A Fresh Look at Cruising

 

A Fresh Look at Cruising

 

Just got back from a month long cruise. Fantastic!  So you probably think I’ll be writing about experiences and cathedrals and museums that YOU MUST VISIT!  Nope.  Lots of that around.  But, as your cruise director I will offer some photos, just to get you in the mood.

 

If something is outside my experience, I won’t mention it except in passing.  And if you’re a cruising veteran, skip this post, settle in, and slosh down another martini. You don’t need me!

 

First things first:  Can you cruise if you get seasick? I don’t know and I’m not a medic, so I won’t suggest pills or discuss whether you’re drinking too much.  Never been seasick, so I can only tell you that any ship will wobble a little bit from time to time, but today’s cruise ships have great stabilization systems.  Calmest time to cruise depends on where you’re cruising.  Just got back (Sept to Oct) from a cruise across the Atlantic and the Western Mediterranean.  Smooth as glass.  Could waterski! 

 

Lots of information on weather and seas on the Internet. But, if you can’t keep your balance walking through your living room, skip cruising and think twice about ballroom dancing, and riding a bike.

 

Second things second: Which cruise line?  I’m not going to name names, but here are things to consider.  Kids or no kids? More formal, or flip flops and rude messages on your t-shirts?  Enjoy dining, or stuffing food down using both hands? Where do you want to go?  Yes, some cruise lines tend to cover specific areas, while others cover the globe.

 

And what about entertainment?  Some cruises, especially those with many sea days, offer lots of entertainment, with comedians, fabulous lectures by well known authorities, floor shows and a lot more.

 

Here’s something else about cruise lines to consider:  All inclusive, or not.  It’s not as easy a choice as you’d think.  On our last cruise we paid about $5500 per person….don’t forget it was a month long cruise.  Then we had to pay for drinks and excursions. That added another $2000.  Some all-inclusive cruises would have covered everything for about the same price that we paid.

Along with which cruise line is big ship or small ship.  I've been on both.  Purely personal preference, but beware.  Can't know unless you've done both, but even then it can depend on the cruise line. Big or small can be great or lacking.

Small group in the foreground, large group in the background

Third things third:  Excursions. Most excursions offered by cruise lines are fifty passenger bus tours.  Too cumbersome for my taste.  I much prefer small group excursions. But doesn’t the cruise line give you a price break?  Sometimes, but it pays to check out both cruise line and private excursions.

 

Things I like about small excursion:  I can hear the guide much better than a big excursion guide who took lessons from a bus station announcer.  And, when you’re off the bus, you may be at the back of the crowd of fifty, or are separated from the group.

 

I suggest you find out the specifics of the tour. Too often it’s, step off the busy, take a snapshot, and get back on the bus.

 

If this is your first time cruising, of course you want to see everything and don’t want to miss anything.  Understandable.  But, that can lead to an overdose. One guide taking me to a relatively unknown cathedral gave me a whole list of dates and unknown historical figures, from which I took away. “This is a old cathedral.”  When is the wine tasting?”

Of course some places are not to be missed, Pompeii, the Coliseum in Rome, or the Vatican, or Gaudi’s Basilica Sagrada Familia in Barcelona for example, but again a small group is the answer, especially when you need/want to ask questions, or even have a discussion.  Large or small, often it is better to go via a tour group than on your own.  Tour groups usually have tickets that turn hours of waiting to minutes.

 

A secret:  At the most historic places (Coliseum), you can find folks who will sell you reasonably priced tickets to help you cut the line, however you’ll be on your own, without a guide.

 

Fourth thing fourth:  As a long time cruiser, I skip many of the excursions in favor of ambling the streets, finding nice coffee shops and mingling with the natives. I love melding into the everyday culture and too often an excursion uses up limited time.

 

Just one example of strolling the streets and a lessor known, small group historical tour:  Four of us found a small tour.  The guide was excellent.  Herculaneuam is almost in downtown Naples and was rediscovered before Pompeii.  The tour was not offered on the list of cruise excursions.  I liked seeing Pompeii, but liked Herculaneum even better. Ash had buried the town and saved a lot of tiles and much of the structures. The guide knew his stuff and was never more than five feet away from us.

