Kaimusailing

The Thanksgiving Boater's Feast is looming around the corner and I will be involved in vegetable prep again. I forgot what I made last year for the Pot Luck Dinner and went back in the blog and saw it was my ole mole chili dogs. Geoff had made 4 gallons of gumbo and enough rice to feed an army. At the end of the evening the chili dogs were gone as well as the gumbo and rice. Geoff said they even ate the rice after the gumbo was gone. He says he'll make 5 gallons this year, but he doesn't know how many are coming.
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My supply of borscht was running out and I decided to make more soup. My idea was to go to the store, see what protein looked promising, and then buy any other ingredients I might need.
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I went to the local Winn-Dixie which is rumored to be closing in about a month and then be converted to an Aldi's. When that happens we will have to go to Kingsland to grocery shop, about twice as far.
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I found chicken thighs on sale, Manager's Special, which usually means it's at its due date. Cream of Chicken Mushroom Florentine Soup, needs spinach, onion, garlic, mushrooms, and a quart of half and half.
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I started the chicken thighs and a half liter of bottled water, plus some Better than Bouillon, and a diced onion on high till it boiled. Spinach was fed into the soup pot and wilted down to a manageable size. It took 4 batches. A preprepped bunch of stir fry vegetables were added to the pot. They were also on manager's special. A small box of mushrooms was sliced and added.
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After 45 minutes the soup pot was set aside and the small skillet was used to make a roux of 1/3 cup flour and Irish butter. The cooked chicken was removed from the soup pot, placed on a platter, and allowed to cool a bit. Broth from the pot was added to the roux and whisked smooth, until I could get no more broth. Then the roux was mixed into the pot which was brought back up to temperature. The chicken was skinned, boned, and diced, and returned to the pot. The quart of half and half was added. Fresh pepper and garlic salt were used to round out the seasoning. Earlier pepper and Italian herb mixture were used.
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The soup needed to come to temperature but I had spent too long cooking and my hunger got the better of me. I had 3 bowls of soup and put away 5 servings in the fridge.
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Nutritionally dense.
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We had a double cold front come through and temperatures were down in the 40's, but more is to come. The weather seems strange with high winds, unusually high or low temperatures, a hurricane season that maybe has quit, a month late.
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I have some Rounder Records tunes playing from time to time and it's hill country music, blues, and stuff like that. One line from a song is "when you speak to my wife, don't tell her I've been with a woman who knows what to do".
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I decided to make chili dogs like I did last Thanksgiving, but now it would just be for me, not for the Feast. I had some of the negro mole paste in the fridge. It's old but probably will last forever. I went to the Winn-Dixie to get hot dogs and salsa.
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The store was shocking, bare, they are selling off inventory and closing in a couple weeks. I was able to get potato hot dog rolls, hot dogs, and a jar of Southeast Grocer's ersatz salsa, chunky, medium.
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I make my own mole concoction, but the negro paste is from Mexico and has a zillion ingredients, impossible to duplicate. The normal mixture is one part paste, two or three parts tomato puree, and a quantity of stock. The salsa is used instead of tomato puree and stock is added if necessary, the sauce thickens as it's heated. I put the cheap hot dogs in a large skillet and seared them while I poured the jar of salsa over them and then plopped about a quarter cup of mole paste and began mixing, breaking up the paste, moving things around in the skillet. This has taken maybe 5 minutes or less.
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I wanted to simmer the concoction for a bit before consuming and kept mixing. The concoction was bubbling and getting syrupy, thickening, I poured a half cup of water and continued. I was hungry and could not help myself. I love chili dogs, and this sauce is spicy and complex. I speared one of the dogs with a fork and put it on a potato roll, split it, sauced it. Oh, my god, spicy, subtle fruit, nut, and sweet flavors. Still, it has to simmer more and smooth out the raw edges.
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After a while I was still hungry and ate another dog. It will taste better tomorrow.
