Kaimusailing

If I am not taking pictures or writing it could be that I am depressed, but also there is a cycle in creativity, unless you are a manic artist. It seems sometimes that the extremists are the ones who get anything done. You have to play life like a hockey game, give it your all, then take a restful break. Then you are ready to go again.
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I finished the last of the stroganoff stuffed cabbage. It is like many other things, delightful at first, but not your everyday meal, day after day. If you can make something that is enough to keep you from going out and experiencing some other cook, then be objective, go ahead, enjoy it.
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I think there is an age old nomadic life involving the sea coast, in any climate, people like to live near the sea. Living on the sea itself is something completely different. I am near the sea but in a boatyard and not on the sea. In Crisfield I am on the sea but in a marina, still not free of the land. In both cases I am cheating a bit and taking the easy way. If I put the catamaran in the water it will start to gather growth on the bottom starting an endless cycle of hauling out, bottom cleaning, relaunching, gather more weeds. SUNSPLASH in Crisfield has plenty of weeds growing on the bottom.
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Cap’n Webb Chiles postponed his voyage to Culebra until after the ceremony inducting him into the Moore 24 sailing hall of fame. It is probably better anyway with our temperatures in the low country 10 degrees below normal.
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In the boatyard we have ice in the bucket and ice on the swimming ladder that I use to climb on deck. Careful Cap’n, breaking ribs in cold weather is much more painful.
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A photo from a spy in Crisfield showed a wintry scene with ice on the docks. The weather app says storm conditions, such as 50mph winds and snow. The marina called to say SUNSPLASH is getting hammered against her finger pier. It has happened before, just more repair work next summer.
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I was surprised to see langostinos on sale at Walmart, of all places. These are the real “scampi” and I bought some. Quick sautee with butter and garlic, some parsley flakes, ought to be good. I also bought frozen small shrimp and spinach. I had some vague idea of making “shrimp noodle florentine”. I needed to put the frozen items in the little fridges tiny freezer. There was a ziplok bag of bean soup in there left over from? From Thanksgiving.
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I microwaved the bean soup to thaw it out and also get it bubbling hot. It didn’t smell off and it was actually as good as ever.
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I had some shrimp ramen packets on hand, so I put ½ pkg of ramen noodles in a large styrofoam cup with a teaspoon of Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning and some of the small shrimp. A pint of boiling water was added and the concoction was steeped for a few minutes and voila, gourmet college dorm shrimp soup.
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The cold weather put my propane heating apparatus in center focus. My recent propane tank replacement suddenly was empty. The heater is the Mr. Heater Buddy, I think it is called. It is old and has seen its days. Sometimes the pizzeo lighter doesn’t work and I have to use a match. There is a thermocouple that allows the propane to flow into the catalytic grille of heater when it gets up to temperature. It has been malfunctioning and taking much too long to get the heater heating. Finally it refused to stay lit and it took an hour to get it going. The pilot light would remain lit, but the grille wouldn’t start up. I started applying a spray of ethanol on the burner and the result would be an impressive flame but the grille would lose its glow. I began to bang on the heater which was already in pretty bad shape. Then it started working again. I will replace it if it continues to fail.
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Rain. Pouring rain. I was trying to sleep with a persistent leak in the hatch over my head, drip, drip, drip. No heat from the broken heater. I was sleeping in damp bunk with the temperature outside going down to freezing again.
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In the morning I didn’t want to emerge from the bunk and face the cold. The bucket on deck was frozen. My pyromaniacal session with the broken heater had me spraying ethanol on the heater and trying to light it. Flame. Heat, but just a little. Spray, light it, and after a long while it began burning properly.
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After breakfast we drove to Walmart and I bought a new heater. I did my research. The Mr. Heater “little buddy” that had failed was not available, they had been bought out, out of stock. They are cheap. The Mr. Heater Portable Buddy was available, listing about $75. Right next to it was Walmart’s Ozark Trail 10,000BTU portable camping heater for $59. I bought it.
