August 17, 2019 Breakfast – Bacon and tomato, and cheese Scrambled Eggs and a Man on a Raft. Lunch – PPI Chirashi and Stir fried Fried Tofu and Mixed Vegetables. Dinner – Shell Club Meeting

August 17, 2019  Breakfast – Bacon and tomato, and cheese Scrambled Eggs and a Man on a Raft.  Lunch – PPI Chirashi and Stir fried Fried Tofu and Mixed Vegetables. Dinner – Shell Club Meeting

I slept in a bit this morning.  Then I watched the last five  minutes of Arsenal v. Burnley.  We made breakfast during Liverpool v. Southampton.  We fried five pieces of bacon and Suzette made a three egg scramble with small fresh halves of tomatoes from her garden in Los Lunas, a few pieces of thinly sliced green onion,  and Jarlsberg cheese.  I wanted to use one of the slices of our new loaf of Jewish Rye to make a man on a raft, which is made by tearing a hole in a slice of bread approximately the size of an egg yolk, toasting the slice of bread on one side, then flipping it over and dropping and egg  with the yolk in the hole and toasting that side.  I dropped a few slices of green onion of the egg as the bread toasted and, finally flipping the bread again and turning off the heat to let the egg firm.

We ate in the garden under the gazebo.

After breakfast we walked, but I only made it about ½ mile. I guess some days are worse than others physically.

We had a minor emergency at the building and after that I drove to El Super to do my weekly produce shopping.

I needed avocados, cucumber, and a salted cheese for the watermelon salad we were making for the Shell Club Dinner. I bought limes, a pineapple, a ½ lb. wedge of cojita cheese, oranges, avocados, spinach, broccoli, green cabbage, yellow and red onions, cucumbers, and carrots for $20.84.

When I returned home Suzette was working on the lamps that will hang on the deck of the apartment at the Candy store remodel.

It was 1:00 and we decided to eat the PPI lunches from the last two days.  While I divided and diced the Chirashi items from Azuma Suzette stir fried the PPI Fried Tofu and Mixed Vegetables from East Ocean.

I made a cup of green tea and Suzette drank a beer.

After lunch I took a nap until 3:30 and Suzette worked on the lamp and then napped.

Watermelon Salad

I had found a recipe I liked with fresh chopped mint and basil on an Internet site named Love & Lemons with these ingredients

Watermelon Salad Recipe Ingredients

If you’ve never tried watermelon in a savory setting, you have to make this recipe ASAP. Juicy & fresh, the melon goes SO well with the other creamy, crisp, tangy, and spicy components in this salad. Here’s what makes it so delicious:

Red onion, for a sharp bite of flavor and crispy texture
Cucumber, for a cool, crisp addition
Feta cheese, for a creamy, tangy element
Avocado, for extra creaminess. Plus watermelon + lime + avocado = a match made in heaven.
Mint & basil, for fresh herbal notes (Mint & watermelon is one of my favorite combos too!)
Serrano pepper, for a little heat (if you like, these are optional)
And a bright lime dressing, to tie it all together.

Here is the recipe

Ingredients
Dressing
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons lime juice
½ garlic clove, minced
¼ teaspoon sea salt

For the salad
5 cups cubed watermelon
1 heaping cup diced English cucumber
¼ cup thinly sliced red onions
⅓ cup crumbled feta cheese
1 avocado, cubed
⅓ cup torn mint or basil leaves
½ jalapeño or serrano pepper, thinly sliced, optional
Sea salt

And the

Instructions
Make the dressing: In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, lime juice, garlic and salt.
Arrange the watermelon, cucumber, and red onions on a large plate or platter. Drizzle with half the dressing. Top with the feta, avocado, mint, and serrano pepper, if using, and drizzle with remaining dressing. Season to taste and serve.

I peeled and diced ½ seedless melon into a large mixing bowl.  There were slightly more than five cups of melon. Then I peeled and diced and added a cucumber and a thinly sliced 1/3 cup of red onion. I went to the garden and picked a handful of basil leaves and three or four stalks of mint. I rinsed the herbs and sliced the central stem out of the larger basil leaves and de-stemmed the leaves from the mint and chopped them and added them to the salad.  At this point Suzette Suzette joined me in the kitchen and asked if she could help. I asked her to make the dressing with 4 T. of lime juice, 3 T. of olive oil, and 1 clove of garlic.  We decided to eliminate salt from the dressing because the cojita cheese was very salty.  Suzette suggested crumbling the cojita cheese into the dressing to reduce some of its saltiness and to add a bit of saltiness to the dressing. While Suzette made the dressing, I diced two small avocados and added them.  Suzette then added and tossed the salad and we covered the salad bowl with Saran.  I grabbed the new Cowrie specimen Guide by Lorenz that Suzette bought me for Christmas and a bag with four different Zoila Venusta and at 5:15 we left for Tom and Donny’s house in northern Rio Rancho and arrived at 6:00 p.m.

