beans and two chopped
tomatoes.


I chilled a bottle of Kirkland Premier Cru Chablis, a new bottle of the better quality wines Costco has
recently begun offering.  As I recall this one was $18.00.


When Willy came Suzette puréed the potato soup with the emersion hand blender and added 5 or 6 T. of heavy cream but the soup seemed thin, perhaps because I covered the pot as the leeks and potatoes simmered.  We decided to let the soup simmer to thicken and we would eat the Calabacitas and beans with the Cornish game hens first.  It turned out to be one of those strange French/Mexican meals with good French wine.

                               The game hens before roasting

The Calabacitas and black beans

                                              The game hens after roasting

We each ate ½ game hen, so there are three halves left.  There was also some Calabacitas left.

We ate slices of Quince tart after dinner garnished with a dab of crema and a few flakes of lemon zest.

 Everyone was full, so I put the potato soup in the fridge in the garage.

It was another one of those homemade meals that are so comforting in front of the fireplace on a wet cold night like this evening.

Willy took a walk and I worked on taxes and discovered that Dick Armes, one of the Last Thursday Book Club members died suddenly today from complications from surgery.  I am very saddened and even shocked.

When Willy returned from his walk he heated the potato soup and ate several bowls of it.  I ate a couple of spoonfuls and found it delicious.  Thanks, Julia Child and “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”.

Bon Appetit

March 9, 2018 Lunch –PPI Chicken Dumpling Soup. Dinner – Grilled Lamb Chops, Baked Potatoes, and Garden Salad

March 9, 2018 Lunch –PPI Chicken Dumpling Soup. Dinner – Grilled Lamb Chops, Baked Potatoes, and Garden Salad

The usual breakfast. I discussed dinner with a Suzette; grilled lamb chops, baked potatoes and steamed green beans was my suggestion.
I thawed out two frozen lamb chops.

At noon I heated the Soup from last night’s meal and added several more chicken and cilantro dumplings and a T. of red miso to the soup.  When it started boiling I ladled some into a bowl and added fresh cilantro and Hoisin Sauce.  I dipped the dumplings into a mixture of hoisin sauce and Sriracha for a spicy variation.  The soup was delicious, so I ate two bowls full, which was all of it.

At 2:25 after a record close of the market thanks to a good jobs report and President Trump’s Agreement to meet the leader of North Korea and a big gain for my portfolio I rode to Montano and back and felt good when I returned.]

I rested for a bit and then worked on the water case with Scott until 4:45.  I then went to the garden and picked 10 sprigs of chives and sliced them into thin slices to garnish the potatoes and fetched the crema from the garage fridge.

Suzette has come home early from work because of problems with the internet at her Center.  While I worked she started dinner by baking several potatoes and going to the garden and picking a basket full of lettuce.

When I joined her she had cleaned the lettuce, so I began slicing 1/3 cucumber, three or four radishes, two green onions and an avocado that we added the lettuce plus some steamed green beans to make a salad.

I refreshed the salad dressing by adding the juice of ½ lemon and some olive oil while suzette made cheese and opened a bottle of 2016 Domaine des Maisones Nueves, a Beaujolais produced in Appellation Chiroubles Controlee in the commun of Saint Lager in Burgundy.  I had never drunk this wine before and I was very favorably impressed by its light clean well balanced fruity flavor.  I think
I bought it at Total Wine.



We enjoyed the first salad with lettuce we grew in our garden.

After dinner I ate an orange and a few peanuts.

Later I watched the original “The a Day the Earth Stood Still”, which is just as powerful and impressive as it ever was.

Bon Appetit

March 10, 2018 Brunch – bread smeared with fresh cheese flavored with fresh dill garnished with Lax. Dinner – Salad Nicoise

March 10, 2018 Brunch – bread smeared with fresh cheese flavored with fresh dill garnished with Lax. Dinner – Salad Nicoise

I made finger sandwiches for the meeting I had this morning. I toasted slices of whole wheat bread.  Suzette fetched fresh dill from the garden and chopped it and mixed it into the soft fresh cheese she Made last night.  I spread the dill flavored cheese onto the toasted bread that I had cut into thirds to make finger sandwiches. I then sliced Lax and garnished each sandwich with a piece of Lax.  Suzette made coffee and I drank chai.

The meeting lasted until almost 2:00.  When everyone left, we drove to Costco and ate Polish dogs for a late lunch and then shopped.  We bought cream, half and half, olive oil, spinach, a whole pork sirloin, an Ali tuna steak, Jarlsberg cheese, Dubliner cheese, butter and coffee.

When we bought the tuna, Suzette suggested we had all the ingredients for Salad Nicoise for dinner.

On the way I stopped at Lowe’s and bought Zucchini squash and bananas.

 We returned home a bit before 5:00.  I was hungry so I made a peanut butter and honey sandwich and a cup of tea.

Then a Suzette said, “Let’s make dinner.” She took the PPI salad from last out of the fridge and divided it into two soup bowls and cut up another avocado.  Suzette then snapped the rest of the green beans and steamed them.  She then chopped up two of the small PPI baked potatoes and sautéed them and had boiled five eggs.  When they were firm, she cooled them and peeled, and sliced one each and placed it on the salad. Then we cut the tuna steak into four pieces and salted and peppered sautéed two of them in peanut oil.  We will eat sushi Sunday.

I sliced two green onions and chose a bottle of 2016 A. Chotard Rose de Anjou from the central Loire Valley (Trader Joe’s $5.99) 60% Gamay and 40% Grolleau.  This another excellent rose from Trader Joe’s.  Well worth trying.

I put the bottle Into the freezer to chill.  I then ladled seven or eight pitted kalamata olives onto each salad.  Suzette added the potatoes, green beans, and sautéed tuna.  I added the juice of ½ lemon and some olive oil and some of the Salt crystals we got in Mexico left on the cutting board after Suzette salted the tuna with them to the salad dressing jar and shuck it to mix it.

I opened the rose and we were ready to eat.  This was a real Nicoise salad, excerpt for the substitution of kalamata for French Nicoise olives.  We loved it.  The tuna was seared beautifully and the warm potatoes enriched made the salad a great choice for a dinner.

Willy arrived and ate the unused fried potatoes and washed his laundry.  We watched I.Q. with a lovely young Meg Ryan and then went to bed.

Bon Appetit