TRAVELBLOG POST #1 - SAIL AWAY

SAIL AWAY

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go, I'm standing here outside your door,
I hate to wake you up to say good-bye.
But the dawn is breaking, it's early morn, the taxi's waiting 
He's blowing his horn.
Already I'm so lonesome I could die.
So kiss me and smile for me, tell me that you'll wait for me, hold me like you'll never let me go.
'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again. Oh, babe, I hate to go.

Every single Carnival cruise I have ever been on - too many to count, as I am nothing if not brand loyal, you know me - Hellman's mayonnaise, Heinz ketchup, and Carnival Cruise Lines -  has ended with this old chestnut being sung at the last dinner before departure, by the entire dining room staff, all claiming English as a second language.  It's corny, I know, but sweet.  And premature; this cruise is just starting.  And inaccurate; I have come to hate flying.  How about this one?

I'm sailing away, set an open course for the virgin sea
I've got to be free, free to face the life that's ahead of me
On board, I'm the captain, so climb aboard
We'll search for tomorrow on every shore
And I'll try, oh Lord, I'll try to carry on

I look to the sea, reflections in the waves spark my memory
Some happy, some sad
I think of childhood friends and the dreams we had
We live happily forever, so the story goes
But somehow we missed out on that pot of gold
But we'll try best that we can to carry on

Better, at least for this stage of the trip.

If I wasn't in desperate need of a vacation before this, preparing for the vacation wore me out to the point that I really need a vacation.  (That's convenient, because as I type this I'm just under 2 miles from the cruise terminal.)  The effort expended to prepare all my cases for next week was beyond crazy.  Well worth it, though.  This is an awesome ship, folks.  Although it is Carnival's newest ship, it is not, technically, a new ship.  I never sailed on the Carnival Destiny before it's uber-refit and rename to the Carnival Sunshine, so I can't make any comparisons, but this is even nicer than the Carnival Dream, which is/was a brand new ship.  I look forward to exploring.

We're in the Alchemy Bar now, sipping on martinis.  Make mine chocolate.  The first toast of the cruise always goes to Bethe and Maurice, God bless their precious, generous souls.  We did have lunch on the Lido deck, but deviated from our traditional stop at the deli counter and chose from the regular buffet.  Oh, it was great!  Very different from the usual Lido Deck fare.  What I particularly loved was a baked eggplant slice topped with melty cheese and a caponata-type topping.  I am also a sucker for chicken fingers and honey mustard dipping sauce.  Good lunch.

Getting ready for the cruise involves a lot more than preparing all my cases for court.  It involves making decisions.  Tough decisions about important stuff, like which knitting projects to bring?  This takes some pretty heavy thought, my friends. I have to consider all angles - am I working outside or inside?  What projects are at the top of the list to be finished?  How heavy are the bigger projects, like shawls and afghans?  Will they sit nicely in my lap, or are they so heavy and warm as to set off hot flashes?  And what about downloads to my Kindle app?  When I am on vacation, I can read a book a day.  Cornwell, Fairstein, Haddam, or classics likes Rex Stout and Ellery Queen?  Such gorgeous choices!

Salad Days, My Way - The Layered Salad

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew.
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall; 
And did it my way.

I've never really liked Frank Sinatra.  But he sang some good songs, even long after his voice was gone, and this was one of them.  He didn't write this, Paul Anka did, which may also account for why I like it.  I like Paul Anka.  Sinatra, not so much. (And if you are one of the readers who thought "Sinatra who?", see if you can Netflix the first "Godfather" movie.  Don Corleone should have slapped him harder.)

There are many millions of blogs out there.  Some are very well-known and widely read, and this is not one of them.  I'd say Inspiration Nation borders on the obscure.  Still, there is a small, loyal group that does follow what is mostly a cooking blog, and I was wondering if anyone actually tries any of the recipes.  You can leave comments on the actual blog, as I would love to hear from you, about the recipes or anything else.

I try to post something everyday, a recipe and/or an ear worm story, so I just wanted to mention that there will be a period of 6, maybe 7 days, where I won't be able to post.  I also won't be able to cook, so that works out okay, I guess.

I'm writing this to be the last post before I sail away from Port Canaveral, so I want to leave you with more than just one recipe.  Ear worms are at your own discretion.

Layered salads are quintessentially American, extremely practical in that you can prepare a salad, with the dressing, the day before you plan on serving it, and it is capable of endless variations.  The first time I tasted a layered salad was at the home of a coworker, back when I worked for the American Hull Insurance Syndicate.  It was very similar to this recipe for a simple seven layer salad.  What grabbed me was the addition of the peas as well as a layer of cheddar cheese.  It was so good, I could have eaten it in lieu of anything else on the menu.

