Retire Early Lifestyle
Retirement; like your parents, but way cooler

In 1991 Billy and Akaisha Kaderli retired at the age of 38. Now, into their 4th decade of this financially independent lifestyle, they invite you to take advantage of their wisdom and experience.

Christmas Day Bash

Billy and Akaisha Kaderli

As you might already know, Billy is a trained French Chef and we owned a restaurant for a decade in Santa Cruz, California.

Billy and I love to cook and entertain in our home, and we still do it from time to time.

This Christmas was one of those times. Take a look below

Fresh blueberry buttermilk pancakes on the griddle

Earlier in the morning I got started on making pancakes, a real treat for me. I had fresh blueberries and bananas, real Canadian maple syrup, and unsalted butter.

Blueberry, banana and plain buttermilk pancakes

The little dollar-size pancakes were easy to distribute, not too big or overwhelming on the plates which would be full of food choices later.

Crisp bacon and Billy's home made spicy patty sausage

Meanwhile Billy is cooking up our freshly cut bacon from one of our butchers. And Billy has already made his spicy Farmer John's sausage patties. He has another butcher grind up the pork meat and add a bit of fat to it to give it flavor, and keeps it together so it doesn't crumble. Then he adds his secret spices, and patty's them up.

Fresh moist banana nut bread

This is the best banana nut bread in town. A local Mexican woman makes this delight, and for this occasion a whole loaf was purchased.

Fluffy scrambled eggs with delicatessen imported Swiss cheese

Billy fluffed up the scrambled eggs, mixed sautéed onions into them, and then added delicious real Swiss cheese (no Velveeta here) on top.

Breakfast buffet

Here is another look at the buffet that we had so far.

On the plate to the right, almost out of the photo, I had sliced oranges with cinnamon sugar on top, fresh blueberries the size of a dime, and deep red fresh cherries.

We also had Bloody Marys, fresh orange juice, and French-pressed coffee.

We took our time and joked and chatted all morning. After several hours our guests went home and we decided to meet again around 3:30pm for an early dinner. 

Fresh shrimp marinating in a secret garlic, olive oil sauce

Meanwhile, Billy had de-veined about a kilo of shrimp and was marinating them in an olive oil, garlic and secret spice sauce.

Seasoned filet mignon with rosemary

Billy had also purchased a whole beef tenderloin which he seasoned with sea salt, cracked black pepper and fresh rosemary. Then he wrapped it up with string.

Seasoned filet mignon seared on the grill

Billy seared the meat on the grill. This keeps all the juices and flavor of the meat sealed inside. Then he popped the filet into the oven to finish it.

Shrimp Ragout with garlic toasts

This was our first course for our early Christmas Day Dinner. Ragout of Shrimp with mushrooms, tomatoes and white wine sauce, served with garlic toasts.

Billy cutting the cooked filet mignon

Here is Billy slicing the filet into portions.

As you can see, it's a perfect medium rare.

Herbed potatoes, fresh vegetables and filet mignon with red wine sauce

Billy had already cooked off some small white potatoes which he then seasoned and toasted in a dry, hot pan. Fresh vegetables, Filet Mignon, and a Red Wine sauce.

This was our second course.

The third course was a small salad, then an assortment of chocolates for dessert. We had chili chocolate, cardamom chocolate and chocolate truffles.

Accompanying our meal was red wine, coffee and then after dinner drinks of tequila. 

Just another successful series of meals at Cafe Billy.

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