Tom edits the national shell collecting magazine, The Conchologist, so he had several new shell related books on the table.  I added my shells and book.  Tom praised a new book titled Beyond Extinction by Wolfgang Grulke that examines how a number of ocean living invertebrates like nautilus, and jellyfish are adapting to global warming and changes in the ocean in an easily readable text with lots of photos. I looked at it and mentally put it on my must read list.

Three of the six men who were members are world authorities on a genus of shells, so there was a lively discussion of news and how the taxonomy for invertebrates worked.  Here is the definition of genus.

Genus. From Biology-Online Dictionary | Biology-Online Dictionary. Definition. noun, plural: genera. (taxonmy) A taxonomic category ranking used in biological classification that is below a family and above a species level, and includes group(s) of species that are structurally similar or phylogenetically related.Sep 12, 2016. Wikipedia

Tom wrote the guidebook on Nerites. Bruce wrote the guidebook on Epitonium or wentletraps.  DescriptionEpitonium is a genus of small predatory sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks. Epitonium is the type genus of the family Epitoniidae, the wentletraps. The common name wentletraps is derived from the Dutch word wenteltrap, denoting a spiral staircase. Wikipedia

The new member is working on the team of shell scientists cataloging and preserving a new find of fossilized Cretaceous mollusks found in the Bisti Badlands. Apparently they include previously named species, but the find will extend the species’ known habitat.

Suzette and Tom’s wife, Donny, talked and drank margaritas in the kitchen and then prepared the meal. It is hard to decide which group had the better time.

After about two hours dinner was served.  Baked salmon, a Mediterranean tomato, olive, cucumber salad Donnie made, and our watermelon salad plus slices of a good French baguette.  Mike brought a bottle of 2017 Pine Ridge Chenin Blanc/Viognier blend and there was also a bottle of unoaked chardonnay that was drinkable.

After dinner Donnie served each of us a small bowl of vanilla gelato with a bowls of fresh sliced peaches and raspberries to garnish the gelato and a platter of chocolate mint cookies and peanut cookies.

We had a lively discussion about allergies and dietary constraints. The result seemed to suggest that cooking for a group presents challenges that are almost insurmountable.

We left at 9:30.  When we arrived home at 10:15 we went bed immediately.

I woke at 1:00 and wrote this blog.

Bon Appetit

August 16, 2019 Lunch – Azuma Dinner- Neighborhood Cocktail Party

August 16, 2019 Lunch – Azuma  Dinner- Neighborhood Cocktail Party

I slept until 8:00 and ate my usual breakfast and then rode eight miles south to the end of the big field.

I then showered and dressed and worked a bit and then went to the bank and then picked up Peter at 12:15.  We started for the Chinese buffetbut diverted to Azuma when Peter said he was in the mood for fresh broiled fish and tempura. I ordered my usual Chirashi and Peter ordered the salmon bento box.  We had a new waitress who failed to take Peter’s order, so twenty minutes later she took Peter’s order.

My Chirashi was its usual wonderful dish of thick fresh succulent fish, salmon, Aji tuna, super white tuna, and yellowtail, and cooked octopus. I ate half and boxed the other half for lunch tomorrow

Peter’s bento was not up to snuff perhaps because to make up for her error of failing to take his order, the waitress asked the kitchen to rush his order and they cut the pieces of vegetable for the tempura to thick. Peter’s bento had a slightly sweet cucumber salad that was very nice instead of an egg roll.  His salmon was a thin slice cut vertically and a bit overcooked.  Alas a not very wonderful lunch for Peter.

I should have shared my lunch with him, but did not.

After lunch I took Peter home at 2:00 and drove home for my 3:00 arbitration hearing that lasted until 4:30.

I was so thrilled about our good luck to be selected for an episode that I wrote my check for my annual contribution to University of Texas Law School Foundation as I paid other bills.

