Mother's Day - Karl called. Saturday night dinner...

Karl called just past 8 a.m. to wish Nancy a happy Mother's Day. He told of cold weather in Germany just as we did about the past several cold nights here.

Gorgeous morning, cool and blustery, clear and sunny. A very high tide came up over the shelf on the dock.

Last night I cooked another Chinese and Greek meal from various sources, still learning from Grace Young's Breath of the Wok.

• Soup: combined 2 cups leftover veggie avgolemono with 1 1/2 cups leftover fried fish soup from Dancing Shrimp. Cut up the fish in the latter soup and add it just before serving. The lemon and spiciness go well together - leading, soon, to my invention of Southeast Asian fish avgolemono. Which is to say, it was outstanding.
• Having prepped all the ingredients, I then put two pieces of salmon fillet onto a plate, drizzled with soy sauce, then sprinkled over salt and fresh ground white pepper. Cut a lemon in half: squeeze juice of 1/2 over fish, then slice remainder into four pieces and lay over fish. Also scatter two scallions cut up and sliced over fish, along with 4 slices of ginger. Put all in a wok set up as a steamer and steam for about 10 minutes until cooked. Serve in dish it was steamed in, sprinkling a little toasted sesame oil over the fish. Serve with steamed white rice.
• As a dish along with the salmon, while it steams, stir fry of asparagus, gingko nuts and wolfberries. Lacking all but the asparagus, I cut up enough fresh strawberries to make up about 1/2 cup, dressing them with a little sugar and some juice from a jar of maraschino cherries. I also ground a little anise to give the hint of that flavor suggested in Bruce Cost's description of wolfberries and sprinkle the ground anise over the sweetned berries. Lightly brown 1/2 cup or so of pine nuts in a skillet and let cool to substitute for the gingko nuts. Peel the bottoms of perfectly fresh asparagus, then cut off ends and cut spears in two inch lengths. Stir fry with a little oil and salt until beginning to show brown spots, then add more salt, continuing to stir fry. After a couple minutes add the strawberries and the pine nuts and a sprinkle of sugar - not enough to make it overtly sweet.
• A very nice meal, with a Paarl Chardonnay.