 

Even so, don’t take a tour if you don’t want to. One of our new friends we met on our last cruise was a middle-aged woman who never took excursions, just hopped on the bus to town and walked the streets.

 

Speaking of which, after Herculaneum, my wife and I wandered the streets and while walking up a narrow street, a guy wearing an ‘Eat at My Restaurant’ sign, told us it was close by.  It was.  Tiny place, with four tables set on a narrow patio, on a narrow street. The server was an Italian guy who’d lived in Miami. Freshly fried sardines from the fish shop about twenty feet away and a Neapolitan pizza I’ll remember to the end of my days.  Local wine so good I wanted to bring home a barrel.  Felt like I was carrying one back to the ship!

 

While we ate, a motor bike came racing by, three feet away from us and as he got to the cross street, he almost hit a police car.  The cops didn’t get out, but gave a few angry shouts that I think was something to do with his mother, and hand signals that even I could understand.  The guy on the motorbike gave the puppy that just peed on the carpet look of mia culpa.  He was riding the wrong direction on a one-way street.  The cops pulled away and the guy blasted off still going the wrong way. Welcome to Italy!

 

You can’t buy memories like this on a fifty person bus tour!!!

 

Dang that wine was good!  So was the pizza!  I might even buy a motor scooter.

Rusted memories

 

She knelt  with ease on golden sand 

Blue striped towel, sweet, soft hands 

A dream I saw,  glimpsed in repose 

The stretching limbs, the pointing toes 

That aimed her beauty toward the sea 

The queen of all desires 

And all that love inspires

Those pining thoughts of used to be 

Her silken hair grown silver now

And wrinkles crease the once smooth brow 

Vision she was, a tortured thrill 

In floating clouds of memories still

That flit like fishes in the sea 

Oh, memories how  you comfort me 

Rusting thoughts when life was grand 

Treasured visions, sun blessed sand.

Following the Sun by William Stroud

 

 

When world was young and so were we

While summer’s sun warmed the sea

We lay on towels baked by sand

Tepid roots of love and then

 Grew by power of rushing waves

That crushed the shore and made us crave

The touch of hands, the touch of skin

Oh love was but a whisper then.

The salty breath, each sigh anew

Through passing hours of just we two.

Oh, lord those languid glory days

And good lord how I wish they’d stayed

But love like flow of tides may pass

The wilting time of summer’s grass

Sun a shadow in winter’s frost

A low sad whisper that love is lost.

An Officer and a Spy, a novel by Robert Harris

 

An Officer and a Spy is the novelized story of the infamous Dreyfus Affair, one of the black marks on the modern history of France and the French Army.

 

I often hear friends say:  I only read non-fiction because fiction is just a made up story that has little to no significance other than entertainment. I beg to differ.  I’m a history fan and read a fair amount of it, but I’ve found that often history books trap you in heavy details, dismissing the personal aspects of the story.  Novelized histories, on the other hand, wrap the reader in personalities that explore the inner workings of the historical tableau.  Yes, that is true even in the historical romance genre, with a glance into how people lived and died and loved and lost. Historical romance novelists collect a trove of reference material.  As an example of historical novels that make you “live in the time,” is A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. I often say, unless you have read that book, you will never understand how the French revolution affected French society and the people who lived through it.

 

A Soldier and a Spy is another novel that takes you inside and makes you live through the intrigues and government of the Third French Republic of the 1890s.  Yes, it is very much a history lesson, but one with a human face.

 

Perhaps you are familiar with the injustice done to Captain Alfred Dreyfus.  For those who don’t yet know the story, in the 1890s, Dreyfus was charged and convicted with being a spy.  He was stripped of his rank in the most public of places.  His disgrace complete, he was sent to the far away Devil’s Island,  a tiny and isolated place where he was kept under horrible conditions for years.

 

This is where the novel unfolds. The French Army Lieutenant  Colonel George Picquart. discovers that there be another spy in the army.  In his quest to identify the second spy, he uncovers mountains of evidence and deceit that rises to the pinnacle of both the army and the government.

 

The novel turns and twists as the truth is found and washed away and found again, always doubtful, always less than the full truth.

 

In this novel, author Robert Harris leads the reader through dust clouds of discovery to the startling ending.