I then talked with Matt and JJ about the shoot.  As we were finishing our conversation, mostly me trying to explain zen meditation, they received notification that the Art director and director for another episode of Briarpatch wanted to scout locations at our house next Wednesday at 1:00.  The house is going to be the star of the family this year.

As part of the shoot that just finished the crew repaired the gate and fence, reattached the fallen bricks on the brick wall and painted a portion of the front of house and the fence, besides paying us a handsome fee for the rental of the house.

Neighborhood Cocktail Party

I have developed a strategy for creating the dish that we take to our monthly Neighborhood Cocktail Party.  I go to Costco and select the most appealing finger food item that is being promoted by discounting its price.  Last month I selected pandora coated flattened shrimp that were pre-cooked and only needed to be heated and served.  I went yesterday to Costco and found that a regular item that we had bought many times in the past when our children were young was on sale, Delimex beef taquitos were discounted from $10.99 to $6.99 for a box of 66.

Salsa

When Suzette arrived home at around 5:30 with some fresh tomatoes and a desire to make the Mexican salsa we learned how to make at the cooking lesson in PV several years ago.  She roasted six tomatoes and a sliced large clove of elephant garlic from her garden at the Center in the oven and soaked several different types of mild dried chili, such as mulatto, Anaheim and guajilla.  I peeled the tomatoes and Suzette processed the ingredients with salt in the Cuisinart to make a delicious mild salsa.

Guacamole crema sauce

We had about a bowl with some guacamole in the fridge that I had made a few days ago, so I asked Suzette if we should mix the guacamole with some Mexican crema I had bought at El Super last week and she thought that was a good idea.

We both like guacamole crema.  We first discovered it about twenty years ago at the fish market in Ensenada, Baja California.  It served as an accompaniment to seafood soup (caldo de Mariscos).

There is a warren of open air restaurants around the fish market.  They have large cauldrons of fish stock simmering on a stove and bottles of ingredients on view.  You simply select your desired ingredients (such as fresh diced fish, two or three types of clams, shrimp, and/or octopus) that are placed in a small sauce pan to which some of the hot fish stock is added and heated to a boil on the stove and poured into your bowl.  Each restaurant has tables and chairs with three or four types of red and green salsas and bowls of guacamole crema.  We ate one of the best breakfasts I have ever had at the fish market in Ensenada.  Suzette wanted a clam that was not among the offered selection, so she walked into the fish market and bought a handful of the clams she wanted and brought them back the restaurant we selected and the restaurant boiled them in the fish caldo for an even fresher soup. My point is that guacamole crema is ubiquitous at the seafood restaurants in many parts of western Mexico.  I mixed crema with the guacamole and Suzette fetched s bowl to place it in.

We opened the frozen box and heated about 45 taquitos on a large cookie sheet for the suggested 9 minutes in a pre-heated 400 degree oven set on convection until they were slightly charred on the edges and very warm.  Suzette placed her bowl of freshly made salsa in the center of a new shallow serving platter and placed the taquitos around it.  She covered the platter with Saran and I grabbed the bottle of Milagro rose I had chilled and the bowl of guacamole crema I had covered with Saran and we drove to the Buckhalter’s.  Here is a picture of the food table.

Our offering was the best dish although there was a lovely platter of roasted bell pepper slices, an antipasto platter, and a platter of deviled eggs.

It was a lovely evening as we sat and ate and drank.  We actually liked the bottle of Milagro rose a lot.  It was much better than the last bottle I tasted.

At 9:20 we said goodnight, grabbed the remaining salsa and taquitos, and drove to Marble Brewery to hear the Band, Heartburn? from Austin.  After drinking a beer and saying hello to a Cynthia we drove home around 10:30 and went to bed.

Bon Appetit

August 15, 2019 “Today our house was a star.” Lunch – East Ocean. Snack – Herring and cheese and Liverwurst Sandwiches. Dinner – Hamburger Steak with Ratatouille

I could not be more proud of our house.  Today it returned to stardom.  It was recently selected for the location of an episode of BRIARPATCH, a TV series.  Today there were two or three outside shots, so it was not as intrusive as indoor shots.  There were three days of prep with painting, carpentry, pruning, and masonry to make the house look look presentable .  Then they brought in lots of plants and flowers that made the areas they were shooting look like a tropical paradise of foliage.

The crew appeared to number at least thirty or forty.  With equipment, cables, catering trucks and folks scurrying around, it looked like an army encampment after the battle lines had just moved forward.

