BahamaMama
21 August 2023 | Somers Cove Marina, Crisfield, MD
Cap'n Chef Andy | mild
Two days of high humidity and afternoons of severe thunderstorms, that starts off our week. It only got up to about 93 but humidity, the roasting on an unairconditioned boat, and visions of the deserts of Lawrence of Arabia come to mind.
.
The Giant Duck was gone. A lady from the end of the dock said have you had enough of the big duck? Yes, I responded with OMG. I went to the old Red Shell Shanty and it was very hot inside. Back on board was not much different. I had paperwork to do and some research. I was soaked with perspiration. I had to read a lot and drink a lot of water. I felt tired and weak. I tried to nap. I needed to hydrate and it was late enough in the afternoon to have some wine and chili dogs are always a culinary wake up call, easy to make, very effective, my new technique is to put the dogs and mole sauce in a zip lok bag, throw into a pot of boiling water, turn off the heat and let nature take its course.
.
While I was searching to improve my balsamic vinaigrette dressing I found I had lost my recipe, I didn’t even know what I was improving on. There was a YouTube alert, the Jets had signed Dalvin Cook, a wide receiver, released by the Minnesota Vikings, a player that was pro bowl caliber, ran and received passes for 1400 yards last year, astonishing. This is an obvious scenario of a player wanting to go play for a team that might win it all. The team now seems to be way overbalanced, like they are deep and adept at all positions. The coaching now comes under scrutiny. If you have so much depth and talent, experience, the bar gets raised higher, you have to win and win it all.
.
You can’t spend your life in reaction, you have to step forward. I couldn’t find my dressing recipe, but the dressing recipe didn’t create me, I created it. So I can create it again, maybe better this time, step forward.
.
After searching through the last two years of blog posts, yes, I did that, I found the recipe:
Italian Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing
1/2 C balsamic vinegar
1 C EVOO
1 tsp garlic salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp Italian herb mix
.
Simple, isn’t it. Like a 4 item grocery list that you can’t remember the 4th item. I need to get onion powder. But wait, I had a couple packets of Good Season’s Italian Dressing mix on board this boat. I opened a packet and poured the contents into a dressing cruet, then grabbed a bottle of very nice EVOO, and began pouring it into a measuring cup. What came out was not olive oil but dressing. I had made a batch of dressing in the nice bottle. Now I had to use the empty cruet with dressing mix in it, I added cooking olive oil and Pompeiian balsamic vinegar, shake it up, now I had two bottles of dressing. I won’t need to go shopping for salad dressing ingredients for a while.
.
The noticeable thing is that the dressing from the reused bottle of fancy EVOO had a nice aromatic flavor. I assume I used that olive oil when I made the dressing. I will buy more of that, if I can get it. The other olive oil I have is generic store brand EVOO, nice color, not bad, but not anywhere near the other stuff.
.
I also looked at comparison of romaine lettuce vs spinach and found spinach has more vitamin C and protein. When I shopped I wanted 50/50 spinach/spring mix, but the romaine hearts won me over. My next task is to compare the ersatz dressing made with store brand EVOO and Good Seasons mix, with the good stuff. Yeah, I should eat more salads.
.
Yesterday was brutal thunderstorms, winds, rain, lightning, but today was supposed to be the same. The temperature hit 94, feels like 118, not unusual this summer, but very unusual here. In recent phone calls it is the main topic of conversation. Why are the king crabs gone in Alaska? Why are the reefs being bleached of coral in the Keys, why is the blue crab season taking a nose dive?
.
The brush fires in Maui are an indication of climatic changes that extend all over our planet. You can take the position, politically, that it is a natural cycle and we can’t do anything about it, but the other political consequence is that the local and regional governments have their hands full. Everybody has a theory they believe in, until things change like this. Then we ask, why can’t anybody do anything about it? Our USA political machine is set up to struggle against itself just to do the obvious. I like the political system of Iceland. Also the populace.
.
I ordered a bunch of stuff from China from TEMU. Fly swatters, bug zapper, I made a list of stuff and ordered it. Came to 31 dollars. Free shipping. Takes about a week.
.
I had to do some account changing online as well as organize my orthopedic appointments prior to surgery for my hip. I took care of everything else while on hold with the orthopedics, and then when they answered they started to transfer me to my contact person, who was out to lunch, I protested, they said she’s back from lunch now. Finished in no time.
.
The black clouds from the West were dangerous thunderstorms, just like yesterday, but they gravitated more to the North and we continued to wait for our 100% precipitation. It will come, it’s 100%.
I did not go out.
.
I could make my chili dogs and go out tomorrow. I had a shopping list. Perdue chickens were on sale at the grocers. I could make chicken soup again, I keep trying. I tried calling Cuddily to say I’m going to the store and then to the Legion. No answer. She must be out on her boat.