My father-in-law loves salads, so I always try to have something I know he'll enjoy.  For years I have made Paula Deen's Cornucopia Salad for Dad, an absolutely awesome variation which includes water chestnuts, bananas, nuts, and raisins in addition to the usual ingredients.  It makes a gorgeous presentation in my 2 quart glass soufflé dish.  I have come up with a number of variations, some successful, some not so much.  If you google layered salads on the web, you will have hundreds to choose from; this one is the classic, though, and I recommend you try it first.

SIMPLE SEVEN LAYER SALAD

1/2 pound bacon
1/2 large head iceberg lettuce - rinsed, dried, and chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 (10 ounce) package frozen green peas, thawed
5 ounces shredded Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup chopped cauliflower
(1/2 of a green bell pepper, chopped - optional eighth layer)
1/2 cup and 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon white sugar
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Crumble and set aside. (I cook my bacon in the oven, at 400-425 degrees. I also chop it first).

In a large flat bowl, place the chopped lettuce and top with a layer of onion, peas, shredded cheese, cauliflower, the optional green pepper and bacon. (I prefer a deep glass bowl.  For this, I used a 1 quart glass souffle dish).

Prepare the dressing by whisking together the mayonnaise, sugar and Parmesan cheese. Drizzle over salad and refrigerate until chilled.  You can double the dressing ingredients and seal the entire top of the salad.

Like this one.  All twelve layers of it.   Not even sure I wrote down what I did, but you get the idea.

I Love the Cauliflower Girl - Bacon Curry Cauliflower "Slaw"

Who remembers the Cowsills?

I saw her sitting in the rain
Raindrops falling on her
She didn't seem to care
She sat there and smiled at me

And I knew (I knew, I knew, I knew, I knew)
She could make me happy (happy, happy)
Flowers in her hair, flowers everywhere

I love the flower girl
Oh, I don't know just why
She simply caught my eye
I love the flower girl she seemed so sweet and kind.

Better yet, who remembers the name of the TV show which was based on this singing family?  There are no prizes for the winner, but if you can get this one right, I think I love you.

I have spent the better part of the past 18 hours trying to figure out what to do with my Thanksgiving leftovers.  Not the turkey, mind you - I've got that covered.

In fact, I've got plans for everything except a fairly substantial amount of raw cauliflower and Brussel sprouts.  And that aggravates me, because right now I am over the whole roasted vegetable thing.  I thought about an unctuous cheese sauce, with extra sharp cheddar and a touch of mozzarella and parmesan, but that left me as cold as winter in Minnesota. Cauliflower in the crockpot?  Yeah, and then what?  Let me tell you, my friends, I was stumped.

Being a lawyer, I proceeded to do some serious research, some of it at 3:00 in the morning.  The internet let me down.  My vegetable cookbooks failed me miserably.  Nothing was clicking in my head (except for the usual voices, giving me ear worms).  Then I sat down and checked my own very extensive collection of recipes, focussing on a big binder full of vegetable and salad recipes.  I have them organized by "tried" and "not tried", and then within each category, by the particular type of vegetable.  I discovered something I had never realized before - I have collected zero, zilch, zip, nada cauliflower recipes.  Well, one exception - my mother-in-law's recipe for breaded vegetables, which involved cauliflower and Brussel sprouts.  Delicious, but I had already considered that and rejected the idea early on - I wanted something DIFFERENT.  It blew me away that I had never come across a recipe for cauliflower that I wanted to try enough to print out the recipe and run out for the ingredients.

It didn't help, mind you, that I had already made a whole crockpot full of broccoli spears in a creamy garlic sauce that was to die for.  When you get right down to it, broccoli and cauliflower are practically interchangeable.  So I looked through my broccoli recipes, and that didn't help either.

And then ... ILLUMINATION.

There is a saying that cauliflower is cabbage with a college education. Never was this a truer statement than when I found a coleslaw recipe which I was able to rework into a cauliflower "slaw" with Brussel sprouts and other good stuff.  Although this recipe was all about the cauliflower to me, the real stars of the dish are the bacon and the curry dressing.  Oh my word, that dressing! I switched out sour cream for part of the mayo, added more curry powder (why are some people so timid with curry powder?) and tweaked a few other things - well, almost everything.  Okay, I changed everything, alright?