I avoided much of it because after a breakfast of granola, milk, yogurt, and green grapes, I took a walk around the neighborhood, showered, dressed, worked until 11:00 and then left to meet Robert for lunch at East Ocean. He was late so I ordered a bowl of egg drop soup, which is one of my favorite things at a East Ocean because they make it with fresh chicken stock i think.  I ordered our usual dish, Fried Tofu with Mixed Vegetables.  Robert has eaten, but we shared a pot of tea and I ate as we discussed a case we are co-counsel on, as I hurriedly grabbed bites of food.

It was not a very satisfying food experience but it was a great lawyering experience, as we shared thoughts about how the law applied to the facts of the case. It has been years since I have shared counsel duties and worked with another lawyer as co-counsel.  That is one of the drawbacks of being a solo practitioner.

When we finished at 1:00 I drove to Costco to pick up my new prescription and buy fresh goat cheese to garnish the fresh figs from our garden in the near future.  Suzette picked seven several days ago and there are lots more still ripening.  I also looked at all the promotions and selected a box of 66 Delimex beef Taquitos marked down from $10.99 to $6.99.  Every month one family in our neighborhood hosts a potluck cocktail party. Everyone brings an item and something to drink.  We will take taquitos and salsa tomorrow night.  Picking a promotionally priced item is often how I create menus.  I study the flyers sent weekly by the five main grocery stores and select the items that are promoted that week. Last week it was fresh corn at Sprouts and eggplants at El Super.  The week before it was fresh salmon at Smith’s and hamburger meat at Sprouts.  I usually go to El Super once a week because it consistently offers produce at the best prices, with special pricing on Wednesday.

After Costco I drove to the Main Library to check out Geraldine Brooks’ Pulitzer Prize winning novel
 March. I have really enjoyed her writing.  Charlie selected her novel about the plague year in England of 1666 titled Year of Wonders as our book club selection for July and our club previously read Caleb’s Crossing.

When I arrived home at 2:00 I was informed that the shooting had ended, although people were scurrying everywhere outside the house. Sort of like an army breaking camp.

It was amazingly quiet inside with no one to disturb me so after a bit of work, I lay down and rested and started reading March until 5:00 when I made several Herring and sour cream and Liverwurst and several slices from the fresh wedge of Iberico cheese I bought yesterday at Trader Joe’s.  I like Iberico because it is the only semi-soft cheese I am aware of that combines, cow, goat, and sheep milks.

At 5:15, the last crew came to re-set the items they had moved inside that showed through the windows back to their original places. Soon Matt brought me the location rental check for the shoot
and I then left to go meditate at 5:50.

Dennis was waiting when I arrived at 6:03 at the Friends Meeting House, so there was no delay in sitting and we finished our little routine by 6:45.

When I returned home suzette was heating the pot of ratatouille I made last night on the stove.   While I fetched a bottle of Louis DuBlanc Cotes du Blanc 2017 Cotes Du Rhone red, she made hamburgers and sautéed them and then meltedseveral slices of Jarlsberg cheese on them   Soon we were enjoying a lovely dinner as we watched Rachel Maddow explain how Mitch McConnell and the Trump administration stopped the imposition of sanctions on the Russian oligarch who Manafort worked for with Kremlin connections to get a Russian owned aluminum plant located in Kentucky.  The swamp appears to be alive and still well entrenched in Washington and Trump appears to still be working with the Russians.

After Rachel we worked on reservations for Billy and me and hopefully Suzette and Elaine to go to St. Louis to see our cousin Audrey, who is one of our last living relatives.  She is not well and her husband, Rusty, just died, so Billy and I decided we should go visit her. Audrey is one of my favorite cousins because she has an acerbic personality and is an artist, whose main body of art was creating contemporary greeting cards for Hallmark.  Here are several.

Suzette fetched a plastic container of M&Ms since we had just seen the history of Mars candy company on the history channel’s series on the history of American food.  M&Ms were created to put into K Rations for soldiers in WWII because the hard candy outer shell protected the chocolate from melting and jousting.

I went to bed at around 9:00 and Suzette soon followed.

Bon Appetit

August 14, 2019 Lunch – Vichyssoise. Dinner – Liverwurst Sandwiches and Ratatouille and cobbler

August 14, 2019 Lunch – Vichyssoise. Dinner – Liverwurst Sandwiches and Ratatouille and cobbler

The French Provençal food festival continued today.

