In the last few days I've gotten emails from far flung friends that are making my own feet itchy for my upcoming trips to Maine and places West. I thought I'd share them as you make your own traveling plans this summer, along with a recipe from each area. And if you are only going holidaying as far as your own backyard, there is still magic to be found, with the eyes to see it and your own kitchen for making some delicious armchair forays.
From an Australian friend doing some business - opal business - in Alaska:
From the Alaskan blog Lynne's Country Kitchen is a great sounding recipe I'll be checking out, using some of Neil's Dinghy Dock brew (what? you thought I was going to put up Baked Alaska?):| The dark beer gives the meat a rich flavor. It is thickened with bread. Serve this dish with a crusty French loaf and fried potatoes. INGREDIENTS 1/4 cup canola oil Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large, oven-proof saucepan or flameproof casserole, heat the oil. Sear the meat on all sides over medium heat. Drain off any excess oil. Season the meat with salt and pepper. Set aside. Spread the slice of bread with the mustard. In a medium sauté pan, melt the butter. Add the onion and sauté until golden, about 5 minutes. Add the brown sugar and continue to cook until the onion is caramelized. Add the red wine vinegar and continue to sauté until the vinegar is absorbed. Place the bread slice into the casserole with the beef, sticking it down in the middle of the meat. Add the onion. Heat the beer in the sauté pan and then pour it over the beef. Cover and braise the beef on the center rack of the oven for 4 hours. Serve the beef with the sauce as is, or purée the sauce until smooth. Makes 6 servings |
From an island friend in Newport, RI, one port of call on a boat delivery from Antigua to Maine:
Greetings from Newport...We arrived last evening just before the sunset having had an amazing passage. Plenty of dolphin encounters, one massive whale that was basking in the sun, and one gorgeous sunset after another...Our last day we raised the whole lot of sails including the fisherman and enjoyed a steady 8.5kts under perfect conditions. Needless to say the custom ordered passage! It is nice to be out strolling around on my two legs again and the sun feels lovely in this cooler latitude. Newport is a classic New England port town full of some amazing vessels and I am constantly stopping to drool at yet another beautiful classic yacht (no doubt the one I am on definitely falls into the category as well-check out their website :google Schooner Heron) We are currently taking on water and fuel and then off to find a warm shower and do some exploring before embarking on our last passage for Monhegan Island Maine, a small island just outside of Camden and Rockport, our final port of call.
From The Heart of New England blog (food section) is this recipe I never even imagined, but it's simple and sounds so er...interesting, I'm going to give it a go:Cottage Cakes
Recipe by Inn at Manchester
Easy and delicious for breakfast!
1 Cup Cottage Cheese
4 Eggs Beaten
4 Tablespoon Melted Butter or Margarine
½ Cup Flour
Directions:
Whisk the first 3 ingredients. Fold
in flour, bake on a pancake griddle,
using medium high heat. Serve with
Vermont maple syrup and apricot sauce.
And last but not least, from the Marshall Islands, specifically Likiep, where an intended 10 day stay from one of the other islands turned into a month long visit (I always enjoy these emails, because they usually include a cool history lesson told in the writer's unique style):
Ghosts, demons and spirits are just part of normal everyday life here on the edge of the world. Perhaps those of you who have been to the Hawaiian Islands are familiar with their rich spiritual history. The Hawaiian traditional pantheon contains a plethora of Goddesses and Gods who inhabit the volcanoes, the sea, the land and they are involved in virtually all aspects of everyday life. The arrival of European culture brought with it the Christian belief system that was energetically spread by voyaging missionaries. The Hawaiians were impressed with the strength of the Christian god who provided the Europeans with very large voyaging canoes, cannons, guns, whiskey and ferrous metals. Obviously any god that strong deserved to be worshipped! Therefore they added this Christian god into their belief system. The important point to remember here is that they did not entirely give up their belief in the old gods. They simply added the Christian beliefs into their traditional belief system.
As a result of their geographical remoteness the Marshall Islands were invaded much later than other island groups in the pacific. Being very small atolls with few easily exploitable resources the Western commercial interests left them pretty much alone. Some of the earliest contacts were with the likes of the notorious “Bully Hayes” and others of his ilk that were looking for slaves to carry off. The Marshallese viewed Westerners with suspicion.