Bacon Curry Cauliflower "Slaw"

Dressing:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons sugar
2-3 teaspoons curry powder

1 cup frozen cooked extra-small shrimp, defrosted under cold water and well-drained
8 slices bacon (about 1/2 pound) chopped, cooked, drained on paper towels

3 cups of cauliflower florets, broke into very small pieces (use just the tops of the florets)
1 cup of very thinly sliced Brussel sprouts (slice across horizontally)
1/4 cup very thinly sliced onion
2 tablespoons very thinly sliced green bell pepper
1/4 cup lightly packed grated carrot
black pepper

1/2 cup roast pecans, chopped (optional)

Combine the dressing ingredients, cover and place in the refrigerator for several hours so that the flavors can meld.  In a large bowl, combine all of the remaining ingredients and toss gently. Add all of the dressing, toss again to evenly coat all of the vegetables, cover and refrigerate for several hours before serving.

Add the chopped pecans, if using, and toss again.

Happy Broccoli, Mr. President - Crockpot Broccoli with a Creamy Garlic Sauce

Five days to cruising.  I like the looks of that sentence, incomplete though it may be.  Four days at sea, three days in various ports, and departure day which is half-port, half-sea, and a fire drill.  That adds up to eight days without access to a kitchen  Eight days without the feel, the touch of my santoku knife.  Eight days without my kids.  Ouch.

I'll be trading my knives for knitting needles.  Nice!  But before that - just now, I developed a craving for chopped liver.   Blame Andrew Zimmern and his trip to Brooklyn.  The only problem is that craving is going to require some duck fat, which I do not keep in the house as a matter of course.  Something else to put into my cyber shopping cart when I order the duck breasts (hello, turducken!) and a couple of confit duck legs.

Liver is a food that my son, who cheerfully downs raw fish, eel, goat, and all sorts of game, will absolutely not eat.  Liver is a food that both of his parents grew up on, and we love it - chicken, calf, beef, and best of the best, foie gras.  The cheapest meal I can prepare involves a pound of chicken livers - organic is best and still economical - and a lot of onions, some to fry in something a bit healthier than duck fat, the rest left raw to chop fine.  A lot of kosher salt and pepper.  Perfect.  And cheap, did I mention cheap?  Chicken liver also plays well with others, like garlic, oregano, and fresh sage.  Oh myyyyyy ... I may not be able to wait until I can get hold of that duck fat.

Today's recipe is from the Thanksgiving menu.  Nothing as adventurous as chicken liver, but controversial in it's own way, thanks to President Bush the First:

"I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I'm President of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli."  - George H.W. Bush.  

Sorry, Mr. President, but if you can jump out of airplanes at your age, and wear crazy socks (I love that he wears crazy socks!) you can try my broccoli recipe.

Crockpot Broccoli in Creamy Garlic Sauce

1 - 22 oz. bag frozen broccoli spears (Birdseye)
5 cloves fresh garlic cloves, slightly cracked and peeled
Olive oil
1 jar Ragu Creamy Mozzarella or Roasted Garlic Sauce
About 1 tablespoon granulated garlic
Kosher salt, to taste
coarse black pepper, to taste
Italian seasoning (optional)
Shredded mozzarella

Pour one or two tablespoons of the olive oil in the bottom of a 3-4 quart crockpot.  Add the garlic cloves, then lay the broccoli spears on top.  Drizzle a little more olive oil on top of the broccoli, then add the granulated garlic, kosher salt, black pepper, and Italian seasoning, if using. Cover and cook on high for one hour.

Uncover and rearrange the broccoli.  The garlic cloves should remain touching the bottom of the crock.  Cover and cook another hour, rotating the broccoli spears periodically.  Pour on the sauce, reduce the setting to low, cover and cook another 20 minutes or until the sauce is bubbling.  Serve from the crockpot or move to a serving dish, top with the mozzarella and put in a warm oven just until the cheese melts.

The World Is My Oyster - Oyster and Sausage Dressing

What ever made me think of this?  The summer that I volunteered at St. Joseph's Hospital, I would ride my bicycle from my home in North Woodmere to some spot on Central Avenue in Cedarhurst, lock up the bike, then take a bus to the end of the line in front of the Far Rockaway branch of the Queens Library, and then walk to the hospital on Beach 19th Street.  Then, I finished my shift and reversed the trip, unless Bethe and I were heading back to her house first.  Or we would walk around the block to Beach 20th Street, curious about the convent on the hospital grounds. At the end of our time together, she would walk me part of the way back to the bus stop.

Neither of us had a driver's license; I was fifteen, and she was a very precocious fourteen.  Despite that, it was a summer of great independence for me.  I was far from the stultifying sameness of North Woodmere and even better, far from my grandmother's sharp tongue and occasional fisticuffs.  Those twice-weekly trips were great exercise, too.  I was a klutz in the school gym, but a whiz on the bicycle.  Good memories, except I can't imagine what triggered them ... they popped up while I was in my car, driving from Kissimmee to the juvenile court in Orlando (don't ask, I can't tell), and I passed the Children's Advocacy Center, where CPT (the Child Protection Team) is located.  I can't count the number of times I have actually been in that building over the years, but it always makes me feel like I am getting caught in a drug-induced hallucination. (Let me make it clear that I am implying no criticism of the CAC or CPT or the marvelous work they do to protect children.  I could not do my job as effectively or efficiently without them.) Bright clashing colors, cartoonish representations of various animals, fake trees sculpted out of metals and plastic, looking dangerous rather than cheerful. Even the pictures on the outside of the building continue that weird Alice-in-Wonderland-on LSD theme.