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The Ozark Trail heater can be adjusted from 10K btu’s down to about 4K. The Little Buddy was rated at 3800 btu’s with no adjustment. The Ozark Trail will run for about 4 hours on a 1 lb propane cylinder. When I ran it at 10K it started to melt things around it and potentially damage painted surfaces. The heat was excessive at that setting. I guess I am set if we have truly cold weather. When it is turned down to its lowest setting it puts out plenty of heat and has a satisfying rumbling sound. I put the Little Buddy on the boatyard’s free pile.
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I made another pseudo shrimp noodle concoction with some Irish butter, minced garlic, ramen noodles, more of the tiny shrimp, and garlic salt and ground pepper to taste. Very simple and easy to make with precooked shrimp and boiling water. 3 minutes.
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I have been toying with the idea of a vacation to Hawaii during these cold months. The temperatures are running about 10 degrees below average here. Frost is an occasional thing here, but we have had several hard freezes and frost on the pumpkin almost every morning. Normally we expect “winter” to gradually give up by mid February. This year is already a little colder.
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I was in the store for wine and needed to pick up a couple other things. What could I make, bean soup? Yes, I drifted over to the 15 bean soup packages in the Kingsland Winn-Dixie. This store will be converted to an Aldi’s starting in a few months. The smaller store in St Marys is already closed and undergoing renovation. I notice some bare floor space here in the Kingsland store already. The seafood counter is bare and unoccupied. The bean prices are higher than those at Walmart. Onions are a dollar more than Walmart.
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I changed my mind about making the 15 bean soup, I would make bean soup with Great Northern Beans. I purchased a pair of bone-in pork chops and a pound of beans. I was forced to buy one of the expensive onions. Garlic was not available in single heads. I retreated to the boatyard and began cooking.
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I poached the pork chops, beans, brown rice, onion, and garlic, bring to a boil with 6 cups of water, turn off the heat for 10 minutes, repeat until the beans are starting to tender. That is the problem with the 15 bean mix, the beans are all different sizes and need different cooking times. When the beans are beginning to get tender I added a package of frozen spinach and a can of diced tomatoes. The pork chops had been removed and allowed to cool. A leftover flavor packet from a previous 15 bean mix was added.
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The pork chops were deboned and any fat was removed, then the pork was shredded and diced and returned to the pot. I cheated and tasted some of the pork. The soup was still poaching but I had some. Raw flavors, but the flavor packet said Cajun and the soup spoke to me – Cajun. I had a few helpings and then put the pot on deck. The temperature was going down to mid 30’s overnight, so the soup was going to get chilled and then packaged individual portions and refrigerated in the morning.
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In the morning I put away 4 large portions of the soup. I can’t wait to make it again, I have a couple of ideas for improvement.
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The roof racks came in for the CRV and I installed them. The image is of the roof racks.

The trouble with the pork chops is that they constituted a new form of substance, very good if you want to go on a diet without pork chops. Not so good for me. I don’t know how these things became tempered like steel, the spanish rice with them should have dissolved some of that iron.
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I’m hungry again and the pork chops don’t deter me from having pork shops again, just not those military ones. I had had leftover florentine clam soup. Very nice.
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OK, the brilliant idea is a sitcom. It looks like billionaires are going to be in the news a lot, why not make fun of them? Like, a billionaire family that owns a football team and all the family members get involved, they spend hundreds of millions of dollars for their football players, and the humor starts. Unfortunately trying to sell a sitcom like this wouldn’t work at all, there is already a reality going on right in front of us, the NY Jets. The Johnson family, New Yawk City, actually the humor is escaping me right now. Maybe the Kardashian family should own the Jets. Aaron Rodgers probably owns property next to them in CA.
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Meanwhile I am watching discarded Jets quarterback Sam Darnold, now playing for the Vikings, torching the Packers, where the current Jets quarterback came from. The Jets seem to be the nadir for quarterbacks.