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I will be getting a ham bone during the week and will make bean soup with it. I needed to get a few ingredients for that, including the 15 bean bag of beans. Also I discovered a cache of carrots and potatoes, left over from a borscht attempt. I will make it again with kielbasa, so added that to my shopping list as well as sour cream and mushrooms.
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Geoff the chef, actually a phd chemist, said he would make 5 gallons of gumbo for a pot luck dinner on Tuesday of Thanksgiving week. I helped him last year and agreed to help again. Last year was 4 gallons and I made a lot of chili dogs, all was consumed. Geoff said just help me make the gumbo and forget about those chili dogs. Of course I had already made some for myself.
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Eloisa texted about any room for her and Bleu, the Black American Spaniel. I was at Geoff's cutting and peeling, chopping and dicing. Geoff had carved the meat off of 6 turkeys and roasted the carcasses, then made a big stock pot of turkey stock. He made roux on stove top, not baked, roasted 3 trays of okra, stewed some andouille and chicken. I worked on the holy trinity, onion, green pepper, and celery, plus garlic.
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Two pots of white rice were cooked. Big pots. The industrial sized propane cooker and its giant pot were accepting the ingredients for the gumbo. Geoff the Chef tasted, adjusted, added components. Taste this and I said do you have any tomatoes in it? He had some really great tomato paste from the upscale market in Fernandina and he put that in. It helped, but it didn't need any help in the first place.
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There is a lot of logistical kind of work to do to feed a large crowd, tables, chairs, tablecloths, and utensils. Crowd control becomes necessary. 70 or so bowls of gumbo with rice were served as well as other pot luck items brought by the cruisers in port. The gumbo was the hit though. I never got any of the deviled eggs, they must have been good.
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My vegetable chopping skills were employed the next day. The main thing was peeling 5 lbs of carrots and 10 lbs of potatoes. I prepped shallots for French green beans. The carrots were bias cut. Potatoes riced and whipped with a whisk with butter and cream. I think It was 1 ½ sticks of butter and a pint of whipping cream. Milk was added as needed so that the potatoes didn't resemble concrete mix.
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Food was trayed and covered and refrigerated.
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The next day was agony. I slept until almost 10am, and was informed we were starting the final prep at 10:30 or so. I microwaved a chili dog and drank some coffee, rushed along. Eloisa drove me to Geoff's house and we began slicing meat. It becomes like an industrial process. Food no longer has appeal, it is processed, sliced, into trays, two for white meat, one for dark. A tray of ham. Geoff intelligently hydrates his meat with jus from the ham or stock from the turkey carcasses. Then there is the stuffing. 6 boxes of stuffing mix. Prep more celery, a lot more. The stuffing comes out great. Just give me that stuffing and that gravy, I said.
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There are other reasons cruisers come into St Marys for Thanksgiving. It is the right time of year for those sailing South, it is not far off the ICW or off the ocean, and the yacht club ubers people around to the grocers, laundry, airport, etc.
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The week of constant food prep has me bushed, but Geoff is up at 6am and we deliver all the food around noontime. It is a zoo. I am testy and really can't help snarling at people, get out of my way, I'm getting burned by a tray of food. The food covers a bunch of tables, two rows, plus some desserts along another row.
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A line forms, a big line, and I am not eager to get in line. I sit with Bleu, take him for a walk around the building. The line starts to wind around the building. After a while I join the line, cutting in with Geoff and the bunch, no one seems upset about my butting in.
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I get lemonade for Eloisa who has been working away, she really helped. I get food, try some of the concoctions of the cruiser's as well of some of the tried and true things we recently made.
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There was one tray of disassembled stuffed cabbage, but I've made this, many years ago, and you have to get the sauce right. Literally tomato vegetable soup might be one of the best sauces. This version had too much rice in the meat mix, and an unfortunate spicing. I've made them all and this one had some kind of eastern mediterranean spicing. I don't like it. There were other foods. I could taste several glazed carrot recipes. Some not so subtle. I could not finish my plate of food.
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I lost my gas, I was pooped out. The crew cleaned up, Eloisa worked her magic clearing tables and tossing trash. I was out of commission. They gave me more wine.