 

If you enjoy spy stories, you’ll be thrilled and astonished at the reality of the complications of proof and truth and the consequences of both.

 

An Officer and a Spy is a great read that will keep you up at night and linger in your dreams. Besides the quest for truth, the novel is a valuable, personalized history lesson that echoes in today’s headlines.

 

If it isn’t in your city library, you can easily find very reasonably priced used copies online.

The Triumph of Trivialities

 

The Triumph of Trivialities by William Stroud

Trivial, yes, in truth it’s waste of days and time and so,

We babble on, I wonder why, I blink my eye and although 

Baby powder’s so much cheaper at the grocer on the corner

Yes, of course, but don’t mind me, I am just a natural yawner.

Tell me won’t you, once again, why the Johnsons got divorced.

Yes, I’ve heard, but carry on, and fill in all details, of course.

Is it true that he’s a pig, a dreadful swine in every way?

I head it all from Charlene Chase, I meet for coffee everyday.

The doctor calls it canker sore, and claims it goes away quite soon

Read directions line by line, and still it’s sore and almost noon.

Margaret had terrific moles, such unsightly little beasts

They’re black and sprouting hairs; she should cover them at least.

Yes, it’s how it comes and goes and clutters up my day

Listening to this and that and everything thing they say.

Such rude and selfish folks they are, hogging all the time,

With their ailments, and complaints, they leave no time for mine. 

Gâteau d’Alsace by The Careless Cook

 

A Savory Cake from the Alsace Region in France

A cake version of Quiche, with cheese, onion, and bacon

By The Careless Cook

 

For the few who don’t know, Alsace in on the border of eastern France and western Germany.  

Very historic and has been passed around more than a lady of the night with sailors in town.  In the War of 1870, also called the Franco-Prussian War, France invaded Prussia and Prussia not only returned the favor, they kicked some French fanny.  With the Prussian victory, Alsace and parts of Lorraine suddenly become Prussian.  Biggest thing to remember:  As a result of the Prussia victory, the Germanic states united and became Germany!  Yep, Germany as a country is younger than the United States!

Street scene in a town in Alsace

What the heck does that have to do with cooking a savory cake? Alsace and Loraine.   Cuisine! A wonderful mix and match!  And Le Gâteau d’Alsace is a wonderful example. Savory and delicious!

 

Time to git in the kitchen and git cookin’!

 

Gâteau d’Alsace

(My recipe differs slightly from tradition, but so does The Careless Cook!)

 

Ingredients

 

5 tablespoons salted butter, melted

8 oz of either chopped bacon or 2 packages of lardons (bits of either French or Italian fatty ham, available in packets in the deli section of most grocery stores)

1 medium sweet onion, diced

1 cup full fat buttermilk

1 good slosh of olive oil, a tablespoon or two

2 large eggs

2 ½ all purpose flour

1 ½ teaspoon baking powder (I don’t measure this exactly.  I prefer to give it my best guess)

¾ teaspoons table salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon, more or less, black pepper

8 oz (2 cups) grated or finely diced baby Swiss cheese. Tastes much like Gruyère cheese at half the cost

Heaping teaspoon Italian seasoning (the only one I use is The Spice Lab’s Italian Rustica.  Far superior. Available on Amazon)

Puttin’ It Together

 

Oven at 350ºF 180ºC

Butter and flour a 12 x 8 Teflon baking pan

 

Fry the lardons in a skillet over low heat and cook until crispy and the fat is rendered.  Takes about 15 minutes.  Scoop them out of the pan and place in a small bowl.  Set aside.

 

Add the onion to the fat in the skillet.  Medium heat.  About 10 minutes or until turning golden.

 

In a large bowl, add the flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda and pepper.  Stir in the cheese, Italian seasoning, and lardons.  Stirring these  into the flour keeps cheese and lardons from sinking to the bottom of the pan when you bake.

 

In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, oil, eggs and melted butter.

 

Important:  USE A SPATULLA (I dip mine in cold water) to blend the buttermilk mixture and flour mixture.  This doesn’t happen immediately, but have faith and stick with it until all is sticky and blended.

