Kaimusailing

I picked up a couple closet poles at Loews. These are the mast and sprit for the dinghy sail rig. Hardwood, probably oak. 1 3/8” diameter, 8 feet long. The plan from Maartens calls for 2” diameter spruce, but that is for an unstayed mast. I will be staying the mast on both the D4 dinghy here in St Marys and on the Sumnercraft dinghy in Crisfield. Sailcloth will be poly tarp of about 12mil thickness.
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I am onto a bean soup kick, the current soup is northern white beans and brown rice with pork. Cajun seasoning. The next batch will be similar. I had to go out to the post office and decided to get a couple of items at Walmart. Walmart sells langostino meat imported from Chile that is labeled “wild caught”. It is precooked and shell off. This is the stuff that scampi is made from. It is as expensive as lobster meat if you bought it in Italy or the Mediterranean, but at Walmart it was less than 9 bucks a half pound. I already had some in my little freezer and was looking for ingredients to make lobster rolls, namely, rolls.
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Somewhere along the line I changed my mind and would make lobster rolls with langostino meat and Newberg sauce. I would need sherry and half and half, it is a cream sauce. I looked at the sherry selection and a bottle of Marsala was proudly front and center. I bought it. I checked in the seafood department and langostinos were still available.
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Back on board I almost couldn’t wait to make this dish. A couple artisan sausage rolls were split and sauteed in Irish butter until golden brown and set aside. More butter was added to the little skillet and an almost equal amount of flour was cooked for a few minutes in it. The temperature was kept down to just bubbling. A pint of half and half was slowly added. The rule is to add no more liquid than what is already in the pan. Keep the temperature at simmer and keep stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan. After the sauce has thickened and is smooth and no more cream is available, seasoning is called for, salt and cayenne powder. I found that I don’t use much salt at all in my cooking, but the little I put in was too much. The langostinos that come in later have their own saltiness. I would hold off on the salt till later. The cayenne is dusted over the top of the sauce, maybe a teaspoon in this case, maybe a bit more.
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Next a couple of egg yolks were added, one at a time, with time to keep the sauce smooth as the yolks cooked and thickened it. After the second yolk has blended and cooked into the sauce add about ¼ cup of Marsala. It is wise to add it a little at a time and keep stirring and scraping the bottom. Next the lanostinos are shoveled in with the heat turned up. Keep the sauce hot and bubbly. Finally turn down the heat and cover. It can be served over toasted bread, rice, or pasta.
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This is a rich dish, easy to make, and thus suitable to serve to guests. They will want to have the recipe.
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The SailGP season is starting down under in Auckland, NZ. And we just had the Vendee Globe finishing with a time of under 65 days to circumnavigate the globe single handed. The winner’s average speed was over 17 knots.
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It is NFL divisional playoffs and the first game of the weekend will be on the local ABC station, one that I have never been able to get. I tried hard. Wikipedia has pages for TV stations and they list the latitude and longitude coordinates for the transmitter. By opening my marine navigator app I can find that spot and drop a mark there. The navigator app automatically shows the bearing and range of the mark. It also has a compass heading display that I can use to line up my antenna with the transmitter, which is only about 30 miles away. Although this technique looks precise, I was only able to get a partial signal from the ABC affiliate. It was unviewable.
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Then the wind blew the antenna off the top of the pilothouse and it broke. Strangely it still picked up the usual stations. I bought a replacement from Walmart and of course scanned the channels and tried to select the ABC affiliate. It would not go to that channel, probably because the signal was so poor.
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Today I did the scan again and noticed a menu item, channel list. I went to the channel list and there were a lot more channels than what I could select with the remote. When I found the ABC station and selected it from the menu I got a channel with lots of dropouts. I went to the pilothouse and adjusted the antenna a very little bit this way and that. I was able to improve the signal and when I adjusted the tilt of the antenna to parallel with the earth’s surface, the channel was perfectly clear and viewable. How about that. The game will be the Texans at the Chiefs.
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Earlier I reviewed the first 4 races of SailGP from Auckland, NZ. Apparently they are using improved hydrofoils that are more difficult to dial in, but provide increased speed for those who can control them at their optimum. The USA team has not been doing well and these races were no exception. USA was able to win a start, lead a race, but also they were able to “pearl” the boat, filling it with water. They lost that race too. Pearling refers to pearl divers, it is a surfing term that you got the nose of your board below the surface and you and the board are heading down fast. It’s also called boneyarding. The racing catamarans typically have this happen going downwind and a gust of wind depresses the lee bow, the boat “pearls” and heads down to Davy Jones’ Locker.
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The wintry football games, games played up North, were like old time football, drunk fans screaming in the cold, snow accumulating on the field, players slipping and sliding, playoff level of violence, and next weekend is Conference Championships. The week will give us a taste of winter. We can’t complain, we have to be grateful that we are not getting that blizzard that will hit up North all through the week. Here we can expect freezing temperatures in the morning and mid 40’s afternoons. Snow is possible.
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It is next day and snow is on deck along with granular ice. Uncomfortable getting around on deck with the chance of slip and fall to the boatyard below. It is 31 degrees and the new heater is doing its best to warm up the cabin. The Jacksonville airport is closed and will remain closed till tomorrow afternoon. I-95 is closed at the Florida border. This snow/ice combination would be difficult for even Northern drivers, but people down here have no experience with winter driving.
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My plans to make another bean soup are on hold. Manana.
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The image is of a frozen fountain to the West of us.