I ate the usual breakfast: yogurt, milk, granola and fruit.  Today the fruit was fresh figs from our bush that Suzette picked yesterday.

I went to my doctor’s appointment at 9:30 and then went to the Apple store to have my IPad and I Phone checked and then to Trader Joe’s to replenish our wine.  I bought 16 or 17 bottles, 2 each of the Aquino Riserva Chianti ($5.99) that we like when we want a light red, Belles Vignes (a light French Sauvignon Blanc), and one each of a Chablis for $13.99, a Graham’s 2013 Late Bottled Vintage Port for $21.95, a Trader Joe’s Platinum Cabernet Sauvignon for $14.95, two or three new roses, a Chateau Roudier Montaigne-St. Emillon for $12.95, a Barbera de Asti for $6.99, 2 Charles Shaw organic Pinot Noirs, an Origon Gran Reserva Spanish red for $5.99 and several others.  I also bought a four pack of Artichokes, a wedge of Iberico Spanish cheese, and a freshly baked  baguette.

I then drove to Pastians Bakery and bought one loaf each of Jewish Rye and German whole wheat.

I then went to the library to drop off a book and I picked up another Geraldine Brooks novel.

I arrived home after 1:00 very hungry.  I re-discovered the Vichyssoise in the garage fridge and brought it into the house.  I went to the garden and picked five or six chives and sliced them into thin slices to garnish the vichyssoise.  I ate two bowls and began to feel better soon thereafter.

After logging the biggest drop of the Market this year, a drop of 800 points, I rested for a couple hours until after 4:00. My portfolio lost 2 ½ % of its value.

At 5:00 I became hungry again.  I cut a whole wheat dinner roll into slices and toasted them and spread mayonnaise on them and then garnished the bread with slices of Liverwurst, tomato, onion and mustard and drank a small glass of Sagnol rose and s glass of water with them.

Suzette arrived about 5:30 and James came by at 6:00 to go over Suzette’s taxes, nut I have known James for many years, so we caught up on his storied love life.

Finally around 7:30 when James left I started cooking the

 Ratatouille.

My favorite Provençal dish is Ratatouille because it is vegetarian and because the combination of ingredients produces a new dish, a vegetable stew with its own unique flavor profile.

The other thing is that it is very flexible, more or less of one ingredient does nor seem to make mush difference in the ultimate flavor or texture characteristics.

Tonight the ingredients were two zucchini, two medium yellow onions, three large cloves of garlic, one large eggplant, ½ red bell pepper, four tomatoes, and one cup of chopped oregano leaves.  I cooked the firm ingredients for about twenty minutes in a lot of olive oil because I did not want to scorch the vegetables. Then I added the oregano and tomatoes and simmered everything another thirty  minutes.  Here is what it looked like when it finished cooking.

We did not eat any tonight.  I like Ratatouille with beef, so perhaps we will eat it with a small filet in a day or two.

Suzette ate the other ½ of my chile Relleno and.beans for dinner and I drank ½ of a beer to wash down the two liverwurst sandwiches.

It seems that more and more we are eating less and less.

Although we decided to finish the blueberry and peach cobbler to make room in the fridge for the Ratatouille.  Suzette divided the remaining cobbler into two small bowls and heated them in the microwave.  She topped hers with heavy cream and I topped mine with Reddi-whip and I drank a couple of cups of Earl Grey tea with mine.

We went to bed happy.

Bon Appetit

August 13, 2019 Lunch – PPI Mahi Mahi with vegetables in foil with rice. Dinner – Provençal Scallops with Voodles

I have settled on yogurt, granola, milk, and fruit for breakfast. Today the fruit was ½ mango diced and ½ banana sliced.

I had an early telephone appointment so I showered and dressed at 7:30 and ate breakfast during the telephone conversation.

I then walked about ½ mile without a sugar pill at 10:30 and fixed lunch at 12:00. I heated the fish in foil with about 1/3 cup of brown rice and enjoyed a filling and healthy lunch.

I took a short nap and then worked until 3:45, when I started looking at the news.  President Trump deferred the tariffs on China until December 15, which triggered a monster surge of 372 points in the market in which I gained back almost all I had lost in the last two days.

I am not up much in the last 1 ½ years but I am up.

