Category Archives: Food and Drink

Crawfish Now Available….

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Actually, Hubby found frozen crawfish – yes from Louisiana – at Publix several months ago and we’ve had them a few times and they will be our dinner tonight. In the unlikely case you have never had crawfish, they do look exactly like tiny Maine lobsters. The legend is when the French were driven out of much of Canada and made their way to Louisiana, lobsters were so sad to see them readying to leave some of them made the long trek with them. The distance was so far, they diminished in size along the way until they finally arrived at the destination at only a fraction of their former size. Notwithstanding such folklore, they are delicious although there is one genuine drawback. There are only 1-to-2 bites of meat in each tail and the claws are so small you can rarely get anything from them. Now, I will declare with no shame that I do not – nor ever will – “suck the heads”. I won’t even explain it other than to say you are welcome to do an internet query about what some people claim is a culinary delight.

Okay, in having a crawfish boil, it’s the standard as with a crab or shrimp boil to toss the crawfish in a large pot of boiling water with small ears of corn, often small potatoes and chunks of Andouille sausage. Cajun seasoning and maybe lemon wedges provide flavoring, and the other ingredients might go in first for 15 or 20 minutes as the crawfish cook fairly quickly. Then it’s pile everything on platters or tables covered in newspaper or something similar and have lots of paper towels handy. Twist the tail off and peel away the shell. Melted butter, cocktail or remoulade sauce are standard condiments. I will be honest that if I want to do other dishes such as crawfish etouffee or pasta, I will look for packages of crawfish tail meat (difficult to find around here). Trying to boil up, then peel enough to get ready to cook another dish is simply more work than I want to bother with.

DEMA Trip, Day 4……

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We made the decision to not stay for one of the sessions and came on back Thursday instead of Friday as originally intended. Hubby did have to run over before we left to get some shots of a particular rebreather they either carry at the dive shop or plan to – I wasn’t clear on that. We were on the road at the best time to be able to avoid peak traffic in Orlando and Miami. No weather issues either and made it back as smoothly as possible.

Our last night tradition is to dine at the Everglades, the fine dining restaurant at the Rosen. They have a beautiful large mural, another smaller one, sculptures of manatees and an alligator and a nice aquarium. The menu did not include venison this time and we both opted for seafood.They do make a delicious alligator chowder. Hubby had that as well as Chilean sea bass with tomato and artichoke infused risotto. I had the lobster bisque garnished with truffle and the swordfish with sauteed chard (gave that and the truffle to Hubby). It is the kind of place where they bring a dessert cart around and the coffee is served at the table in a French press. It is the one night we do share a dessert. There were fewer choices than in the past, however, the apple cheese cake was excellent. I’m still not quite sure how they did it because there were thinly sliced apples on bottom (similar to a tarte tartin). The topping was a lovely cinnamon apple sauce with walnuts.

It was a good trip as far as seeing several folks and meeting a few new ones. Hubby had a chance to talk to those about Horizon Divers and I gave out maybe a dozen bookmarks. The sessions we attended were good, too, and the only thing I didn’t accomplish was finding a t-shirt for granddaughter. There weren’t many booths with apparel this year. Finding an ocean-theme t-shirt around here for her isn’t difficult though.

DEMA Trip, Day 2…….

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Actually, today there was sort of diving as we attended a session with a VR set with short dive clips from Palau. The tech aspect was impressive, especially since it provided for sound as well as visual. I did find the headsets to be rather heavy and I had to support it with one hand in order to balance that. It was fine for no longer than I had it on. I don’t know enough about the various headset options, but I imagine there are some less bulky/lighterweight ones available or soon will be. The reefs of Palau (we’ve never been) looked a great deal like the beautiful reefs in Fiji and it was nice to see Moorish idols again. They are a Pacific fish and we did see them all the time in Hawaii.

I attended a morning session and Hubby went to two. He walked all through the exhibits this afternoon when I came back to do a little work before we joined up again for the VR session. I only made it through a little of the exhibit hall this morning and will spend my time there tomorrow afternoon. We had lunch in the food court area with Hubby have a gyros and I did a pulled chicken bowl. Both were pretty good at the usual kind of prices you pay at event venues.

