June 20, 2020 Lunch and Dinner – Shrimp Salad Stuffed Avocado Salad

June 20, 2020 Lunch and Dinner – Shrimp Salad Stuffed Avocado Salad

We got up at 5:30 and watched the sun rise in the Great Kiva and along the north wall of the Aztec Ruins in Northwest New Mexico.  They are both astronomically oriented to the rising sun on the summer solstice and the setting sun on the winter solstice.

Then at 7:15 we drove to Kit Carson Park and walked to the beaver pond.  We did not see a beaver this morning, probably because we were an hour late.

I drove home and Suzette walked home.  We checked and it was a ¾ mile hike to the beaver pond and back to the car and a bit more than 1 mile all the way home for Suzette.

We rested for a while and then made a fancy shrimp salad to stuff into one of the large avocado halves we bought this week.

Shrimp salad

We cooked 12 large 16-20 count shrimp that I then cubed into 10-12 pieces each.  I then finely minced two stalks of celery and Suzette boiled two eggs. Suzette broke up several leaves of bibb lettuce and I peeled seeded and diced 1/3 cucumber.  I made my favorite dressing that isa amalgam of three sauces, cocktail sauce, mignonette, and Louis sauce.

Bob’s combo dressing

I start by mincing a medium shallot and covering the pieces with lemon juice so it will start cooking the shallot.  Then I add to taste: horseradish, mayonnaise, catsup, and a few drops of hot sauce, if you want it to be picante.

We mixed the shrimp with the dressing and folded in the two eggs that we diced.  Suzette then composed the salad with a bed of bibb lettuce on which she placed an avocado half filled with shrimp salad and added a bunch of red seedless grapes to each plate.

We poured glasses off Sagnol rose’ from Provence, France and toasted slices of French baguette in our new toaster that Suzette gave me for Father’s Day.

We carried our lovely lunch to the garden table to eat.  The salads were more than either of us could eat so we saved ½ for our dinner and enjoyed them for dinner.

We ate ice cream for dessert and watched our favorite shows, Father Brown and Death in Paradise and went to bed at 10:00.

Bon Appetit

June 19, 2020 Lunch – 2000 Vietnam No. 21. Dinner – Hamburger with Ratatouille

June 19, 2020 Lunch – 2000 Vietnam No. 21. Dinner – Hamburger with Ratatouille

I awakened at 4:30 and went back to bed at 5:30 and slept until 7:00.

I ate a bowl of granola, milk, tropical fruit, and yogurt and watched the Market open.  At 8:30 I rode 6 miles south and back.

I invited Willy to join me for lunch.  I ordered two No. 21s from 2000 Vietnam with extra fish sauce for dipping for $20.00.

Willy arrived just after me.  We grabbed a glass of water and took the styrofoam boxes to the garden table and enjoyed a really delicious lunch.  I like to eat lots of carbs after a bike ride to keep my strength up. Eating a No. 21 with Willy at Friday lunch is becoming a tradition.

No. 21 is my favorite summertime lunch.  It contains three layers: a chilled layer of chopped lettuce, mung bean sprouts and herbs on the bottom, then a warm layer of freshly boiled vermicelli rice noodles in the middle, and finally grilled marinated slices of pork and two crisp deep fried pork filled egg rolls each cut into four sections on top.  I usually add fresh cilantro as I did today.  The dish comes with two small containers of fish sauce that are drizzled over the warm noodles to soften and flavor them and the vegetables.  I usually get an extra container of fish sauce to dip the egg roll sections into to flavor them.



I was hungry and devoured my lunch.  Willy was a little more restrained and nibbled the vegetables and meat toppings, leaving some of the noodles.

At 2:00 I checked the market. It had been all over the place today and ended down a bit more than 200 points.  I lost a little today as the market ended down and my portfolio ended where it closed four days ago.  The market has been going sideways for the last four days ready to be pushed up or down by the next big economic event.