I thawed out eight scallops and chilled a bottle of Famille Perrin Reserve Cotes du Rhône White and rested until Suzette came home at 5:30.  She was tired so I cooked.  I selected a Provençal recipe for tuna from the Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  Here is the recipe I followed.

Suzette and I discussed the recipe.  She did not want a cream sauce (bechamel).  I chose one without a cream sauce that was very Provençal.

I went to our garden and picked four stalks of oregano, six or seven stalks of thyme, and six or seven chives an de-stemmed the leaves  of the thyme amid oregano and minced them.  Then I diced four ripe tomatoes Suzette picked from her garden at the Center for Ageless Living. Suzette washed and dried the scallops on paper towels. I sliced and diced ½ yellow onion, ½ shallot, and ½ clove of elephant garlic from the garden at the Center and 1 clove of regular garlic from our garden.

There is a special joy in cooking Provençal dishes in the summer when the ingredients are fresh and full of flavor.

We heated 3 T. of olive oil and 2 T. of butter in a large skillet and I added the onion, garlic, and shallot and simmered those ingredients for about five minutes and then added the tomatoes and herbs except for chives and simmered them.

All the ingredients simmering together

While the vegetables were cooking I cut each scallop in half through the middle to yield two round slices and lightly dusted them with flour and we sautéed both sides of them for a couple of minutes in a medium skillet in olive oil until their edges began to brown and then added the scallops to the other ingredients.

I added ¼ cup of white wine and Suzette added salt and pepper to the vegetables.

Suzette had made voodles by cutting thin slices off 1 1/2 zucchinis with a vegetable peeler and put them into a Pyrex loaf pan with a T. of water.she then covered the Pyrex pan with saran and put it in the microwave.  After about ten minutes of simmering I thought the flavors of the scallops and vegetables were integrated, I cooked the voodles for 2minutes and 22 seconds on high temperature.

The voodles after they have cooked and plate

I went to the garage and fetched a bottle of Sagnol rose and poured it. It was a bit drier than I recall and Suzette thought it was bad.perhaps I should have opened the white Cotes du Rhône.

This was a perfect summertime meal, light and bursting with the fresh flavors of ripe vegetables and herbs from the garden.  I am reminded of Mother’s tales of visiting Simone Beck at the compound she shared with Julia Child and her husband, Paul in Provence.  What fun they must have had cooking dishes such as the one we made tonight.

Voila

After dinner Suzette heated a bowl of her awesome blueberry and peach cobbler with cream for dessert, while I drank another glass of rose as we watched the history of food in America.  Tonight the show focused on WWII and provisioning of soldiers with Hershey bars and M&Ms that did not melt and K rations created by Kellog and the post-war automobile era with the creation of fast food restaurants by the McDonald brothers.

I nibbled a few bites of cobbler before we went to bed at 9:30 to read and blog.

Bon Appetit

August 12, 2019 Lunch – Padilla’s. Dinner – New Recipe. Swedish Meatballs with Sautéed Pasta, Mushrooms and garlic and Steamed Green Beans

August 12, 2019 Lunch – Padilla’s. Dinner – New Recipe. Swedish Meatballs with Sautéed Pasta, Mushrooms and garlic and Steamed Green Beans

This was the first day that the film crew for BRIARPATCH was present at the house.  The first shot will be outside on Thursday, but the carpenters, masons, painters, and landscape crews started getting the place ready for the shot today.  They had to prune the Rose of Sharon by the driveway, replace the bricks that had fallen from the wall, paint the bay window wood, renovate the lattice work on the fence dividing the front yard from the back yard, strengthen the gate they will shoot over, and exterminated some red ants and a wasp nest near the shot scene.

I became involved with them and was unable to ride my bike as my new water case heated up and I had to try to negotiate several hearings and finish the lease for a client we worked on on Friday.

At 12:00 when the crew went to lunch I drove to the bank and then Padilla’s and ordered a Chile Relleno Plate with Green Chile and double beans.  I ate one of the two Chile rellenos and half of the beans and the both of the sopapillas.  Padilla’s has one of the best sopapillas in town. They are fluffy and served hot to order, so they melt in your mouth and make a pleasant dessert with a bit of honey squirted inside to be warmed by the steam inside the sopapillas.

