Birthday duck, and beef and broccoli

I have no energy and little inspiration this morning. It's another gray day. It rained all night. I listened to it.

Here's a picture of the duck and beans that we had for dinner on my birthday on Tuesday. It was a breast filet, and those are generally cooked rare, either grilled or pan-roasted. Needless to say, this is not grilling weather, so this duck breast was pan-roasted. It was delicious. The beans are called pois du Cap (Lima beans), which seem to be a specialty of Réunion island in the Indian Ocean, near Madagascar and a French département. We also had braised céleri-branches with it.

Another lunch this week was beef with broccoli. It also was delicious — spicy and flavorful, with beef broth, crushed red pepper, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and sesame oil. A real treat. The beef was skirt steak (hampe in French). The (supermarket) broccoli comes from Spain, I believe, and it's really good in wintertime. Those are wheat noodles.

Lights were on at the neighbor's this morning, and there are no cars in the driveway. I can only assume that le voisin is doing okay for the time being. There were four or five cars over there yesterday morning, including some we didn't recognize. I guess we'll find out later what decisions are being made and what steps will be taken.