As we suspected, a place called Hampton Social was a new addition to Orlando Pointe. It had a seafaring theme and a limited menu. The Ceasar salad we shared was quite good and Hubby’s short rib and sweet corn polenta were excellent. I went for the crab cake and you would think I would learn by now. Crab cakes outside Maryland and certain parts of Virginia tend to be only okay and this one was no exception. I think we’re going to the British Pub up there tonight. It is a pleasant walk.

DEMA Trip, Day 1……

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Okay, not scuba fun as in diving; rather as in being part of the community. The Diving Equipment and Manufacturing Association trade show is not open to the public; only businesses and individuals in the dive industry. Interestingly, even though there is a category for writers as a member, this year’s registration was more restricted than in the past. Since Best Publishing (publishers of Mystery of the Last Olympian: Britannic, Titanic’s Tragic Sister) is not attending this year, I couldn’t tuck up under them. As a freelancer, I’m not on assignment with any publication, so I had to go in to get special clearance. The stipulation with me as Media is I write an article within 90 days and send them the link to publication. I periodically cover dive things for the South Dade News Leader and even though I didn’t clear it with them first, I’ll be doing an article about the Women’s Diving Hall of Fame. One of the members is Dr. Sally Bauer, the co-founder of the History of Diving Museum in Islamorada. More importantly than the “local” angle is part of their mission is to encourage women into the many aspects of a career in marine sciences, etc., as well as diving. There are some amazing women who have done incredible explorations, too. Anyway, more about that later.

Orlando Pointe, a shopping/entertainment/dining complex is about a 20-minute walk and we usually go there all but our last night when we dine at the fancy restaurant at the hotel. Unfortunately, it looks as if one of our favorites, The Funky Monkey Wine Bistro, didn’t make it through the closures. Ah well, there are other places and two new ones are listed. It was a very nice layout and perhaps one of the new places went into the “Monkey’s” spot.

We completed registration this afternoon for the show and now I have to look through the schedule to see what I want to attend tomorrow.

Love Those Puffers……

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As I’ve previously mentioned, I try to go diving once a month and it is a special tradition for us to dive together on our birthdays when possible. I did miss going out in August and Hubby was scheduled to work yesterday on his birthday which is commonplace. I was committed to covering a community event for the day, but was able to switch some stuff and go on Thursday with him. Since it was only morning boat and he didn’t have to do paperwork after, that allowed us our favorite combination which was dive and lunch after. (We did have an evening double commitment so it wasn’t quite as leisurely a lunch as at times).

Conditions were a bit bouncy on the trip out and visibility is recovering to about 45-50 feet; not to out “preferred standard”, but good. This is another case where that kind of visibility is excellent for people who are accustomed to diving in other parts of the country where 20 feet is about the best they ever get. Anyway, we went to two sites with natural wrecks – as in real shipwrecks rather than deliberately deployed to create an artificial reef. As an aside, one of the criteria for deploying a vessel (or whatever structure/items) is the location must be in a wide, sandy area specifically to not impact any existing natural reef. In the case of where we were diving and similar sites, each ship involved went down in the early 1900s and have been subject to storms and more than a century in warm salt water. That means the wreckage is quite scattered and little is recognizable as a vessel, plus some of it is close to nearby natural reefs. Marine creatures don’t care, as a large section of twisted metal/timbers is much like a rock outcropping for their purposes. Early on the first dive I found a large puffer and I hadn’t seen one for quite a while. While there was nothing else “big”, there were plenty of fish of bright blue chromis, three different kinds of butterfly fish, my angels, and several lobsters. I came back to the boat apparently about two minutes before the others saw a turtle. The one woman did get a photo of it and Hubby got footage on his GoPro.

The second dive brought a pair of file fish nibbling a big jelly, an eel tucked way under a rock, and a reef shark moving pretty quickly. We did lunch after at Buzzards Roost, one of two restaurants close to the docks. In consideration of having seen lots of them on the dives, we had hogfish.