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Now I am confronting a pork chop again. This time it’s going into the small cast iron skillet with some of its rice and sauce and I’m going to cook it for about an hour to try to convince it to be edible.
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My next culinary venture will be stuffed cabbage with a strogonoff style sauce. The stuffing will include meat and cabbage, no rice, and the sauce will include mushrooms, onion, and sour cream.
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The pork chop was much more edible after simmering for about an hour. Afterwards I had to reseason the skillet. I went shopping.
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The store was full of people idling around, aisles were blocked, even the traffic in the parking lot was infuriatingly awkward, backed up. I was shocked that there were no cabbages, there were leaves of cabbages where the cabbages had once been. There were smaller red cabbages so I bought one and decided to get some beets, they would go together, red stuffed cabbage with a strogonoff sauce, the stuffing would include chopped meat and chopped beets.
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So, it is New Year’s Eve and I am making a big mess in the galley, steaming cabbage leaves, chopping beets, mixing the stuffing, rolling up the cabbage leaves with stuffing into the large skillet, adding some cabbage water, then poaching for a half hour. Poaching consists of bringing the skillet up to rapid boil, then shut off the heat and wait about 10 minutes, repeat until done.
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The steamed stuffed cabbages were put into a medium pot, maybe 2 ½ qt pot and the skillet was dried, seasoned with 1/3 stick of Irish butter. Diced onion and a crushed clove of garlic were cooked transluscent, garlic removed, flour dusted over the onions, roux cooked until the taste of raw flour was gone. Sliced mushrooms went in next and allowed to wilt and give up their liquid. Beet juice went in along with a pint of sour cream. All the while the concoction was kept from burning on the bottom of pan by mixing and scraping with a spatula.
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The sauce was then added to the pot of stuffed cabbage rolls and the pot was put on simmer. When it started bubbling I shut off the heat. I had been cooking for about 2 hours and was hungry. I took one of the stuffed cabbages and some sauce and did a taste test. The flavor was very stroganov/borscht and the sauce was very rich. One little cabbage roll and I was done, for a while. Very rich. Later I had another and then packed 4 portions of 3 rolls each and put them in the fridge.
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This concoction improves over time and as good as it was at first, it became much better over the next few days. One cannot live on stuffed cabbage everyday and I was out of a few things, so I went shopping with an eye for something new.
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Walmart had inexpensive picnic pork roasts available, and of a size I could use. I didn’t want to make another huge batch of food and wonder how to dispose of it all. A ½ picnic cost around 9 bucks. I wanted some traditional sauerkraut so bought a large jar of it.
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The picnic fit almost perfectly in a medium sized soup pot. I placed it skin side down and found I didn’t have liquid smoke on hand to create Kahlua pig, but had some Tony Chachere’s Original Creole Seasoning, and used that. No liquid was added to the pot. It was simmered on very low for several hours. I began trying the pork to see if it was done and took a portion of the surface that was well cooked and had that with a scoop of the sauerkraut. Yummie. The pork had a long way to go to get the center of the roast falling apart done, so it remained on very low simmer. It was cold enough on deck to just put the pot of pork out there and deal with it the next day.
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The weather pattern has been strange with polar outburst followed by mild weather on about a weekly basis. I am heating the cabin with a small Mr. Buddy propane heater that uses the small 1 lb canisters. I refill the small canisters from a larger tank like you’d use for a gas grill. This results in a great savings over buying new 1 lb canisters, also in effect the steel canisters are being recycled efficiently. All this went well until I got a large tank whose valve would not seal completely. When I removed the small canister the large tank was spewing propane and I had to quickly attach another small canister. I realized I couldn’t remove canisters without having an empty on hand.