I had decided to use some of the hamburger meat to make Swedish Meatballs.  When I looked at the recipe in my Swedish cookbook, I noticed that the recipe emphasized the importance of using fresh ground pork and beef, so after lunch I drove to El Super and bought three ripe avocados for $.50 each, three vine ripe tomatoes at $.97/lb., two Poblano chilis at $.99/lb., five smoked pork chops at $3.79/lb., and 1 lb. of fresh ground pork at $2.29/lb.

When I returned home I worked until 4:30 on my water case. When I turned on Mad Money, I discovered there had been a 390 point melt down in the Dow today which translated to about a 2% drop in my portfolio thanks to President Trump’s inability to reach a resolution to the trade and currency war with the Chinese that is causing a slow down throughout the world economy, which is causing the dollar to strengthen, which will cause the US economy to slow and US companies’ profits to decrease.  Last Sunday Larry Sumners called Trumps trade and currency strategy sadistic and masochistic, because we are hurting our economy in order to hurt other countries’ economies.  Trump likes to inflict pain on others to get his way, but there will be lots of pain felt in the US by his tariff and currency war with China.

Interest rates worldwide are dropping and large companies are deferring growth strategies as worldwide consumption falls, sending the world economies into a worldwide recession and either a slowdown  or the end of the US’ longest growth cycle in history.  Just one more sad reality of Trump’s election.  The Russians and Iranians must be thrilled.  Even though they are suffering, they are more used to suffering from American economic policies than Americans will be from Trump’s self inflicted wounds to our economy.  I have over 12% of my portfolio in cash and may sell more stocks soon to raise that percentage.

At 5:45 when Suzette arrived I told her of my plan to make Swedish Meatballs and her reaction was, “Great let’s do it.”

Here is the recipe.

We put about 1 lb. of ground beef and the lb. of pork into a large mixing bowl.  Then we finely minced a medium onion in the and cooked two potatoes in the microwave and peeled them and finely minced them in the Cuisinart and added them to the mixing bowl along with ½ cup of Progresso bread crumbs.

We then added two eggs, some heavy cream, salt and pepper and mixed the ingredients with our
hands.  I then made loose balls and Suzette rolled each meat ball into a round ball with her clean hands.

We made about fifty meatballs.  Suzette then fried the meatballs in a large skillet filled with canola oil to a depth of about ¼ inch and put the cooked meatballs in a warm oven to keep them warm.

While Suzette fried the meatballs I snapped the approximately ½ lb. of haricot verts I had bought at Sprouts on Saturday and then steamed them.

 I had invited Willy for dinner and when we were about thirty minutes from being ready we called him to tell him dinner would be ready in twenty minutes.

When all the meatballs were cooked Suzette poured of the grease and deglazed the skillet with Marsala and added some butter and sautéed  the two mushrooms I had sliced with the ¼ clove of elephant garlic I  thinly sliced.  Suzette then added the bag of PPI casarecce macaroni to the skillet and heated all the ingredients.

I opened a bottle of Aquino Chianti Reserva ($5.99 at Trader Joe’s) and poured two glasses and put a third glass on the table for Willy.

Just as we were serving six meatballs on our plates, Willy uncannily arrived and we put six on his plate also and filled his glass with Chianti and chopped about two at. of parsley to garnish the plates.

After a minute I realized I forgot an important part of a Swedish Meatball meal and went to the pantry and fetched a bottle of Swedish Lingonberry preserves, which is traditionally eaten with Meatballs in Sweden.

We enjoyed our dinner and a bit later after Willy left and we finished drinking the bottle of Chianti we heated some of the peach and blueberry cobbler suzette made last night. I ate mine with whipped cream and Suzette ate hers with some cream.  We also had cognacs to settle our stomachs while we watched the Antique Roadshow and then a new series on American food history.  Tonight’s segment dealt with Hershey and Mars chocolate companies and Post cereal and Birdseye.  The most interesting facts were that Birdseye brand was named for it founder who created commercial refrigeration for food. Marjorie Post bought his company for $22 million in the 20’s and became the richest woman in America, because she bought up many other brands and created General Mills as one of the first great food conglomerates.

She built many great houses, one of which was Mar A Lago, now owned by the President.

At 9:30 we went to bed happy and full.

I had finally made one of the greatest Recipes of Swedish Cuisine, thanks to Suzette’s help.  The lingon preserves had been waiting several years for just such a moment.  The other great Swedish dish that utilizes lingon is Swedish pancakes that is traditionally served with sausages.

