All That Jazz

I was in a store the other day and ran into a friend who said "Are you shopping for your Free Range Friday blog?" Argh. I wasn't (just dry cat food, which occasionally isn't to be found on Culebra, but I heard there was some at Costa, and there was - thankfully, I've never had to cook with it). Just the idea of really cooking these days knocks me down, fearing I'd let a pot slip right out of my sweated palms. Ok, I'm slightly exaggerating, though not by much. But I realized I've been so negligent of actually doing any cooking for the blog I thought, hey, I'm going to fix that!

Harry Whittier Frees (1915)

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to an amazing dinner of goat stew. If you've never had goat stew, that might not sound too amazing, but well done, it's a wonderful treat. So I thought, hey, I'd love to do a blog post on this, so away to Milka's I went to pick up some cabra (which is goat in Spanish but for some reason, my Spanish is never understood in Milka's, usually my attempts are followed by someone bi-lingual saying 'She wants goat?hamburger?chickenbreasts?' to whoever is in charge of answering those questions. As it turned out, there would be no goat until the afternoon or next day, so it was on to another plan. Maybe gazpacho, maybe a fruit soup. I did buy things for something like that but then the day swept me off and it didn't happen.

So what did I really make and eat? Pretty much what I've been making and eating the most, except this time I did it on purpose and more together-ly. With mushrooms.

Cheese (in this case extra sharp cheddar, fresh mozzarella would have been lovely but that wasn't happening), beautiful tomato, cucumber, shallot, and crimini mushrooms (which are just baby portobellos really) all sliced very thin, but not paper thin, that's too thin. At least for me it is. 

A sprig of basil on top pulls it all together. No matter where you are, including an apartment or a boat, you can grow a pot of basil. It makes the difference between good and really good. This is Thai basil. It's good.

Put them all together on a simple cracker, in this case, water crackers. I like a simple cracker with this because each taste comes through well. With a glass of cool white wine, or what I had it with, a glass of cold limeade, this is just enough for a lunch or snack or whatever you want to call it. In this heat it is exactly what I want to eat.

Buen provecho! I'll get to that cabra eventually.

One of the things that swept me away yesterday was Jo's birthday celebration at Dinghy Dock. Twin sisters of different mothers, Jo and I are the same age, with the same name (abbreviated differently but the same name, and if you don't know it, good, there's a reason for that) and a few other factoids in common. After close to 20 years of knowing each other, we still find out new things on occasion causing exclamations of 'Really? You too?'.  No, we are both NOT in the Witness Protection Program. At least, not anymore.

Jo and Loren with Peri's pie

Lemon meringue pie by Peri. MERINGUE!!

Walt was ready for pie (always good to say pie with a strong Southern accent) 

Woody helps Loren with cutting and serving

which means he gets the first piece

Gary being a casual pie guy

That look means YUM!

Well that didn't last long

Loren on pie dish washing detail. Real washing comes later.

People wishing they had some pie (they were also going way too fast in a no wake zone)

Good friends

Doug trying to break the no wake speed limit. 

Have a surprising Saturday. Do something seismic.

p.s. Happy birthday to all those friends who had very busy parents in January, there's a bunch of you!! Love you much!