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Cap’n Webb Chiles has planned a voyage to Culebra from Hilton Head in the next few days. I did a quick route planning on OpenCPN and found that the straight track between those two points had no obstacles along the way. My usual method of planning a route is to drop a mark at the sea buoy at the starting point and then drop a mark at the destination sea buoy. Then the straight line course, the Rum Line, is tweaked to avoid any islands, etc., that are in the way. In this case there is no need to change the route, even the Gulf Stream crossing is reasonable. Chances are he will be beating into the SE trades along the way, but that is the easiest point of sail to get a sloop to sail itself.
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I ordered roof racks for the little CRV on eBay, less than 50 bucks with free shipping. I will need them to transport light lumber. I plan to build a sailing rig for the dinghy I built last year, and I hope it will also fit the Sumnercraft dinghy that resides aboard SUNSPLASH up in Crisfield, MD.
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I found several resources for the Sumnercraft dinghy on the internet, mostly sale listings, but several had sails and rig displayed, the sail is almost identical to the sail on the D4 dinghy that I made. So, make a mast, a sprit pole, a poly tarp sail, a daggerboard and rudder, and put it all together. By the time I build it it will be warm enough to go out and test sail it.
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Our forecast for the next few days is freezing mornings and mid 50’s afternoons. Oh well, it’s January and in a month or so we will start complaining about the heat.
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The image is from a listing of a Sumnercraft dinghy. The sail rig is a sprit rig.

I enjoyed the last of the stuffed cabbage. The fridge was now bare of leftovers except for bean soup which was in the little freezer. I decided to make a clam florentine soup derived from a shrimp recipe.
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I bought frozen spinach which came in a size better suited for the quantity I was making. A quart of half and half and an onion were the other ingredients I needed. I already had canned clams, celery, flour, and Irish butter on hand.
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This is another one pot wonder, melt 5 tbsp butter in a medium pot with diced onion, crushed garlic, a a couple stalks of celery finely diced. When the onion is getting translucent the chopped spinach is added, then 5 tbsp of flour are added and the roux is cooked for a few minutes constantly keeping the bottom of the pot clear. Clam juice is decanted from two cans of clams into the roux and whisked smooth, then half and half is added a little at a time. The rule is to only add as much liquid equal to the quantity of the roux. It took three pours, each time letting the mixture thicken in between. Parsley flakes and fresh ground black pepper were added. The soup thickened and the heat was turned off. The bottom of the pot was carefully scraped to prevent burning.
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I had some of the soup while sitting on the pandemic porch in the boatyard and Geoff the chemist cycled by. We chatted a bit. Komputer Ken backed his vehicle past us. I had related to Geoff how Ken had fallen off his bike while attempting his first ride in many years. Ken had been a professional bike racer long ago. Geoff asked me if he should offer to sell Ken training wheels, no, I said, I'll do it. I yelled Ken, Ken, Geoff has some training wheels. Ken flipped me off.
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Netflix debuted a new docuseries about Aaron Rodgers, the current NY Jets quarterback and I was obliged to view it. I like sport documentaries and this one is really special, not because of Rodgers impressive football career, but because of his philosophical search. Many people I know are on this quest, their families estranged due to religious issues or other rifts, and the individual has to go it alone. In this case Rodgers has shown he is a true outlier, he has been experiencing sessions with the South American drug ayahuaska which looks to me to be an extreme experience complete with hallucinations and deep soul searching. Rodgers comes across as a brave guy who thinks for himself and is on a quest to satisfy his curiosity and satisfy a need to reconcile issues in his life. I highly recommend this documentary.
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The clam soup was very good.
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Eloisa sent me a link to a food prep video from the Italia Squisita channel. It was an Etruscan soup preparation. I subscribed to the channel and looked at more of their videos. These are in depth shows about iconic dishes prepared in Michelin starred restaurants. Not all the dishes are Italian. The show shot in New York City about chicken parmesan is about an American dish invented by Italian immigrants and prepared with local ingredients. These videos make most others look like amateur cooking.
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One preparation is a ratatouille made with very thin slices of the ingredients arranged alternating like a multicolored snake. It inspired me in an unusual way.