Bon Appetit

August 11, 2019 Lunch – Eloisa.  Dinner – Mahi Mahi cooked in foil with rice

Today was full of activity.  I watched the English Premier League match in which Arsenal beat Newcastle and the news programs. At 9:00 I toasted a whole wheat everything bagel and spread it with cream cheese and then laid slices of red onion and gravad Lax and capers and drank hot earl grey tea with milk.  Suzette made a scramble of the PPI smoked trout with truffle oil and eggs and I ate a few bites of that before I ate my bagels with cups of hot tea.

After the news shows and soccer ended at 10:00 we drove to Santa Fe to the weekly Traders’ Market in the parking lot at De Vargas Shopping Center.  Most folks inside and outside the booths were older than me.  To give you an example, I saw a man walking with the aid of a walker with an oxygen tank strapped to it.  I guess the desire to acquire things never dies.

I saw an old Mexican silver pin with the moon and a star that was very detailed for $125.00.  I showed it to Suzette and she liked it so we bargained and I bought it for $90.00.  We later did research and found a similar one on line for $125.00.

Suzette found two interesting molded glass plaques of mermaids that appeared to date from the deco era.

We then decided to leave the Traders’ Market and try to find an outdoor table and chairs for Willy’s apartment.  We first drove to Stephen’s and then to Congerie.  We found nothing at Stephen’s and only two IKEA cabinets at Congerie.  At 12:30 we decided to go to lunch,  we drove Owens Gallery and parked and walked to The Shed, but the Shed was closed.  Suzette suggested we walk up the street to Eloisa at the Drury Lane Hotel.

When we arrived at the restaurant we saw that it was offering a limited brunch menu but decided to eat there because we admire its chef, John Sedler’s culinary skills.  Once we looked at the menu we both focused on two dishes, fried calamari with aioli sauce and grits and eggs served on a bed of red chili.  Suzette ordered a Bloody Mary and I ordered a blood orange and apple cider and we had a lovely light meal by sharing the two dishes.  We were soon brought two slightly sweetened blue corn muffins with a small bowl of honey and almond flavoring infused whipped butter suffused with almond slivers.

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We loved both dishes.  The calamari was splendid coated in rice flour and flash fried in a light oil like canola with a pile of pickled carrot and onion and served with a very light non-greasy aioli sauce. The grits, poached eggs and red chili was a fabulously creative dish.  The red chili’s heat was tempered by the addition of tomato coulis to the chili to make a much thicker and milder red chili, but the muffins were the best part of the meal.  We ate the first before our food arrived and ordered a second basket that we ate for dessert.  The blue corn muffin slathered with the sweetened almond flavored butter
was better than any other dessert we could think of.

After lunch we drove home. When we arrived home we took a nap until 4;30.

I read Year of Wonders until 6:00  and then we began to cook.  I had bought a 1 lb. Mahi Mahi filet
on a Saturday morning at Sprouts.

I chopped elephant garlic and zucchini into half moon shapes and then sliced thin slices of each half and thinly sliced two green onions while Suzette rinsed and cut the Mahi Mahi filet into three sections and fetched six sections of aluminum foil and scraped slices of carrot and diced two tomatoes picked from her garden at the Center.

She then lay one fish section in the middle of each piece of foil and sprinkled the other ingredients on top plus a pad of butter and some white wine after she crimped the sides of the foil into a bowl shape.

 

She then crimped the first foil piece into a sealed envelope and then crimped the second piece of foil around the first sealed envelope to create a double sealed envelope and baked the three envelopes in the oven for thirty minutes at 350 degrees.

The result was a baked fish dinner.  We do not eat a lot of chili but in Mexico this dish usually includes chili strips.

I opened a bottle of bottle of Santiago Station Chilean Sauvignon Blanc ($4.00 at Total Wine).

We heated the PPI brown and sushi rice and added a few spoonfuls of rice to our bowls and then dumped the contents of the envelopes onto the rice for a stew.   I ate the broth that was left and it was the best part of the meal.  This is a very healthy dinner.

I slept well all night.

Before starting dinner Suzette made a peach and blueberry cobbler. I had bought five peaches at El Super a week ago and an 18 oz. container of blueberries last week at Sprouts.  Suzette used her jiffy cobbler recipe

 

After dinner Suzette ate some cobbler.

We switched between Poldark and a documentary about the founding of Heinz brands, Kellogg cereals, and Coca Cola in the late 1800’s and then watched Grantchester and went to bed and read and blogged a bit after 9:00.

BoN Appetit