Kaimusailing

The excitement of a new baby in the family had me receiving phone calls from all over. The common denominator is that we talked about the weather and food. That makes me hungry and start planning to cook. Cuddily suggested we go to Sysco in Pocomoke to see what wine selection they had there and also if they had lamb.
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They did not have lamb, but they had our favorite Saddlebred pinot noir. We purchased 10 bottles, leaving a couple for anyone else who wants this wine. We got 2 ½ lbs of shrimp for $18. Good shrimp, like for shrimp cocktail.
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I was planning to make the clam noodle florentine again, so I returned to SUNSPLASH and got to work.
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The previous batch I made had some of the casserole sticking to the sides of the Optima oven. This time I wanted to make it “upside down” and put the breadcrumbs on the bottom and layer the casserole in reverse order.
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The ingredients were too much for the oven, so I had a little snack of the unbaked ingredients. Very tasty and qualifies as comfort food.
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I was looking for lamb to make moussaka. I have a few recipes, but my favorite has to be made from memory, none of the online recipes do what I have done, bake the moussaka in a bundt pan with the eggplant peelings lining the pan skin side out. The bechmel sauce is made separately with a good dose of garlic in it and black pepper, then it is ladled into the molded casserole after it is flipped onto a platter. No lamb, no moussaka. Someday.
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The casserole turned out to be a disappointment. The butter and breadcrumbs burned and gave an off taste to the whole thing. I’m ready to throw it all away. Probably no more than ten bucks of noodles, clams, and burnt breadcrumbs.
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I still had one portion of the previous batch of clam noodle florentine and it tastes fine. Next time we won’t try to insulate the casserole from the oven with breadcrumbs and butter. The clean up was difficult with the burned on mess. Lesson learned.
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The crab traps. The crab traps. You can’t just leave them, they will keep catching crabs. I pulled them up and one had like 2 crabs in it, one little one, and I dumped them back into the inlet along with the bait. The second trap had a good number of crabs, some legal sized or bigger, some smaller. Into the inlet they went, along with their bait. We hosed off the traps. Cuddily washed her hands but said they still had the smell of the rotten fish bait. You have to scrub twice.
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Cuddily made a traditional Irish baked dish which was very good, kind of like shepherd’s pie. I took photos of the late afternoon sun. Nice composition, but no human faces, lifeless landscape. We had quite a crew on hand to consume the food and beverages. I had to return to the marina on my old Serotta bike, the Schwinn had a flat in back. These bikes are strangely similar although they are 30 years apart in age. There is no granny gear on these bikes. Top gear on the big front chain ring will get you about 35 mph as long as you can turn the pedals over. Both bikes.
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I had replacement inner tubes coming in via Amazon and they arrived before the weekend. I was busy. The day before a shipment of TEMU odds and ends came in. A new phone case with more room for my cards. Batteries for the drone. Double sticky tape.
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I replaced the flat inner tube and the stock pedals on the Schwinn. Now I had 3 spare tubes and a spare bike. I rode to Cornelia Marie’s and helped set out chairs near the fire pit and an umbrella on the picnic table. CM put a small grill on the end of the picnic table and lit it off. She was making kabobs with onion and tomato. I had brought a box of pinot noir. The rest of the Bad Crowd showed up with more wine, salad, I think corn, and CM’s chicken wings, on the grill. When I got back to the marina I decided not to try to negotiate the dock on the bicycle, but walk it down the dock. Safety last.
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More photos were coming in of the new baby. He looks like a handsome smart little guy. The women are already fussing around with him. I thought how fragile we are at birth and what odds we face along the way to adulthood. Let’s not think about that, we’re out of eggs.
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I rode the Schwinn up to the market and got eggs. If I spend 30 dollars I get a 10 dollar reward. I realized I was going the wrong way with the linguine and carbs. I needed to get back on the maximum nutrition vs quantity of food diet. I added salad ingredients and an incredibly cheap piece of beef, London Broil for $3.99/lb. I earned my ten dollar reward.
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The beef was way too much for one or even two meals. I cut it into 5 pieces, sliced one piece very thin and grilled it. The rest went into the fridge. I had a salad with yellow sweet pepper, avocado, tomato, romaine, and of course the grilled beef. I should have bought blue cheese. My Italian vinaigrette dressing is fine with this meal.
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The next day I couldn’t do the salad the same way again, although it is one of my favorites. I made tuna salad using remoulade and stuffed a half sweet pepper over romaine and tomatoes, garnished with thin sliced avocado. Healthy. The image is of that salad.