 

Scrape the dough into the oil/floured pan.  Smooth it out and bake for 45-50 minute, or until a knife inserted in the cake comes out clean.

Wait 10 minute or longer to make sure the cake is cooled enough to be easily removed from the pan.

 

Serve warm.

 

Past time to pour the wine, or if you make this for breakfast, pour a nice cup of café au lait.  You might want to renew you high school French or at least practice the accent.  Zeez is un gateau with zee goo-d fla-vor, n’est pas?  Help your French friends to forget the Franco-Prussian War.  Vive la France!

 

 

Crab and Vegetable Soup from the kitchen of The Careless Cook

 

Crab and Vegetable Soup from the kitchen of The Careless Cook

 

Like crab?  Me, too.  BUT, I get tired of recipes doing everything to turn such a wonderfully delicious protein into goop that absconds with the flavor and adds calories like a farmer stacking hay!

 

The Very Careless Cook has a delicious answer.  How about adding a pile of crab to vegetable soup? I asked myself.

 

As I’ve said many times, when you make one of my recipes, you are the cook, the chef, the ruler of your kitchen. This recipe is no exception.  Don’t like one of the vegetables I savor?  Make some changes.  But, please don’t forget the crab.  It makes the meal.

 

Now let get started….right after you pour yourself a nice dose of a chilled white wine, or perhaps you already have some prosecco waiting in the fridge?

 

Surely you know the unavoidable temptation of chilled prosecco. If you haven’t tasted it, I shan’t spoil the elegant surprise.

 

Soon as you see the word, shan’t, you know I’ve spent a good deal of time in Britland. I’ve also noticed the Brits don’t hold the French in the high esteem that we Americans favor, especially in the kitchen.  The blokes hasten to tell us that herb has an H in it, and should not be neglected when pronouncing it.  Same with ‘fillet.’  Yes, they again use all the letters. Instead of fill-a, they say fill-it.

 

Had enough? I sympathize.    Take another sip and let’s go!

 

Crab and Vegetable Soup from the kitchen of The Careless Cook

 

Ingredient suggestions!

 

1 pound can of pasteurized crab claw meat

12 oz Brussels sprouts, cut in halves

14 oz shredded green cabbage

1 can chickpeas (I prefer to use those in a jar)

8 oz broccoli flowerets

2 stalks celery, split and sliced thinly

1 zucchini, quartered lengthwise and then sliced ¼ inch wide crosswise

1 onion, peeled and chunked

1 package sliced various colored bell peppers

2 generous handfuls of small, unpeeled  potatoes, cut in half

3 or more slices of preserved lemons, diced (you can go to stores or Amazon or make them yourself – see Special Note)  Believe me, once you’ve used some, you won’t be without them

2 quart boxes of vegetable stock 

4 cups boiling water

4-6 large cubes of vegetable stock

2-3 tablespoons Italian seasoning

salt and pepper to taste.

a good spay of olive oil

Puttin’ It Together

 

Spray a deep soup pot with olive oil.  Add the celery and onion and stir from time to time until the onions are translucent. Add the peppers, zucchini and allow to cook a little longer.  

 

Mix in the Brussels sprouts, cabbage, chickpeas, and Italian seasoning. 

 

Pour in the stock, salt and pepper.  

 

Add the potatoes.

 

Let the soup come to a boil.

 

Add the water and the vegetable stock cubes to cover the vegetables.

Cook until all vegetables are soft. Add the preserved lemon and stir well.

Lastly, add the crab meat, stir and serve.

 

Voila! 

 

Short work, high flavor!  We made a pot and ate it for supper three days running.  No complains! Just calls for more!

 

Special Note:

Preserved lemons.  Why?  Preserved lemons have a smoother flavor than raw lemons and add a bright taste.  I use them in stews and salads and anything else that suits my fancy.

Recipe:  five lemons washed and ends cut off (save the ends). Slice the lemons thinly and put them in a clean jar adding some salt with each layer.  Now use those ends and squeeze the juice into the jar.  Take any blunt kitchen tool and lightly mash the jarred lemons just enough to release the juice.  When you’re finished, make sure the jarred lemons are fully covered in juice.  If not, add more lemon juice.

 

Put a top on the jar and put the jar in the refrig for a month!