The three big political events of the week, the Supreme Court’s decision affirming that the federal anti-discrimination in hiring and firing law protects gays from being fired and the decision that Trump’s attempt to reverse Obama’s Executive DACA decision to stay the deportation of children brought to the US without proper visas and the publication of John Bolton’s tell all book about working with Trump as his National Security Advisor were hugely important from society’s standpoint but had no discernible effect on the market.  I was immensely proud that the judiciary is still functioning. At least one branch of our tripartite government is still working.

After lunch I took two hamburgers from the freezer to thaw and then read about the capture of Vicksburg by Grant by siege on July 4, 1865 and rested from 3:00 to 5:00.  At 5:30 I started making

Ratatouille.

I diced 1 ½ onions, 6 cloves of garlic, ½ red and ½ green bell pepper, I Eggplant, three small zucchini squash, and four tomatoes and ¾ cup of fresh chopped oregano. We sautéed the ingredients in a large casserole on the stove at low heat and then Suzette added some water to prevent scorching.  After about an hour the vegetables cooked into a stew.

After lunch I had thawed out two hamburgers from the freezer.  Suzette sautéed these on the stove and I opened a bottle of 2012 Tuella Portuguese red wine ($6.99 in 2015 at Trader Joe’s).  I had the distinctive flavor of the blend of many grapes characteristic of Port, but seemed to have lost some of the fruitiness I recalled of less aged  bottles.

Suzette asked me what cheese I wanted on my hamburger and I said, “Cheddar”.

She sliced two slices of Dubliner cheddar and laid one each on the top of each hamburger after she flipped them and put a lid on the skillet to melt the cheese.

I did the same with the Ratatouille. I put the lid on the casserole to speed the cooking and integration of flavors.

At 7:30 we were ready to eat. Suzette spooned a pile of Ratatouille into a bowl and placed the hamburger on top and she squeezed catsup on top to make a stack.  I squeezed catsup on two sides of my hamburger to make a pond.

I poured glasses of wine and we added lots of ice cubes to chill the wine and carried our glasses and plates to the garden table.

It was a warm evening but it was beginning to cool down a bit and there was a slight breeze that made it very pleasant to be outside.

My steak was a little tough but the Ratatouille was wonderful.  I love this vegetable stew.  It is the essence of summer.

We sat and talked as we sipped our wine after eating.

Later after returning to the house I ate a few bites of pistachio ice cream and went to bed at 8:45.

I awakened at 3:30 to finish this blog after a satisfactory 6 ½ hours of sleep.

Our plan was to awaken at 5:30 to watch a summer solstice ceremony being broadcast from the Anasazi Ruins in Aztec, New Mexico, so I may not go back to bed.

Bon Appetit

June 18, 2020 Lunch – PPI Mapo Dofu and Garlic Eggplant with Grilled Lamb. Dinner – PPI BBQ Country style pork Ribs with a baked Potato and steamed string beans

June 18, 2020 Lunch – PPI Mapo Dofu and Garlic Eggplant with Grilled Lamb. Dinner – PPI BBQ Country style pork Ribs with a baked Potato and steamed string beans

I awakened at 5:00 and watched the news and ate granola, tropical fruit salad, milk and yogurt until 6:30.

I then placed stop sell orders on most of my stocks and then began working on the brief.

At 12:30 I heated the PPI Mapo Dofu and Garlic Eggplant with Grilled Lamb.  It was awful.  I wasn’t sure if it was good to eat, because the Mapo Dofu was about two weeks old.  I ate it anyway and then went to the post office and then finished the first draft of the brief by 5:00

As I was making my gin and tonic Suzette arrived and we had a cocktail and watched the news.

We decided to sauce and heat several of the PPI BBQ country style pork ribs and bake six potatoes and steam some green beans.

I poked holes in six russet potatoes and baked them for an hour at 375 degrees.  After 30 minutes I sauced coated four pieces of BBQ pork with our new Hunt’s BBQ sauce and Suzette put some water in the bottom of the Pyrex dish we laid them in and put them unto the oven.