Eventually the missionaries arrived in the Marshalls to convert the heathens and to save their souls. Over the course of the past 150 years or so the people of the RMI have come totally under the sway of Christianity with a healthy mix of Roman Catholic, Methodist, Seventh Day Adventist, Mormon and a variety of Protestant, Baptist and storefront churches.
Along side of Christianity the belief in Ghosts, Demons, Spirits and Magic remains very strong among the people here. Walking with my pal Neal on one of the outer islands we came to a small group of native houses. It was only 3 or 4 small houses with a couple of cooking sites and some copra drying sheds. Nothing very urban to say the least. All around the perimeter of this little group of dwellings bottles hung from the branches of the trees and each bottle contained a page from the Bible. It was a “spiritual fence” set up around the houses to keep the ghosts and demons away! No shit!
I was sitting on the veranda of Joe DeBrum’s hotel the other night along with his wife Yumiko and I was fortunate enough to be told quite a few “ghost stories”. Joe is a pretty worldly guy and he has little or no belief in ghosts or spirits. He lives by the credo that if he doesn’t bother the spirit world the spirit world won’t bother him. He claims he has never seen a ghost or demon. His wife, however, a former prayer leader at the church who attends services regularly has had many first hand encounters with ghosts and spirits. She does not like to be alone at night and the lights are never turned off!
Most ghosts seem to be women although there are a few instances of male spirits appearing, particularly soon after a male friend or relative has passed away. Joe was telling of one such story that is part of the folklore of Likiep Atoll…
The Ghost Rides For Free
Jemo is a little island that lies 15-20 miles NE of Likiep and occasionally the DeBrum family sends a couple of guys over there to make copra. They go over by canoe and set up camp for a few weeks while they make the copra. So one time these two guys go over. They decide to share food gathering and cooking duties. One day one guy cooks the rice, catches the fish and gets the drinking nuts while the other makes copra. The next day they reverse roles thereby sharing the duties.
After they’ve been there a while a tragic event occurs and one fellow falls out of a coconut tree and dies. The other fellow, who was making copra at the time, comes back to camp at dinner time and there is no dinner ready and his companion is missing. Walking around Jemo (a very small island) he finds his colleague dead on the ground under the coconut tree. This is very perplexing to him… his friend is dead and there is no dinner to eat…
He digs a grave and buries the body on Jemo then proceeds to load up the copra on the canoe and heads back to Likiep. As he starts paddling he hears some sounds from the back of the canoe. Looking aft he sees his companion sitting on the back of the canoe! He continues paddling all night until he reaches the beach on Likiep and his companion, who rode in the back the whole way saying nothing, vanishes into thin air. “You son of a bitch!” he says. “You fall out of coconut tree and die and I must dig grave! You don’t make dinner! You don’t help load copra! You get free ride all the way back to Likiep and I have to paddle all the way by myself! You son of a bitch!”
From a Marshall Islands forum are a few suggestions on using breadfruit, which we grow here on Culebra, but you won't find it in a store! Of course, I was very tempted to use the recipe for Fruit Bat Soup, since we have them here, but somehow I resisted.
Remove the center seeded area and the skin then slice it up into chips and fry it in oil.
Remove the center seeded area, cut into strips ( you can leave the skin on if it's ripe) Cook over low heat in coconut milk.
Bake whole on a fire. Keep rotating it until it's soft inside. Check it by poking it with a wooden skewer. When it's done scrape the burned skin parts off the outside. We use a piece of broken glass to scrape with, but you could use a shell. Then break off a piece and dip it in warm coconut milk cooked with lime juice and salt or coconut milk with fish or seafood. You can also dip it in vegetable oil with salt.
Another reader responds:
Man o` man that sounds good. I can not decide which I like more Fried Breadfruit slices (with the skin) or baked Breadfruit with meat drippings... Unfortunatly the only breadfruit I can get here is from a Fiji store but its frozen and skinned.
Buen provecho!
No comments:
Post a Comment