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I love poke bowl, especially the way East Coast chefs interpret the Hawaiian original preparation. Usually they start with a bed of rice, then a ring of cucumber slices around the edge of the bowl, then diced fish, like ahi tuna, and other asian standards, seaweed salad, diced mango, sliced avocado, a dressing made with mayo and sriracha. How many people toss and turn at night struggling with thoughts about preparation of poke bowl?
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I thought about the Italian gourmet version of ratatouille, the round sliced vegetables layed out like a multicolored rope, hmmm. You could do the same thing with shrimp, avocado, and cucumber. Slice the shrimp like you are butterflying it, but cut it in half. Slice intact half of avocado and reserve the largest slices, the smaller end slices go into a small sauce bowl. Calculate how many avocado semicircles you have and cut the ends off a cucumber leaving a cylindrical middle piece that gets peeled in a striped pattern, halved lengthwise, and sliced the same thickness as the avocado. All these slices should have a taper to them, thicker on one side than the other. When they are stacked together they will form a natural curve and that is what will go on top of the bed of rice.
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The avocado ends are mashed with a tablespoon of mayo and spiced with instant tom yum paste and soy. The paste is every bit as spicy as sriracha and maybe a half teaspoon is enough. The combination of sodium from the tom yum paste and soy can be too much, so you have to taste the dressing as you add the spicy and salty elements. Sesame oil can be added now, too, or sprinkled later after assembly.
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I mixed the cucumber slices with the dressing and then assembled the slices in order, cucumber, avocado, shrimp, cucumber, avocado, shrimp, etc. The result is very tasty with good texture. I bought a mango but it is too green to be of use this time. Sliced raw mushroom would work in this also.
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The soup I vowed I would not make. It's the poke bowl ingredients with broth and egg drop. I've made a soup several times that combines hot and sour and tom yum in one soup. Hot and sour has the egg drops, corn starch thickening, mushrooms, sometimes shredded pork, spiced with vinegar and something sweet, maybe brown sugar. Tom Yum can also have the thickening, but mainly it's the chicken, shrimp, and/or mushroom, and both soups have aromatic sesame oil . The combined soup has mushrooms and shrimp, egg drops, tom yum paste as the spice, the sugar and vinegar, or I use balsamic vinegar a lot. I resisted making this soup so I could make the poke bowl, but the poke bowl ingredients are attractive for this soup.
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If I don't go out and get mushrooms, the soup will be chicken stock with egg drops, poke bowl dressing as the spicing, and shrimp, avocado slices, and cucumber slices, the sweet and sour of balsamic vinegar, how bad could it be? Very bad. I ate the shrimp and tossed the rest. Should have been good, wasn't.
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The next day I made a run to Walmart and it was a zoo with Christmas eve shoppers. I took my time and got what I needed. I stopped in the one quiet place in the store and looked through the recipes stored on my phone for something, anything, a last minute purchase for a holiday dinner.
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When I got back to the boatyard, the gulag, I felt inspired to cook what I bought at Walmart. It was two pair of thick pork chops, a large yellow onion, one of the 3 remaining green peppers at the store, and a can of petite diced tomatoes. I took the large skillet and began searing the chops in olive oil.
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The chops were huge and the large skillet wasn't large enough. I hoped they would shrink to make more room. I prepped the green pepper and onion. No way they'd fit in the skillet along with the huge chops. The chops were browned, not all at once, shuffled around, then removed to add the veggies and scrape the bottom of the pan. There was also ¾ cup of rice there. I added a pint of water and as the mixture percolated the chops went on top of everything and the lid went on top, not enough room to close it completely, but maybe the chops would shrink and the whole concoction will fit.
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After a while I tasted the sauce or broth. Not bad. The chops were cooked enough, but of course they will be much better after stewing them much longer. My nibbling of the chops and tasting of the sauce began to make room in the pan.
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At some point I noticed the top of the stove was wet with broth from the pan. It had been drizzling out, maybe that is another reason for room in the pan. The sauce was a bad substitute for detergent, but the stove top was actually cleaner after wiping it up.