With ten minutes to go we started the green beans steaming and by a couple of minutes after 7:00 everything was ready.  Suzette fetched two beers from the garage fridge and I ran to the garden, grabbed six or seven chives, and sliced them thinly.

Suzette opened the baked potatoes and buttered them and divided the green beans and we each added sour cream and a small handful of chives to our potato.

The pork was awful. It was so tough as to be inedible, even when slathered with BBQ sauce. Suzette said ,”it was cooked at too high a temp for too short a time.” I suspect she was right.

The potato was delicious and the steamed string beans were okay. I ate slices of onion with my dinner, as I usually do with BBQ.

There are days like today when one is busy and food becomes secondary but to eat two awful meals of PPI dishes put me in s bad mood.

Actually as I was blogging bed Suzette had a great idea, to shred the dried out pork and mix it with cabbage and water chestnuts and stuff Chinese dumplings.

Tomorrow will be another day with hopefully better food.

Bon Appetit

June 17, 2020 Lunch – Sashimi and Japanese Vegetable Pickles. Dinner – Garlic Eggplant, Asparagus Onion, and Red Bell Pepper with Lamb Chops and Rice

June 17, 2020 Lunch – Sashimi and Japanese Vegetable Pickles. Dinner – Garlic Eggplant, Asparagus Onion, and Red Bell Pepper with Lamb Chops and Rice

I awakened at 7:00 and ate a bowl of granola with yogurt and tropical fruit salad and watched the Market open. This was one of those days when the market had no direction until it sagged to a 170 point loss at the close. Mi luckily made a small gain, but tomorrow will probably be a brutal selling session following its late downward movement today.

Then I rode 6 miles to Campbell Rd. With the aid of three sugar pills and back at a very slow pace. Mi find that for me grinding out a bike ride actually builds my muscular strength as long as I do not push my body into the red zone.

I showered and dressed and worked until noon, when I ate the
PPI raw salmon, tuna, and scallops with pickled ginger, wasabi mixed with soy, pickled vegetables and a bowl of sushi rice.

I worked until 4:00 and then read Grant until Suzette arrived at 5:00 and a bit later.

We decided to cook the eggplant that was starting to go bad but first I placed an order with Instacart for 23 items from El Super. We order mostly produce from El Super, like green onions, red grapes, eggplants, cilantro, yellow, red grapes, pineapple, apples, limes, mangos, papaya, oranges, carrots, zucchini, and avocados.

After I placed the order I peeled the eggplant and cut it into strips and Suzette chopped ½ of a red bell pepper and about eight or nine asparagus and four cloves of garlic and made the seasoning sauce for Garlic Eggplant.  Here is the recipe.

She fried the eggplant and then stir fried the other ingredients and added the eggplant back and then the sauce.  I wanted sushi rice with my dinner so I placed a pile of it on my plate and Suzette heated it in the microwave after heating the 4 remaining PPI grilled lamb chops.

We wanted a light red wine, so I went to the garage fridge and found a bottle of French Tavel, which paired perfectly with the lamb chops and stir fried vegetables.

We took our glasses of wine to the garden and enjoyed dinner in the cool evening air around 7:30.  I loved the slightly sweet eggplant dish with all the extra asparagus, red onion, and red bell pepper and the lamb chops were still tender and pink in the middle, an amazing.

Suzette went to bed around 9:30 after the delivery of our groceries.

I stayed up to blog for a little longer and take the fruits to the garage.

Bon Appetit

June 16, 2020 Lunch - Tabouli Salad. Dinner – Salmon, Tuna, and Scallop Sashimi with Japanese Pickled Vegetables, a three melon Medley and Sushi Rice

June 16, 2020 Lunch - Tabouli Salad. Dinner – Salmon, Tuna, and Scallop Sashimi with Japanese Pickled Vegetables, a three melon Medley and Sushi Rice

I ate tropical fruit salad, yogurt, and granola for breakfast around 7:00 and then rose 5 miles around 8:00 with two sugar pills.

I worked on a real estate matter and the brief but could not concentrate properly due to the police helicopter flying overhead after the shooting at the Onate protest 10 blocks from the house and one block from Willy’s apartment.  Yuck.

