1. I watched coverage of the Masters Tournament all day long today. The Masters is the only one of golf's four major tournaments contested at the same golf course every year -- and what a gorgeous golf course it is, especially in early April, when Augusta National is alive with dogwood and azaleas, complimented majestically by the pine trees, ponds, and the meandering course of Rae's Creek. The golf course's hills and water and undulated greens combined with a variety of weather conditions, ranging from windy to warm and still to rainy give the players at Augusta a unique challenge every round. If, when I played the best golf of my life (which wasn't that good), I were to play this golf course, I doubt I could get around Augusta in under 120 strokes -- which would be nearly fifty strokes over par.
I didn't have strong feelings about who I hoped would win the 82nd Masters. My hope was that I'd get to enjoy a day of skilled shotmaking, excitement, gutsy play, and good competition. All of that happened, not only in the way eventual winner Patrick Reed made one fine shot and one clutch putt after another to hold on to his lead, but in the way Rickie Fowler and Jordan Spieth brilliantly charged hard from behind to keep pressure on Patrick Reed. Until Patrick Reed two-putted from over twenty feet above the hole, needing a testy two to four footer to win the Masters, the outcome of this tournament was never certain and made for a day of scintillating and dramatic golf.
2. I was on tap for hosting tonight's family dinner so I took my Chromebook out to the kitchen and prepped food while watching the Masters. One of my favorite undertakings in the kitchen is to make a soup bar. Ideally, I like to make three or four different pots of soup with the hope that people will sample each of them. Today, however, I limited the soup bar to two pots of soup, both conforming with the requirements of the Keto eating plan.
I wanted to put the last of my current supply of crab stock to good use and made a salmon chowder. I poached two fillet of salmon resting atop sauteed sweet red pepper and celery in crab stock while, at the same time, I cooked a head of cauliflower florets in crab stock. When the florets were tender, I folded 8 oz. of cream cheese into the pot, let it melt, and then pulverized the mixture in the blender. I flaked the poached salmon and combined the cauliflower mixture with the sauteed vegetables and salmon and the chowder was ready.
The other soup was a sirloin steak stroganoff soup which only required that I brown small bits of sirloin steak, saute a pound or so of chopped mushrooms, add about five cups of some of my beef stock along with lemon juice, Dijon mustard, and paprika and, later, fold in about 12 oz. of sour cream.
I left the onions out of both soups because one family member is allergic to onions and I didn't use the parsley called for just because I didn't want it. So there!
For our first course, I seared three halved heads of Romaine lettuce on the gas range grill and made Parmesan cheese and an olive oil salad dressing available to put on the lettuce. I'd never seared lettuce before, although I knew about doing this from when the Deke and Patrick both ordered a grilled Caesar salad back in October at Iron Goat Brewery in Spokane.
Christy, Everett, Carol, and Paul all enjoyed this dinner, a great relief to me, because everything I fixed was new to me and was sort of an experiment.
The recipe for the chowder is here, for the stroganoff soup is here, and for the seared lettuce and dressing is here.
3. After conversation around the dinner table and in the living room, I cleaned up the kitchen and relaxed for a little while with a couple of videos on YouTube. I was enthralled by a jangly and dark live performance of Neil Young and Crazy Horse playing "My, My, Hey, Hey (Out of the Blue)" and a couple of crazy live performances of Jethro Tull playing "Locomotive Breath" and "Thick as a Brick".
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