Gosh darn! another day flew past me and I didn't even see it go! How's that for sneaky...must be those voodoo dolls someone is sticking pins into.
Though the sun shone glorious first thing this morning, it has since turned to porridge. Well, at least there isn't any rain ...yet! Keeping fingers crossed that precipitation of ANY kind doesn't follow the high winds.
It is rather amusing to note the industry around us this morning, just when the wind is blowing 20knots...well, gusting, at least. People hanging out of flybridge windows (plastic) at strange angles, drills in hand making holes, fitting GPS mushrooms to the top, others cleaning (huh? in this wind the dust will all be back with a vengeance) changing oil, etc etc. This has not happened on windless days. Does the wind invigorate?
We need to clean too (but wont)...Waz just told me the wind is blowing 25 knots at the entrance to the Mississippi River. The Canal out front is choppy and the current running swiftly.
We helped a 40ft Yacht come into the poles last evening, just down the dock. They have come from Galveston, TX, and not had a great experience with Locks et al. It seems that the lock operators are just not that cooperative. Our experience also.
These folks were so glad to be on land finally...it is a loooooooooong trip, though they went inland into Houma and stayed at the town dock, same as we did. There are all kinds of ways to get inland from the Gulf of Mexico if in need of shelter or rest.
They are out washing down their yacht this morning, carefully staying upwind of the hose spray:)
So, what happened in the meantime??
Tuesday night was something of a 'gathering' night at our place. I had all the ingredients for a Portuguese Bean Soup, BUT..when I went to cook the Chorizo, I didnt have my glasses on..reading ones, that is, and just put them in the pan. I thought they didnt look quite right, but you dont expect such things...really...Waz came down and said "Those dont look right!":) really??? Something was burning, though I kept turning the sausage. So, putting my reading glasses on (coz the good ones...trifocal, blended's...went into the drink...remember?) I discovered that I was supposed to take the casing off before cooking. Oh well...however, after taking the casings off..huh? the contents just all fell apart! It ended up cooking like hamburger meat in one big blob.
I had already sweated the onion and celery, emptied the red beans, chick peas, corn and tomato odds and sods in and the pot was on a slow boil. The sausage blob was added to the mix and quickly dispersed, but gave a new flavor...so, who cares if you cant find the sausage??
I was sure we had some spicy sausage somewhere else on the boat, so Waz went digging into the Freezer down in the Lazarette (under the cockpit deck). He came up with some of our Delcambre Sugar syrup sausage, which is very cajun! They were frozen, of course, but never mind, no time for thawing...they went into the soup mix all together. This was probably the best thing I could have done. Having put the soup on to boil (rumble) at around 10.30am, I took the sausage (cajun) out at around 1pm..all cooked and having spread it's lovely flavor throughout.
I added a tablespoon of brown sugar and a tiny bottle of Tabasco (sample size from the factory) to the whole thing and left it to simmer for another couple of hours. The sausage got chopped into slices and readmitted to the soup.
I turned it all off around 3pm to sit and rest.
Meantime, Tim next door told us that CT (or TC...top chef, as I call him) had appeared with two good sized fillets of Red Fish, for dinner. Fantastic. Tim was already invited for soup./stew, so one more was no biggy.
Along the way, we had been having a jawbone with Marty, the captain on the big Sportfisher, Solitaire, and invited him over for a meal too.
The soup went back on to boil around 5.30pm..along with some small whole grain baguettes that were frozen (another search for frozen food had ensued with the growing numbers)that went into the convection oven.
CT always cuts his fish off the bone (no gutting) leaving the skin, scales and all..no head though. He put the fish on the B-b-q flesh side down (to caramelize, he said) first, then turned it over onto the scale side and put the lid down. The result was delicious and moist. A little bit of salt and pepper and it was fantastic!
So, we all sat down, all 5 of us, and ate freshly caught/cooked Redfish and Louisiana Sugar Sausage Bean Soup/stew (new designation, note!) with baguettes, VERY civilized:)
Of course there were some drinks to go along with it all and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the food. Marty kept us thoroughly entertained with Sea Captain stories, some of his youth in the Cayman Islands (I didnt ask how old he was then, but the shenanigans sound typical of mid twenties single male), captaining 120ft Crew/equipment boats for Oil companies into the Gulf of Mexico (sometimes hundreds of miles out), the roughnecks (official designation) who man the oil rigs, and the crew he had to be in charge of.
It is significant to note, and in his own words, that Marty is a skinny white guy you could snap like a twig! His stories of being in charge of some of the 'scum of the earth' on these vessels, make the hair curl.
Anyway...we laughed till our jaws were sore and couldn't laugh anymore.
CT had to depart early in the piece to go home for dinner (he did justice to both the fish and soup while here!) with his family, and Tim always departs early (by 8.30pm) so we were left with Marty and his funny stories.
Nothing like a stimulating evening with fun people, lots of good food and laughter, to keep you 'up'.
Ed, who lives on a houseboat around the corner in the more sheltered part of the Marina(with his good wife whom we have never seen) , has organized a get together of all the liveaboards this friday (weather permitting..I think he is optimistic!) with hotdogs and share. We will all take some food and our choice of meat, I guess. We are looking forward to this, having gotten to know most of the folks here over the past month.
Oh yes, we have enjoyed not moving on, I have to say, and having time to sit and read, which we have done in spades.
Today we need to go to the library if we can find one with a book sale, or sit tight until saturday when the Friends of the Library on St Charles street have a book sale. We might have to do that, in fact, when we rent a car for the weekend, again. We will go with the smallest car available, me thinx at $9.99 per day, and 100miles limit per day. We arent going far this weekend....esp. if we have to make good on our plans to leave on monday-wednesday.
Speaking of cars...I need to call and book one.
So, off to make some cookies to share for friday, and perhaps I will be inspired to do something Halloween-ish??? dont have any orange coloring...hmmmmmmmmm
Ciao for now.
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