.
When I got to the store I was glad to go inside into the air conditioning. I found the chicken on sale and bought white onions, carrots, and celery, the mirepoix for chicken soup. I left and biked to the Legion.
.
I was surprised to arrive a full 15 minutes early. I had worked hard not to be late. I ordered a merlot and a Fresca kind of drink, to hydrate. When they delivered the drinks, Teri came in. We organized ourselves at a high top table with 3 seats. I mentioned I had called Cuddily and Teri said, they said they would be here. So we added a couple seats to our little semicircular table, one for Cuddily, and one for Buster, her old boyfriend. He came down from Massachusetts after some medical tests.
.
The old bad crowd of a couple years ago had fragmented and it seemed the town had imploded. But now, in walked Diana and Karen, both of whom I was glad to see. Hugs, now we had two tables of the Bad Crowd, missing Eve, the artist, of course. What a nice night.
.
I bicycled back to the marina with a bag of groceries on my left bicycle grip, holding it. It’s easier to do it if you’ve had enough merlot and can remember the code to get in the gate at the marina. Each , part of the way I was careful to avoid nightime cars that could flatten me, I’m paranoid after watching the various “Idiots in Cars and Trucks” videos on YouTube. What chance do I stand.
.
Is it my hearing? Will I be run down by a beast of a semi blowing his horn and I don’t hear and get flattened? Not tonight. I make it to the pedestrian gate and enter the code and set off, inside the marina. Almost home. Nice feeling.
.
I did have a spill at the corner near the Red Shell Shanty due to a large pickup truck parked with its extended trailer hitch snagging my grocery bag.
.
Back on board I signaled “SOB”, which means safe on board, not the other thing.
.
There was blood, smeared, I had to be careful, how bad was it, get a paper towel and dampen it and wipe away the blood.
.
After breakfast I had to wash a lot of dishes, pots, pans, chopping blocks, and some of the raw vegetables. I put 6 cups of water on the stove with bay leaves, ground pepper, sodium encrusted chicken soup base, mainly for the sodium. The chicken, complete with gizzards, livers, and etc. went into the pot. Bring it to a boil and shut it off. I prepped cloves of garlic, two white onions, carrots, and celery in the ratio 3:1 ½:1 ½.
.
I was poaching the chicken, bring to a boil, shut off the flame, wait 10-15 minutes, fire it up again, boil, shut off the flame. After the second boil and rest, the chicken came out into a large bowl, covered, and cooled. The broth was skimmed of fat and debris, a cup of brown rice and a half cup of red beans (small) were added, the mirepoix was added and the pot brought up to a boil again. Then let it rest no flame. It takes about 3 sessions of boil/rest until the rice and beans are cooked. The chicken is disassembled. Breast meat goes into the fridge for future sandwiches. The rest gets picked over, diced, and added to the pot. This cooking method keeps the veggies a little more crunchy and prevents burning on the bottom of the pot.
.
I took a break and went to the now defunct Red Shanty, now just a TV room, turned on the NFL network and found the game I wanted to watch was blacked out. But the footage they now put up was the NY Jets, Jets Media, how nice, just a half hour long. Back on board I put away 4 quarts of chicken soup in the fridge and had some for dinner.
.
The next day was an early 10AM broadcast of the NY Jets game of the day before. Cornelia Marie called and said she wanted to take her boat out and could I help her launch it, etc. I had to hustle, take a shower, meet her at the front gate of the marina, ride cross town, and hitch up her boat trailer to her vehicle. We went to the nearby boat ramp and launched it.
.
The engine was kind of reluctant to start, but started, and we brought the boat to her mom’s waterfront home. Folding beach chairs, umbrellas, towels, and beach picnic supplies were loaded onto the boat, then we took it to the nearby floating dock where Nori the wonder dog could jump on board along with Cuddily and Buster.
.
I had joked that the engine would fail when we were at the furthest point from land and so it happened. We were in the channel North of the Jayne’s Island campground when the engine quit with a gasp of smoke or steam. CM tried to paddle the heavily laden boat, but the wind was setting us out to sea. She eventually restarted the engine and we limped to the beach.
.
There were several boats already at the beach, it was a perfect day to sit and watch the sea birds and do nothing for hours. We then packed up and limped back to the waterfront home and dock, then to the launch ramp. Cuddily had a pork roast slow cooking and a blender full of Pina Coladas. We ate and drank. What a nice perfect day. By the time I returned to the marina it was past 9PM.
.
I had to call my brother in Hawaii and then called a friend in NY. It was now about 1:30AM. I was quite ready for sleep. The image is a photo taken from the beach North of Jayne’s Island. Very Bahama-like.