Two puffers from previous dives; don;t remember when.

 

Another Leftovers Idea……

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I’ve posted several recipes or dish ideas about how we use leftovers and I’m going to try a new one this week. Hubby prefers bone-in chicken for grilling which also means the pieces are large. We usually have leftovers and usually make chicken Alfredo for our traditional Thursday pasta meal. Last night as we were clearing away from dinner, he made a comment about enough to do so. I agreed, then he said something about, “or doing deconstructed chicken parmigiana. Hmmm….., an interesting idea. The trick of course is the chicken is already cooked and not breaded. So, working out how to manage that is one thing. We do have a Le Crueset au gratin dish that would allow the mixture to be spread out.

When we make ragu, we use jarred marinara sauce (although rarely the Ragu brand) and often add extra onions, or garlic, and other spices depending. If I take that sauce and add to it to simmer away for a bit, I can then put some of that in the baking dish, add the chicken, another thin layer of sauce, the cheeses and bread crumbs to bake for whatever amount of time I work out. That allows the rest of the sauce to continue to simmer as the pasta cooks. Serve the chicken on a plate with the pasta marinara as the side rather than putting it together in a pasta bowl. The trick will be to get enough sauce on the chicken for it to not dry out as it bakes as well as to get that golden brown color. I’ve had difficulty with that in doing other dishes. One reason comes from my reluctance to use the broiler although I don’t really know why. Alton Brown, one of Hubby’s favorite celebrity chefs, talks about that in several of his episodes – using the broiler I mean, not making deconstructed chicken parm. We’ll see how this goes.

Georgia Trip, Day 3……

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I managed to get a morning walk in since I knew the afternoon would be tight. We returned to the town square to first go to the Olive Oil shop and pick up some small bottles to take to Hugh’s cousin. We were out of blood orange, they had a new mushroom and sage, and a new line of Greek organic we picked up to try. It isn’t that we are big on organic, but the product sounded intriguing.

We went on to Mystic Grill where even at 11:45, there was a bit of a wait. It is good although the real draw is whatever the connection is to the TV show Vampire Diaries and the tours they do. Neither of us have ever watched the show so we aren’t clear on that. The building is a draw too, as a wonderfully renovated old bank with lots of woodwork saved and this great staircase. They have a creative menu and had we not had burgers the night before (and they are on the cookout menu for tonight), we would have gone for them. I opted for the chicken salad sandwich instead, the type made with dried cranberries and some chopped walnuts. Hubby had the fried fish sandwich and no they don’t do catfish there. I thought he might go for the shrimp and grits which he has enjoyed in the past. Then we did our usual of splitting up for about forty-five minutes for him to wander and take more photos and I popped in and out of some shops. There are two art galleries. One is a non-profit where they exhibit different artists as well as have classes. I picked up a few lovely blank note cards which is something I almost always do when traveling. These had scenes of the town square. The second also does classes and one of the women (not sure if she is the owner) specializes in whimsical children’s art with mostly animals. There was more abstract in this place along with other pieces. I picked up a small piece that I have a plan for.

As I mentioned yesterday, sister-in-law and her husband were to pick us for the reunion and while there had been speculation about how many would attend, there were pushing the 200 expected. It was held in kind of an odd place as it was a conference center in an industrial park. It was a nice facility although the beautiful tin ceilings in the very large room with tiled floors and a band meant the noise level was tremendous. There was the usual “haven’t seen you in years” and so forth as I met quite a few people. Dinner was catered BBQ and with BYOB, we had an ice chest with a six pack and I threw in my small bottles of white wine just in case. We were among the 9:00 p.m. departure group though and the actual schedule was to end at 10:00.

The mini family-reunion is this afternoon.

 

Georgia Trip, Day 2…….

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The Hampton Inn had biscuits and sausage gravy as part of the breakfast so Hubby was happy. Lunch later at his sister’s was perfect with a taco salad that included wonderfully fresh tomatoes from a local market. They did a great job remodeling the house and it fits nicely into the old, established neighborhood. The incorporated some of the original features like leaving one of the corner cabinets in the dining room, The other one went as that wall came down allow for a much-needed expansion of the kitchen. The old den is now a designated playroom for the stair-stepped three grandchildren as the oldest is now a young man. While there are a few things she said they would have done differently, it is a warm, welcoming place complete with a front porch and adult and two child-size rocking chairs.