At 11:30 I made a salad using the PPI salad from last night plus five leafs of fresh butter lettuce plus some tabouli, the PPI Tzatziki, and a toasted pita bread.

After lunch I lay down but could not get to sleep so read Grant by Ron Chernow until 2:00 and then checked my portfolio. My portfolio has now regained 3/4 of the loss of last Thursday after it hit an all time high last Wednesday. That makes three straight days of gains. Today’s upward energy came from Fed chairman Powell’s statement that the Fed would buy corporate bonds and fund more small business loans to fuel the economy back toward full employment plus a newsm Oxford that a common steroid appears to be helpful in treating the virus.

I read much of the afternoon but did take five scallops out of the freezer to thaw.

Suzette arrived around 5:00 and I continued to read until 6:00 when I went to the kitchen.

When we went to Sprouts on Sunday we bought a piece of salmon and tuna with the purpose of eating a Sashimi dinner.  We invited a Willy over and he arrived around 7:00.

I made 1 ½ cups of sushi rice at 6:30 by combining a bit more than 2 T. each of rice vinegar and sugar, ½ tsp. of dehydrated dashi , 2 tsp. of shredded kombu seaweed, and 1 tsp. of salt plus 3 cups of water. I added the rice when the water boiled and turned down the heat and allowed the rice to cook for 30 minutes.

Suzette cut the three exotic melons we also bought at Sprouts on Sunday in half and removed the skin and diced them and put them in a bowl.

I cut the salmon, scallops, and tuna into thin rectangular slices and placed them on a large serving plate.  The fish was still incredibly fresh tasting.  The scallops and tuna had been perviousl frozen, which did not seem to affect their flav

I cut pickled ginger into thin pieces.and put them in a small bowl in the middle of the serving plate.

I filled Japanese rice bowls with sushi rice and fetched beers from the garage and we carried everything out to the garden table and ate a lovely dinner.

The main topic was a right wing militia man’s shooting of a protester trying to destroy the Onate statue at the Albuquerque Art Museum last night.

Willy left at 8:00 for another protest, we ate bowls of Pistachio ice cream and watched a frontline program on the corona virus until 10:00 and then went to bed.  Suzette t sleep and I to blog.

Bon Appetit

June 15, 2020 Lunch – Mapo Dofu and Rice, Dinner – Grilled fresh Halibut with Salad, Steamed sugar snap and string beans and PPI Roasted Purple Potatoes with mint

June 15, 2020 Lunch – Mapo Dofu and Rice,  Dinner – Grilled fresh Halibut with Salad, Steamed sugar snap and string beans and PPI Roasted Purple Potatoes with mint

I awakened at 8:30 after a night when I could not get to sleep until 3:00.

I ate a bowl of tropical fruit salad, granola, and yogurt for breakfast.

At 12:30 I heated some PPI Mapo Dofu and Rice.

I did not have a nap today and worked until 4:00. At 4:30 I picked a couple dozen sugar snap peas from the garden.

Suzette came home at 5:00.  We decided to steam the sugar snap peas with green beans and make a salad and heat PPI Roasted Purple potatoes to go with the grilled Halibut.

We had bought the fresh Halibut at Costco yesterday along with the fresh rockfish Suzette fried last night for fish tacos.

The package of Halibut fillets were actually one single wide slice of fish cut in half at the Center vertebrae. We decided to bone the two halves into four pieces by removed the central bones.

We froze the largest fillet and Suzette sliced a lemon into about six thin slices.  She fetched the perforated vegetable grilling rack and cleaned and then lay slices of Lennon on the rack and then lay the three Halibut fillets on the lemon slices.  Finally Suzette placed pads of butter in each crevice of the fish fillet and put the rack on the propane grill.



