Kaimusailing

The next culinary experience is Taco Night at the Boater’s Lounge, formerly the Red Shell Shanty. It is no longer open as a bistro, but the marina is operating it as a BYOB venue. My immediate thought was Mexican pizza for Taco Night.
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When I googled mexican pizza I ended up with Rick Bayless’ pie, his family recipe for pizza. It is a pie made with salsa verde as the sauce, diced squash, queso fresco, and bacon as the toppings. He sometimes adds squash blossoms as a garnish, tearing them apart.
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The marina will provide taco shells and taco meat for Taco Night. It would be nice to make a pitcher of margaritas and bring guacamole and sour cream to pair with the tacos. No need to bake pizza. Bayless has many taco recipes on his YouTube channel. One of his most popular, at his restaurant, is a beef taco with guacamole, salsa, and crispy fried onions. Another is called Governor’s Taco, which can be summarized as shrimp and pico de gallo grilled in a taco shell with a pile of shredded Mexican cheese, grilled until the cheese melts. One of his videos is how to set up a taco party with various sauces and condiments. Refried beans are a must. Bayless also has several margarita recipes, including a huge pitcher recipe.
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Tyler Florence has his own guacamole recipe which I will try. I used to just mash avocados, splash some lime juice on them, then add some salsa. I was going to make two batches of guac. One with and one without pico de gallo, i.e, salsa. Bayless uses the simple traditional guac recipe that has only avocados, onion, serrano peppers, lime and cilatro for their flavors, as a condiment for other dishes. But when he puts this on a beef taco, he adds the salsa, well we don’t have to, we have it incorporated in our guac from the get go.
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They are calling for serrano peppers, like maybe they are trendy or something, there are also other flavor peppers, sometimes along with culinary fire. I’ve got red jalapeno chili powder, it’s not subtle.
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We have about 3 or more liters of “rail” tequila. I don’t have it, Cuddily does. She wants to throw it out. Look at the reviews of it. They savage it. It’s like the poor broken down puppy that just needs a little love, but no one loves this liquor, they even lie about it, looking for ways to disparage it further. I am talking about Montezuma Aztec Silver tequila.
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We thought we could make two pitchers of margaritas, one good, and one bad, “do you want one of my BAD margaritas?”, then Cuddily can coax patrons to have margaritas made with real Patron tequila, or maybe something better. She might not have enough to make too many of the “good” margaritas, better get there early and thirsty.
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I bought Blue Corn Chips.
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An Effort. They were the only blue corn chips in Walmart’s voluminous isle.
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I rushed through the store, I thought I had plenty of time before my audiology exam, but my search included a cocktail shaker. I spent a whole half hour trying to find one. I even had the aisle number from the Walmart website for this store. Time began to run out, as it always seems to do.
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I ended up with some incorrect choices, like mild salsa, and omissions, like red onions. But I was off to be on time to the audiologist. That session went OK and I said I just wanted to know how my ears are doing. She showed me how they were doing, impressive computer display, oh, we don’t charge veterans for hearing aids. What, what did you say?
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So I will have some Chinese hearing aids in a couple weeks or so. Just see if they make any difference.
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The drive back to Crisfield went through Snow Hill on Snow Hill Road, a beautiful highway. I stopped at Sysco in Pocomoke for a couple boxes of wine. I was tired but ended up helping Teri with her car back in Crisfield and then we all got together at the Legion.
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The next day we were off again to go back up Snow Hill Road from Pocomoke up to Ocean City.
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Cuddily says she wants to look at dining furniture and entices me with an Orange Crush drink at the place where they were invented, The Waterside, or maybe Harborside, the crushes have an effect.
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The furniture store was dispensed with due to ridiculous prices for furniture that no one would want. Plus, they didn’t cater to us. Was it my flip flops, funky shirt, faded greasy ball cap, or just my overall demeanor, but that was not all, Cuddily had on the Kamala outfit, the gym shoes, that’s how I describe them, no pearls though, maybe they would have made a difference. The staff basically snubbed us and sent a high school salesmanship intern to listen to Cuddily’s description of what she wanted. Oh, yes, we have to go back and get measurements. I will send my designer, sorry.
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At the restaurant we of course ordered the orange crushes and I had a seared Ahi salad. When it came I could see it was great, like a poke bowl but presented differently. I tore it up and ate a lot of seared Ahi dipped in a wasabi mayo kind of sauce. Doesn’t take too much more than that to please me. Maybe another orange crush drink. Cuddily had a mahi sandwich and I looked at it with envy while she looked at my salad with envy. Good food.
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We returned on a shortcut that Eve, the artist, had showed Cuddily. I can’t imagine riding with Eve on a road like that anytime after 3 in the afternoon.
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I had to get 3 things at Walmart that I couldn’t have gotten without their online app. The 3 items were obscure but I found them quickly and went out to Cuddily’s car, no one there, she didn’t have much to get, I texted her I am done. She was waiting at a car that looked just like hers, not that far away.
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I helped her bring bottles of Saddlebred wine to her wine rack and we enjoyed a bottle. She gave me a liter of the bad tequila and an almost empty triple sec bottle. When I returned to the marina I made a test margarita and it didn’t seem bad at all.
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The next day I bought a bottle of triple sec and some simple syrup. I found another margarita recipe, 2:1:1, two shots of tequila, and one each of triple sec and lime juice. I made one and it will be the recipe I will use for the big pitcher of margaritas.