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The concoction was getting better and better. The more the chops cooked the more affable and relaxed they got. Cut em with a fork. The sauce thickened. I had had too much nibbling, but I put some more of a chop on a plate with a scoop of the veggie sauce. Mmm. Food almost any diner would be proud to serve.
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The photo is of the shrimp poke bowl. I have enough leftovers to make another.

Not my clowns, not my circus. That is an amusing phrase, especially now. RFK jr in charge of health. The clowns come in, send in the clowns. It seems to be a recurring theme. If you put clowns in charge of government agencies, then you can take them down. I rant, but government is not a single edged sword, what comes around, goes around.
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For someone like me, a sort of intellectual, the Nazi experience in Germany is something to never forget. I recommend reading Evans' third reich trilogy. I reread it.
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If you are an intellectual like me you have to have a way out, like a Switzerland, or Hawaii, or maybe just an old ocean boat. The ultimate escape vehicle. While you are leaving, the hoards escaping where you are going are coming here.
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I made the borscht using kielbasa, etc, and we had dinner at Notter's Pond, a public pond sort of thing. There is a metal table and chair trio where we supped our soup. The birds are mainly Canadian geese and some local ducks. The park closes at sunset and we only had an hour or so to eat our soup and get out.
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Bleu, the black american cocker, decided to jump in the lake, into the foul algae, then come out and roll in the dirt and mud. Eloisa was ready to loose it, she had kept him clean all day. She says he is like a little 2 year old kid. He does things sometimes that reinforces that notion. She took him behind a restaurant where they had a water hose and she hosed him down, then asked me what I wanted to do.
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We went to the Southern River Walk restaurant again. It is a pleasant place with good food and mostly endearing wait staff. We had wine and played a word game on my phone. There was a trivia game going on in the restaurant and they wanted us to play, they needed another team. You're already playing a game, they said, but we had wine, cheesecake with chocolate syrup, and an out of town couple sat with us and played with Bleu.
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Eloisa liked the borscht and wanted to know how to make it. Too many ingredients for her to contemplate. I texted her the link to Martha Stewart's borscht cooking on YouTube. Martha was cooking with her mother, Big Martha, who is of course a little old lady.
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This borscht that I made was concocted on the fly in Kaimu's galley. I had a big stock pot and cut up kielbasa, onions, potatoes, mushrooms, and some carrots. I added 3 cups of water and started the soup boiling. I reserved 3 cans of beets and a can of diced tomatoes. I put in a tablespoon of dried dill and a teaspoon of garlic salt. This cooked for about a half hour on simmer to make sure the potatoes were overdone, then I whisked it. The potatoes fall apart and thicken the soup. In went the beets and the red beet juice and the diced tomatoes. The sour cream went in after the soup came off the flame. Blend it, try some of it.
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I think the soup is better with beef like chuck roast than with the kielbasa. It's good, but the beef really makes it. I'm not going to make it for a while, but when I do it next time will be with beef, probably.
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I call it a one pot wonder. I didn't try to make a roux separately, or cook things separately, just put it all in one pot and cook it up. A roux would thicken it and that would be an improvement. I've made it that way before. Maybe next time.
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We went to North Beach Park in Fernandina the day after Eloisa's birthday. It was a bit chilly but almost no wind. The butane cooker was used to heat up about a quart of the borscht and then later to grill a couple of naan cheese and tomato sandwiches. We had a box of Black Box pinot noir. It was a pleasant afternoon sitting at a picnic table in a gazebo, part of the boardwalk that goes from the park to the beach. We met a lot of people who were going for a walk on the beach.
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I changed the oil in the Honda CRV when I found out that Cornelia Marie had last changed the oil using regular oil, not the recommended synthetic. I found new aches and pains after crawling under the car and wrenching the filter and oil pan bung.