We got caught up on everyone and they are going to the reunion tonight so will pick us up which makes it nice. I spent part of the afternoon working on an article for the paper as Hubby listened to a photography podcast (or something like that). We went into the town square for dinner which has indeed become incredibly crowded. There are multiple tours as “The Vampire Diaries” continues to be popular and there are also ghost tours. We were glad to see the former Irish pub was replaced by a Gastropub, The Social Goat. Apparently it recently changed hands and our waitress didn’t know where the name came from. I thought there might be an explanation on the menu, but no. It was a fairly short menu with a focus on gourmet burgers, a long list of taco options, a few entrees and nine rotating beers on tap in addition to the bottled beers, plus some intriguing sounding cocktails. We did the burgers; Hubby with The Social Goat version which included pimento cheese and bacon jam. I went traditional.

Georgia Trip, Day 1……

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We had a slight delay in departure in one of those semi-amusing things. Since we were traveling on a weekday, traffic issues meant it would be better to wait until 8:30 to leave. Literally jut a Hubby was ready to load the truck, Mother Nature brought in a pop-up rain; all while it was partly sunny of course. These don’t usually last long so we were on the way not long after. The traffic hadn’t completely cleared although it was manageable. Once we passed Fort Lauderdale, we lucked out with no big accidents, not much construction, and only a few scattered showers. We made it into the Hampton Inn a little before 7:30. There is a Chilii’s in front of the motel and the Holiday Inn Express next door is finished and they are now building what looks to be an extended stay place next to the Chili’s. We got everything into the room and walked over for dinner. Having over-indulged a little at Wendy’s when we did a Turnpike stop for lunch I balanced out with a cup of chili and the southwestern grilled chicken salad. We frequently have pasta on Thursday so Hubby had a cup of chili and their Cajun pasta with shrimp.

We start our round of family visits today going to his sister’s for lunch – her husband has to work, but he’ll be at the gathering Sunday. We’ll ask about restaurants in town and hope the Mystic (whatever the actual name is) is still open. The Irish Pub had closed, but perhaps someone re-opened it or something replaced it. There is also a New Orleans type place just off the town square. The other is on the square and even though there are good places in other parts of town, the square is delightful. Of course, we may also go there tomorrow as is our habit.

Chocolate Musings….

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Watching part of “Brunch with Bobby Flay” the other morning started a discussion about chocolate as he was featuring it in multiple forms for this particular brunch. I do know people who don’t care for chocolate and there are those unfortunates who are allergic to it. My brother is one which is how we discovered white chocolate. Bobby was using it on his show and explained how it doesn’t contain cocoa powder, yet has the taste because it is derived from cocoa butter. I don’t recall who told us about white chocolate all those years ago; perhaps another individual who was allergic and was happy to pass on the information.

There is also the debate about dark versus milk chocolate and while I prefer milk chocolate, dark chocolate with different combinations is delicious – I mean there is a reason Girl Scout Thin Mints has been a best seller for decades. Where I differentiate is if I am going to eat a plain piece, I’ll always choose milk.chocolate. The restaurants’ infamous desserts of Death by Chocolate – and there are multiple variations – probably does it best with between four to seven types depending on the restaurant.

Going back to Bobby’s show, he was also using chocolate in the Mexican/Southwestern style of it as an ingredient for a savory dish. I have found that to be tricky and always follow a recipe the few times I’ve done it. The proportions have to be correct or it tends to end up with a bitter taste.

In an aside, toward the latter part of Desert Storm, we were getting Hershey’s Desert Bars, one they created to not melt until around 140 degrees. It was actually pretty good, but they didn’t produce a great many before the War ended and I’m not sure why it didn’t seem to catch on with the general public. (The M&Ms motto of, “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand”, is correct unless you are in a desert-type climate)