I made the salad. I rinse the lettuce from the Center plus four leaves of Bibb lettuce, plus a tomato diced, ¼ cucumber peeled, seeded, and sliced, some aged Manchego grated  and two green onions sliced. I refreshed the dressing with lemon juice and olive oil.  I put all the ingredients into the large Vietnamese mahogany salad bowl and drizzled the salad with dressing and tossed the salad to mix the salad dressing.  I then steamed the green beans and sugar snap peas and heated the bag of PPI roasted purple potatoes in the microwave.

Willy arrived at 7:00.

When Suzette brought in the grilled Halibut fillets, we arranged the plates and I opened and poured the Adelina Spanish Verdejo and. Filled a bowl with ice cubes to cool the wine and the bottle and we took everything to the garden table.  We enjoyed a pleasant dinner as the evening air began to cool.

After we finished the wine we returned to the house and I ate a bowl of pistachio almond ice cream drizzled with chocolate sauce.

Later I gave Suzette a massage after she soaked in the hot tub for a while and then at 9:45 blogged this entry.

The meal was lovely.  Fresh grilled Halibut on slices of lemon drizzled with melted butter is our favorite fish cooked the way we like it the best.

The light Verdejo lacked character so was perfect for the delicate texture of the Halibut.

Bon Appetit

June 14, 2020 Lunch – Fish Tacos. Dinner – Chicken Taco

Today was more a shopping day than an eating day.

I started at 9:30 by toasting two slices of bagel and spreading cream cheese on them and garnishing them with slices of onion and Gravad Lax and then cutting the tops with capers.

 At 10:00 we drove to Costco.  Suzette had to buy cleaning supplies for her three assisted living buildings plus regular items for snacks such as grapes, strawberries, and frozen cherries.  We bought a few things for ourselves such as brie cheese, mozzarella cheese, string beans, asparagus and mushrooms.

We also nought fresh Halibut and rockfish.

We then drove to a Gruet but it was closed.  We then drove to north Corrales to deliver a painting to Ari for cleaning.

After that we stopped at the new Sprouts store on the way home where we bought a salmon tail, 2 lb. of scallops, an Aji Tuna steak, three kinds of melons, a head of cabbage, Roma tomatoes, avocados, tortillas, pita bread, and green onions.

We returned home after 1:00 and very hungry.  Suzette suggested a series of fish meals: making fish tacos for lunch, Grilled Halibut for dinner, Sashimi tomorrow evening, and using all the remaining fish in a tomato and garlic soup Tuesday night.

Suzette shredded about ¼ of the head of cabbage into long strips and diced some onion and put it into a bowl.  I then added mayo and pickle relish and the juice of ½ lime to complete the cole slaw and sliced an avocado while she chopped three rockfish fillets and coated them with flour, salt, and pepper and fried them in about 1/3 inch of heated canola oil and heated 8 corn tortillas in a damp paper towel in the microwave and sliced a tomato.

I fetched two Estrella Jalisco beers from the garage fridge.

When the fish was cooked and slightly browned we were ready.  We each put three warm tortillas on our plate and then a pile of cole slaw on each and then three pieces of fish per tortilla and then garnished the plate with tomato and avocado slices.

We carried the plates and beers to the garden table and ate our late lunch without much conversation because we were hungry.

Suzette took a nap after lunch and I watched the Colonial Golf Tournament until 4:00 and then I napped until 6:30.  When I went to the garden to pick two red rose I discovered that Suzette has awakened earlier and weeded another bed in the formal garden.

It rained yesterday and is raining again tonight.  The rainy season seems to be starting early.  The plants love it.

Suzette was not hungry for dinner, but felt the need to eat something to keep up my strength. I made a taco with one of the remaining tortillas by laying some of the cole slaw, slices of chicken breast and the remaining two slices of tomato on it.

Later we ate a scoop of pistachio ice cream on a chocolate chip cookie and I ate another with two cups of freshly brewed Earl Grey tea while watched the season five premier of Grantchester and then the first episode of a new Masterpiece Theater, Beecham.  At 10:00 Suzette went to sleep and I stayed up to blog and watch a documentary on Accorn.

It looks like tomorrow will be a down day in the market if the futures are to be believed.

Bon Appetit