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I wanted to make stuffed cabbage and went to the store for cabbage, etc. The recipe from Martha Stewart is actually from her mother's grandmother. The mirepoix they used was celery, green sweet pepper, onion, and some garlic. No carrot. I could not get meatloaf meat mix and ended up with ordinary ground beef.
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It was windy and I decided to all the cooking in Kaimu's galley. We had originally planned to cook out at Notter's pond or Crooked River State Park. It would be like a stuffed cabbage picnic. Instead I cooked in the galley.
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The first thing was to get a big pot of water boiling to steam off the cabbage leaves. When they come off I don't trim the center spine of the leaf, I do cut the biggest butt piece of the leaf off. I pile the leaves and keep cooking the cabbage. The more you cook it the easier it is to make the cabbage rolls out of it. I had a large skillet that was intended for the cabbage rolls, but it was too small and I needed to use a stock pot. I had the large skillet like a prep bowl with the ground beef, then diced veggies, some spicing was added, ground pepper, 2 tablespoons of dried parsley, about 1 ½ tsp of garlic salt. The stock pot was layered on the bottom with the small leftover cabbage parts. Then the leaves were rolled up with the mixture and placed in the pot. The pot went on the stove with a 64 oz. jar of V-8 juice poured over the cabbage rolls. This was my new idea. Tomato sauce or tomato vegetable soup are a good way to sauce these cabbage rolls, but V-8 juice has a lot of flavor and I thought I would try it this time.
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Bring it to a boil, then turn it down to simmer for a couple hours. I took a shower. Eloisa was down at Amelia Island and needed some logistic help to coordinate our stuffed cabbage picnic.
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We ended up at Notter's Pond, a serene waterfowl filled little lake, closed at sunset, no dogs allowed. Well, he's not a dog, he's a baby gorilla. Bleu. Bleu ate more than his share of stuffed cabbage. The V-8 juice made an excellent gravy. When the sun started to set we packed up and went to the Southern River Walk for a bottle of pinot noir and a session of Zen Word. Addictive. Our wait staff was very engaging and we had a great time introducing him to Bleu and learning about the community, he grew up here, not Bleu, the wait staff.
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Eloisa expressed concern about the weather and I saw we were in for a real treat. Morning thunderstorms terminating with a precipitous drop in temperature, rain, high winds ending up near freezing temperatures. I had to batten the hatches, put away perishables, and replenish the propane cylinders. Uh oh, our propane tank is out.
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I went out and exchanged the propane and started filling the little 1 lb tanks from the bigger tank. I wanted to have 3 of the little tanks ready for the precipitous temperature drop. I was coming down with something, sore throat, sneezy. I filled the little tanks one at a time, give them an hour apiece to fill.
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The next day I was watching the amazing cloud formations approaching. I was on the communal pandemic porch where I asked Steve, the environmentalist engineer about all the tools piled up on the free pile at the end of the porch. This is where boaters discard their unneeded gear, yes, he said, I'm cleaning out Rocky's shop of old tools. Tools, tool boxes, another boater approached, later, and asked if the tools at the end of the porch were free for the taking, yes, I said.
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The winds were increasing and impressive clouds were rolling in, like a big cold front with roll clouds, which is what it was. Pelts of rain would hit the tin roof and shed. Steve the environmentalist schooled me on how to clean up dirty harbors 9,500 gallons a minute. He's has built a big water cleaner. He left when the rain let up.
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It let up and then poured again. The winds were ferocious. A canopy that had withstood whatever weather was here during the hurricane season was overwhelmed and collapsed. I walked around and had to stand up to the wind. The river was covered with furious whitecaps. Time to hunker down. Gale.
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Rainwater got into my bunk. The result was damp bedding and difficulty getting a night's sleep. I ended up sleeping very late. Eloisa hit the road up to the mountains to aid her sister who was going through chemo. Merry Christmas. I had stuffed cabbage for breakfast.