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I slept like as in a coma. Pain woke me up. Sore. I could sit and watch football all day, but none of the teams interested me. Eloisa got me to ride down to Fort Clinch State Park. The day was cold and windy. We didn't hike around. I had a Poke Bowl at the Sandbar at the beach, but it wasn't the same as before. It was the way they plated it. The wine prices were way up.
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We left there and had wine at the Southern River Walk. The bill was 14 dollars. We stopped by Geoff and Karen and had more wine and I collected a bunch of pork bones and meat (fat).
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The next day I went shopping and we went to the Southern River Walk again. I had put the pork bones and stuff in a stock pot on simmer. The stove does this excellently. We drove up to Kingsland to Angelo's, which might be open. The OPEN sign was not lit, the front door was not locked, the inner door was not locked, how can you have any customers if you don't turn on your OPEN sign? They turned it on.
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We retreated to a table around the corner from the beefy entity who was outraged that Eloisa's door contacted his car somehwere. Just stay away. Order the Pesto Pizza. And order a bottle of pinot noir. They make good salads. I should have had one. I had four slices of that pizza. Don't need to put on weight right now, know what I'm sayin'?
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Back at the boatyard the pork bones were totally stewed and I put tock pot on deck where it might get to freezing overnight.
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The next morning I could see the stock had reduced by about a third the pork fat had congealed on top of the jelly-like stock. I removed the fat and brought the stock up to boil, then strained it into a somewhat smaller pot. The amount of ham from the bones was astounding. I had thought most of the meat would be roughage to be thrown away, but instead there was a ton of meat, shredded, added back into the stock with the ham beans, diced onion, and thinly sliced garlic cloves.
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The poaching process is steep for 10 minutes after bringing to a rolling boil, then repeat until the beans are done. Poaching prevents scorching on the bottom. After about an hour I tasted the broth. It was saltier than what I wanted. I had not added any salt, the salt was all from the ham. The flavor was good without adding hambeans' flavor packet, which would add even more salt.
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Eloisa and Bleu went camping at Fort Clinch State Park and I offered to bring soup down there later. Just in time for dinner. I watched a football game and after an hour and a half the smaller beans were done but the larger still needed more tide me. The complaint about the 16 bean mix is that the beans don't all cook at the same rate.
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The pot was too full to transport so I took two portions out, about 2 or 2 ½ cups apiece, and drove down to Amelia Island to Fort Clinch. I also had a butane one burner camp stove which is available at Walmart for about $20. After I bought it Eloisa said she had one given her by FEMA that she hadn't even used, I brought mine back, returned it. Now I was setting hers up on a picnic table and soon the pot of soup was boiling hot.
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The campsite was right on the Amelia River and I got a few shots of the setting sun. The soup was very good, especially now with very chilly weather. Eloisa and her campmate started a fire in the fire pit. There was no firewood nearby, but deeper in the live oak forest there were plenty of broken branches from the recent storms. Soon a significant blaze was roaring. The heat was welcome. I had to return to the boatyard however.
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I spent a long phone call to Hawaii while Sunday Night Football was on. It was a game in Buffalo, NY, with 2 feet of snow on the ground and more coming down. The visiting team, from California, didn't stand a chance, the local Buffalo team seemed happy to play football in the snow. It was a white out, wipe out, and a rout.
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The next day I had a lot of pots and pans to clean. I ran a couple errands and called Eloisa who was enjoying the natural beauty along the Amelia River. I said I wanted to take her out to dinner for her birthday, which is just a few days away. She suggested the sushi place next to the Publix market on 14th street. We went there. I have already said too much. It's a small place. Wonderful. It won't take many customers to swamp the place. Don't go there. Stay away.
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I had the Hawaiian Poke bowl. It could be made better and I know how, but it was really good. It had mango and avocado, ahi, seaweed salad, and rice with miso sauce. Other customers had their own works of art to consume.
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The image is a shot of sunset across the Amelia River.