So is that what triggered the cross-county bicycle trip memory?  That would be simply too weird. Does that mean if it's not ear worms, it's bright colors setting me off?  Cognitive overload.  "Too many notes."  Too many visual bursts of lights and color apparently disrupt my train of thought, sending me off into a daydream fugue episode.  This may explain why I failed calculus in college.  All that fresh air and the bright, clean colors of nature up there in the Shawangunk Mountains.  Everything was so greeeeeeen .... just kidding, all you Mel Brooks' fans

So when I got home, I buried myself in Kevin Walsh's Forgotten NY site and took various tours of the Rockaway Peninsula.  Such interesting history, and I'm crazy about the roads, especially the way the Rockaway Freeway zooms under the elevated subway and between the concrete posts of the trestle supporting that structure.  Plenty of times my Pop would take that road when we found ourselves in Rockaway heading to relatives in Arverne, having crossed over the Marine Park Bridge (now known as the Gil Hodges Bridge) after bumping over the cobblestones of Flatbush Avenue (yes, you read that correctly) before he somehow magically merged onto Beach Channel Drive, which morphed into Seagirt Boulevard.  I'm a map freak, an architecture freak, and a New York City subway freak.  The world is my classroom.  And my oyster, at least according to Shakespeare.

This might be a good time for a recipe.

I never tasted oysters until I was in my early forties.  For someone who practically grew up in Lundy's restaurant in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, that's pretty darn amazing.  I ate steamed clams in enormous quantities, but nary an oyster, cooked or raw.  Broiled scallops, steamed lobsters, mussels in wine sauce and an oceanful of shrimp, but no oysters.  Forty years of unrestrained eating gone to waste.  Imagine the vast quantities of oysters I could have consumed during my heyday, if I had only known how utterly delicious they are.  The first oysters I ever ate were fried, but since then I've had them grilled, raw, Rockefellered, casseroled, Emerilized, and floating in a perfect stew.  I have used them at home in gumbos and seafood stews, as well as in stuffing for turkey, which brings us full circle to my Thanksgiving recipes.  I know, it's been a long trip from Far Rockaway, but it was all worth it.

OYSTER AND SAUSAGE DRESSING

1 cup corn kernels, frozen

3 tablespoons butter

2 onions, chopped

3/4 cup chopped celery

1 red bell pepper, chopped

6 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped

1 - 1 pound roll of hot bulk sausage (Jimmy Dean)

2 - 8 oz. refrigerated cans shucked oysters, with their liquor

1 tablespoon butter

2 teaspoons dried rubbed sage

2 teaspoons dried thyme

4 cups cubed cornbread, dried in oven

4 cups cubed Thanksgiving bread, dried in oven

2 eggs, lightly beaten

Salt and pepper

granulated garlic

In a 10- to 12-inch deep skillet over high heat, throw in the frozen corn kernels, and cook dry until the kernels start to brown.  Remove to a large bowl and set aside.  In the same pan, combine butter, onions, celery, red pepper and garlic. Stir often until vegetables are lightly browned, 5 to 8 minutes. Pour into a large bowl.

Crumble sausage in frying pan and stir often until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. With a slotted spoon, transfer sausage to onion mixture. Discard fat.

Pour oysters and liquid into frying pan. Stir to free browned bits and bring to a boil. With slotted spoon, lift out oysters and cut into 1/2-inch chunks. Add to onion mixture. Boil oyster liquid until reduced to 4 tablespoons, stir in 1 tablespoon of butter and add to onion mixture. Add sage, thyme, and mixed bread cubes; mix well. Season to taste.  Add the beaten eggs and use wooden spoon to combine.  Try not to break up the oyster pieces.  If mixture is dry, gradually add small amounts of water to moisten, but do not let the stuffing get soggy.

Pat into a 9 x 13 inch baking dish.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes; remove foil and bake another 15 minutes or until the top is lightly browned and the internal temperature is at least 150 degrees.

If making this a day or two prior to your dinner, bake covered for 25 to 30 minutes, then remove from the oven, let cool a bit, and place in the refrigerator.  About an hour before you are ready to serve, place the covered baking dish in the oven for 45 minutes, then uncover and continue baking until the center reads at least 150 degrees, and the top is nicely browned.