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The cold weather relented and the boat dried out, it was actually warm again in the boatyard. Komputer Ken who is recovering from knee replacement surgery had his Bianchi bicycle serviced and now he has the go ahead from his surgeons to ride the bike. Unfortunately he is out of practice and dropped the bike before he even got going. We are planning to do a short ride later in the week.
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Finally, the NY Jets played the Jacksonville Jaguars and the game was on local TV. The Jets won, but both teams were 3-10 going into the game and there were too many penalties and dumb mistakes.
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The image is of a sunset with storm clouds coming in over St. Marys.

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.

The 11 hour drive to St. Marys was punctuated by a couple of traffic jams, the last one occurring right at the exit for Laurel Island Parkway just North of Kingsland where the big submarine base is located. I chose to exit there and avoid the jam, although I would be on local roads for the last few miles to the boatyard. As I came to the end of the exit ramp I could see traffic was free if I just rolled down the on ramp continuing South. Oh well, I was sort of committed to continuing on the Parkway.
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This route goes by the old airport and has some nasty curves and I took one wide. A St. Marys policeman stopped me and gave me a ticket for not staying in my proper lane. 700 miles without incident otherwise.
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I was rushing to get to the catamaran before it got dark. I pulled in and climbed aboard to see the interior. I was concerned about rainwater accumulation. There was some and a musty odor of dampness. Nothing drastic. I went shopping for breakfast supplies.
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We had a lot of rain over the week and I felt down, but so many other people have it bad. I hate them when they say, “Oh, that’s not so bad”, when I vent about things. Just let people vent, common courtesy. No matter how bad I feel, there is always something far worse, but I’d like things to be better anyway.
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I was invited to dinner at the phd chemists, Geoff and Karen, how do I want my tuna cooked they asked. They don’t go in for raw ahi. There are ways to prevent and eliminate parasites in your tuna. They just cook it. The cooking time was expertly varied by Geoff but the tuna was from the local Winn-Dixie. The perfectly cooked tuna steak was eagerly consumed, but I had to say to him, this is a young tuna. Earlier I had commented on the wine at the Point.
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The Point, or Pirate’s Point, is what I refer to when I say “the gas station restaurant”. As soon as I walked in the bartender asked if I wanted my Malbec. I was stunned. I hadn’t been in there for a couple of years. I was trying to remember when I had Malbec there. When she saw me she could have thought, red wine, what do we got, and as a person running a restaurant, what do we want to get rid of… Malbec.
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The wine was terrible, but not unusually so at this place, and I spoke with Geoff about it. Wait Staff, restaurant operator, came over. I said the malbec tasted rather vinegary. She astutely asked if she should open a new bottle. Yes. She poured into a large glass some of the new wine and then offered it to me. This seemed strange, I expected to take a whiff of the cork or bottle and then get a little taste. The taste from the large glass was like stepping into a garden or fruit orchard. No wonder I drank this wine before.
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The owner kinda shrugged me off when I mentioned tasting some of his older wines that have sat in the bottle. Maybe he should have drank the rest of that bad bottle.
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I hadn’t been in that place for about 2 years. They wouldn’t let Eloisa’s black American cocker spaniel, Bleu, in back then.
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I returned a week later and had another southwest burger and pinot noir. It was a change from my fare of strange canned salmon efforts. I sat at the bar with Geoff and Karen who would cook something at home, but Geoff, the cook, was wondering what to cook. I don’t think it will be salmon.
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I did make a batch of borscht using sausage. I want to do it again with kielbasa.
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I had a couple projects that were somewhat unpleasant but very necessary. The overhead in my bunk had growth of mold and when I retrieved a sponge mop to deal with it, from the port hull, I saw that the port hull had water up to the floorboards.
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I set up a portable electric bilge pump to pump out the water and started cleaning the mold off the overhead. The best treatment is Awesome cleaner from the dollar store. Spray it on, undiluted, work the surface with a soft brush, like a paint brush, then sponge it off.
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The image is of cirrus clouds, slightly photoshopped.