Kaimusailing

I had to hurry and get started with the pizzas, time was ticking. I had to clean the bowl to make the dough and I brought down the cutting board and knife, that won’t hold an edge, and cleaned them too. I scooped flour into the bowl first, because you don’t want to scoop flour with a wet scoop, then scooped in 2 cups of lukewarm water. A tablespoon of honey followed, then two packets of Flieschmans yeast, I was out of the bread maker yeast. I whisked the mixture thoroughly, and it became like pancake batter, thick and wet. I left it for a half hour.
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There was a commotion down near the travel lift. A sailboat had hit the mud bank there and gone aground. When this happens, there are a bunch of conflicting commands, do this, do that, but the way the tides and currents work here, they would be there for the duration. Robert went out with a crew and a large dinghy, but it looked like they couldn’t get them off. I took photos.
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It was time to continue the dough process. It required olive oil to drop a bit in the bottom of all four bowls, it had to be enough to coat the small balls of dough called bambinos, in Italy, also oil my hands, the prep knife, and then I could continue with the dough. I added two cups of flour to the mixing bowl with the dough that had been hydrating for a half hour, then clawed at it with my left hand, both hands oiled with olive oil, and after a while added about a half cup of flour to get the dough to release and “get strong”. I kept at it, could have added more flour, but eventually got the dough into a ball and cut it into 4 pieces, rounded them, and added them to the 4 oiled bowls. Let the dough rise again.
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At first I made a pie while the oven was warming up. It was covered with mushrooms, with onion and multicolored peppers. While it was baking I made a pie covered with the cheddar sausage, then added onions and peppers, it would be like a sausage, onion, and peppers sandwich, but it was a pizza. The next pie required an assessment of the available ingredients, thus I was planning the last two pies. I had a lot of ingredients, maybe sausage for one pie, onion for two, sweet peppers for two, and mushrooms for two, so I made a mushroom, onion, pepper pie, and a sausage, mushroom, onion, pepper pie. The mozzarella was cut into strips this time and I experimented with patterns on the pie, the last one turned out the best. Always happens that way.
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As we cut the last pie I realized this had been a particularly good pizza night. The main thing was that the pizzas came out OK, compliments from the polite clientele. The main drawback was the persistent no-see-ums who seemed to be gaining in numbers as the evening went on.
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When my little wine bottle ran out we were sipping while the bugs were biting. I was organizing. The throw out stuff was in the large mushroom box. The cutting board, pizza pans, bowls, and utensils were in a manageable pile to be transported. I had a can of tomato puree that I covered with a zip lok bag and a bag of pizza slices. We all went away with a lot for breakfast. A Walmart shopping bag had blown away, but I hiked through the bushes and found it, to pack away stuff to bring back to Kaimu. Spices, bag of slices, empty wine bottle, and empty wine glass, all went back. I stowed stuff away, but there was a tinkling that I knew was Blue coming with his tennis ball to play.
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I had to bring him back and tried to ride the bike but the chain got totally twisted around and I needed a hammer and screwdriver to get it all back in line. I got it to work and headed out into the orange sunset with Blue scampering along.
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Eloisa was standing in the backyard of the Breezeway with her dolphin shawl pulled over her head and around her shoulders like an Islamic woman of the desert looking at the spectacular sunset. I was bringing Blue, her black cocker, or portuguese water dog, or baby gorilla, back to her. He persists at coming to my boat with his multicolored tennis ball to play with him. I stood with her and she had to go get a jacket. I was swarmed with the no-see-ums while I was trying to take a picture. They were particularly bad this time and it was hard to frame a shot in the fading light and get a good exposure while being bitten by the nasty bugs.
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I was leaving when she came back with a jacket and a glass of wine for me, well, maybe I will stay a while. She said it was bittersweet. We had a spectacular sunset and swarms of bugs. We bailed. Blue was back indoors and I headed to the travel lift to take a shot of the boat, just offshore, that was now careened at 45 degrees. The backdrop was the spectacular sunset. Great shot.