Travel with JoY

Chianti Classico wine in the cellars of CantiliciVineyard near Radda where we are staying this week. Winding roads up and down the olive and grape growing hillsides anticipates the rolling waves of a sailboat we will soon be on in Dalmatia.       After a few hours of riding the rough waves of Chianti hillsides we found this charming little village of Ambra. In the town square a group of locals had just completed a fundraiser walk for a cure for cancer. They were sitting along banquet tables having a dinner of charcuterie, roast pork, pasta, couscous salad with local red wine and the lovely treat, a dulci they called Peaches.     The Peaches are actually a yellow cake, rosy tinted with a core of cream.  I had shown the servers my list of allergies that I had translated to the local language and they seemed even more confused asking me to 'say in English'. Which didn't really help, when suddenly I realized I'd given them the list that had been trans...

Sailin’ past Kick ‘Em Jenny The swells were as big as a small house, with winds gusting to 28 knots….. I had downloaded Windfinder to my phone and it turned out to be perfectly accurate in its prediction of 25 knot winds (with gusts to 28) for Tues and Wed of our trip.  Yata and I being neophytes to this sort of sailing; we had only sailed on Lake Pepin and the Great Lakes a time or two; didn’t quite know what to expect. We sailed Sunday to Sunday, Jan 24 to 31st on the Chinook, a 42” mono-hull Bavaria yacht with three berths with Kay Hamilton, Dwight Jelle, Jeri and Dave Erickson.  Dwight was the captain and he and Kay have had a lot of experience including racing as well as weeklong trips through the British Virgin Islands and the Grenadines.  Dave and Jeri purchased Kay and Dwight’s Tartan sailboat and have it at the Pepin Marina. So they too have years of sailing experience.   We departed Sunday about 2pm after a couple hours of loading and instruc...

An excellent recipe by 1st mate Kay. Or should I say galley wench! Boat Babe Curry by Kay 2 onions chopped 3 fingers ginger, minced 3 cloves garlic minced 1 red bell pepper chopped Sauté above in 2 T coconut oil.  Add 1 c chicken broth 1/2 can coconut milk 2 T tamarind sauce 1/4 c peanut butter Salt Pepper 1 T turmeric or more 1 T cinnamon  1/4 c coconut cream 1 T fresh thyme Simmer

Lunch today for the two of us Combine 1 1/2 cups black beans slightly mashed 1 egg 2 slices white bread crumbled 1/4 c West Indies green seasoning 1 large clove garlic minced very fine.  Form into patties and fry in coconut oil medium hot. Turn after a couple minutes and cook until both sides are golden crisp. Plate and top with Avocado Salsa Combine gently 1 lg avocado cut into 3/4 in cubes 1 tomato cut into 1/2 in pieces 3T Tabasco or other hot sauce 1 T honey

I'm not sure where these culinary inspirations are coming from, but then again I am gleaning from some of the best things I've prepared in the past year or two and then tweeking things towards a West Indian touch.  This remoulade is similar to one I found in a book of New Orleans cooking I brought back from the The Big Easy last April.  That was a green tomato fried in cornmeal with a remoulade. I also served this with a salad in the Jessamine Eden style where I put larger than bite sized pieces of Avocado, Tomato and Papaya on the plate and drizzled with the Worldwide winning Grenada Honey and lime juice.  One thing I realized about the large avocado chunks is that avocado is a subtle flavor and if the bite is too small or mixed with more powerful flavors it looses out.  So a large hunk, with the honey and lime was heavenly.  I also served the fish with a piece of toasted whole wheat baguette to sop up the sauce.  Sitting on the verandah with the strong ...

I'm sitting up in bed in our little cottage in Trinidad, writing this post. One of the things I find so amazing is that there is no glass in the window behind me. A bat just flew in and flew out the french door at my side. I'm inside a mosquito net in a sleeveless gown, barefoot and very comfortable after a shower. It was a bit warm today, maybe up to 85 or so, but we rarely felt it since we are under the canopy of large trees and our deck is on the north side of the house. I painted out there today while Yata wrote a song in the study, a room with another glass-less window overlooking the plains and mountains to the north. This sort of lodging wouldn't be for everyone; in fact, Nick, our son, asked me how we kept the rats out. Actually, we have a resident guard cat Lulu and two dogs besides. There are too many dogs in our neighborhood, a common problem on many of our trips to less developed countries. But regardless of the bats, and such, we love being in such c...