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Cuddily called and invited me to dinner of sea scallops and salad. Cornelia Marie arrived with Nori, the Wonder Dog, and Teri arrived later. I helped make a caesar salad and had some Saddlebred. The dinner was exceptional. We discussed preparations for taco night.
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It turned out the marina needed a health inspection before they could serve food, however we boaters could bring whatever food and drink we wanted. The marina will provide a DJ.
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I picked up two boxes of Old El Paso soft tacos which also included spice packets and taco sauce. The recipe on the back of the box called for a pound of ground beef. I shopped accordingly. I got a bag of frozen shrimp to make Governor’s Tacos, and ingredients for BLT tacos.
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I prepped 4 roma tomatoes, minced red onion, chopped iceberg lettuce mix to a fine chop, made the taco meat, and finally loaded it all onto a dock cart and schlepped to the Shanty, Boater’s Lounge.
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A lady met me there, you must be Andy, her name was Jeanie or Janie, and she is the new event coordinator for the marina. The marina is changing somewhat, from county management to state, I always thought it was state. The marina is a political statement. At the other end of the marina is the Tawes Museum. There is Tawes Storage and Tawes Brothers, local dealership. The University of Maryland has a Tawes Building. Tawes was big, politically big, and he held court in Crisfield. The ebb tide of his political mass has Crisfield hosting officials who fly in by helicopter. There is not much else here, the vacuum is taken up.
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She began wiping tables while I began scooping a dozen avocados into two bowls to make guacamole. I went to the marina office for ice and poured a margarita from the pitcher. I used Rick Bayless’ recipe which is a bottle of tequila blanco, ¾ cup of triple sec, 1 cup of fresh squeezed lime juice, and ½ cup of simple syrup. I was unable to find blue agave syrup which I would have preferred.
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A fellow from my dock named Eric showed up with some adult beverages and had some guac and blue corn chips and tried a margarita. Cuddily arrived with her own special tequila and fixings. Cornelia Marie arrived with her grill and corn to make grilled Mexican street corn. Eric helped her schlep the propane tank over to a nearby picnic table where she set up the grill.
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Now I kinda know how it must feel to have a restaurant business. All your fantasies are popped. Food is food, patrons are not always brands of tequila. Actually the tequila ran out, was depleted. Now whataya gonna do.
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Ah yes, those tension filled moments as the pitcher of margaritas empties just like that, no more, oh, have I had too much, or too little. The liter of “bad” tequila hasn’t seemed to give me a hangover, the next day, but maybe I haven’t sobered up yet.
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I have a weird idea that a lot of the people I meet in Crisfield are involved in a witness protection scheme, it would explain a lot. And the Arts Council ladies suss them out, they say they seem fake, like a made up ID. And Crisfield is, unfortunately, the place to send somebody into obscurity. Don’t snark about Crisfield.
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A Baltimore Sun reporter or corespondent used Crisfield to write a story that maybe kept his job open a bit more. I could write like that, but writing is not the best way to make a living, much like boating. The writer came all the way down to Crisfield and reported it is the most Trumpified town in Maryland. He didn’t notice that Crisfield has a black lady mayor and the Legion has a large black ex-marine as commander.
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There is evidence of segregation. There are a lot of misogynous racist folk who have learned to turn off their ears and minds. Home schooling.
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The Taco Night was like Pizza Night. Lots of prep work, then hydration with adult beverages, food cooked just the way you like it, I had the 3 tacos I wanted. I don’t know how to equate a slice of pizza to a taco, but I usually have one slice from each of the 4 pies on Pizza Night, and now I am having 3 tacos, each from either Rick Bayless’ recipe list, or from the back of the El Paso package.
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The guacamole needed salt, but I had no salt. Maybe Cuddily would bring it with a plate to properly salt our margarita rims. She did. I would say no one salted their rims. After the pitcher of “bad” margaritas was depleted, they were made individually with some limes that Cuddily brought, plus the tequila and triple sec. I could whip up an ice cold margarita in her stainless cocktail shaker and then not get to taste it, the patrons notice the ice shaking noise and come to investigate, then beg for that ice cold margaritaville liquid. Of course I did get to have my very own margarita, but here in Crisfield it’s Do It Yourself.
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The next morning I awoke with Nori’s leash hanging from the companionway. I vaguely remember marina personnel escorting me down the dock to SUNSPLASH and patiently waiting to see I’ve got on board, safe on board, SOB.
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I have to thank the marina personnel who made sure I didn’t fall in. They were probably paid to do that or maybe they wanted to not be named in a wrongful death suit. Times are strange in our litigated society. The tables will be wiped down, I am sure of that. We want our money. Starving.
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I like them, the new State marina employees. Witness protection? Where else. I say it’s like everyone is thrown in together, but that is how the entire human race is. We’re all thrown in together.
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The texts were coming in, great food, great people, so much fun, I replied you don’t have to shout so loud. What are we going to do next weekend? I looked ahead, hmm, Friday the 13th, Flag Day, US Army 250th Anniversary, D.J.Trump’s 79th birthday and giant military parade in DC, all on the 14th, then Father’s Day on Sunday the 15th. Some have planned protests over the weekend, responding to the recent deployment of military to quell riots that are responding to ICE’s mass deportations.
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The image is of the seafood market in Ocean City. The scallops were $28/lb.