Manitoulin, Birthday, Travel

We will soon be on the road driving to board the Chi Cheemaun ferry which will take us from Tobermory to South Baymouth on Manitoulin Island. We have booked a bed and breakfast for two nights in South Baymouth at the South Bay Inn and from then on will play it by ear. I am not sure how long we are going to be away, but probably at least a week. The island is supposed to be worth exploring. It is actually in Lake Huron and forms one edge of the area known as Georgian Bay. For some reason, although we have been here since 1975, we have never been to the island before. I am not sure how much posting I will do whilst we are away, obviously I have no idea of the availability of internet connections. So its a case of expect me when you see me. Yesterday was my birthday, I was 70 would you believe. I mentioned this to my foot nurse the other day and she was 'gob smacked' (I love that expression) which I found very flattering. On Saturday night we went to a friend's house in Hespeler (mentioned in a previous blog) where eight of us got together for dinner and of course drinks. We had a wonderful meal, comprised of great salads, corn on the cob, excellent potatoes, a German tomato salad (hoping to get the recipe for that) my Jambalaya, see below, taken after it had been attacked and the wonderful salmon I talked about the other day, again I hope to get her precise directions for doing the salmon too. They then produced the cake as shown above, just had my name on it, but actually we were celebrating a couple of other birthdays as well, however, I got to blow out the candles. It was a carrot cake and I lurve carrot cake. What don't I love, I hear you asking, well true, not much. Sunday morning we were still full, but it didn't stop us eating bacon and eggs for breakfast cooked by our hostess. Sunday night supper was all planned, Chateubriand with maybe French beans and Portabella mushrooms with, what was most important, one of the two bottles of Malivoire Pinot Noir that I have been look forward to for months. Tragedy, I was not prepared to drink it. I really wasn't interested in wine, or, come to that, much interested in food but, I have to eat, so we ate and had a glass of a mediocre wine and saved the Malivoire for our Wedding Anniversary. What a pity, too much of everything Saturday night. I have been reflecting a bit on my life to date. Unfortunately, a lot of it I cannot recall. I wonder if a good hypnotist could bring forth all the events. I have had a pretty good life and some times a very interesting one with all my travels and the people I have met and still continue to meet even if not face to face. The internet has opened up a whole new world to all of us (well other than people like Matt who hardly know it exists and apparently Senator McCain too). I find it absolutely wonderful how many friends I have made through cyber space, some of whom I am lucky enough to have met, many more I hope to meet in the future. Although for those who live in Oz, I am afraid that is somewhat unlikely unless I win a lottery or something. How many people have lived a number of years on a boat which travelled to ports in Europe. Not many. I didn't appreciate it at the time, I always wanted a book to read, but looking back I can see why many people envy me my later childhood and teenage years. Admittedly I got seasick a lot in those days, but I loved it when we arrived in France or Denmark or any of the many countries we visited. It was also great when my parents moved to the Mediterranean and I could join them on the boat and travel around there instead. Even when they sold the boat and moved into a delightful villa in Spain, it still made for a great vacation spot. Today of course, when we travel, it is often to destinations which used to be exotic to us. Places like The Dominican Republic, the Bahamas and so on. Although we have still gone back to Europe on occasion. Our trip to Portugal being an example. When we lived in North Carolina, Florida was almost in our backyard and yet that was almost unheard of as a possible destination when we lived in the UK. In recent years, the British have made Florida a regular destination. Maybe not now with the gas prices how they are and with airlines feeling the pinch all round. Canada lost Zoom Airlines in August, Britain have just lost XL and other airlines have been in crisis lately too. Maybe the world, which had shrunk so much due to air travel , will start to enlarge again as costs become more and more prohibitive. Well we are hoping the forecast and most of next week will be good weather. I have just discovered that son-in-law #1 reads this blog, I had no idea, so especially for him, bearing in mind he complained about the cold soups, I am including an Indian recipe which I found at Recipes Indian.

Dry Mutton Assamese Style

500 gms mutton 1 cup curd 1" piece of ginger 8-10 cloves of garlic 2 bay leaves 1 tbsp garam masala powder 1 cup mustard oil 1 tsp turmeric powder Salt to taste

Whip the curd. Marinate the mutton pieces with salt, turmeric, curd and 1tbsp of oil and leave aside for 2 hours. Grate the ginger and crush the garlic. Heat the remaining oil in a kadhai (A wok-like cooking utensil with circular handles on either side, used for frying, tempering and cooking vegetable dishes. The best kadhais have thick, heavy bottoms) and add the ginger, garlic and the bay leaves. Fry these for one minute and add the marinated mutton pieces. Lower the flame and cook over a low flame for at least half an hour or until the mutton becomes tender. Mix in the garam masala and stir well. Once the mutton becomes tender and absolutely dry, remove from fire and serve.

Have a great day and maybe a great week.

Hurricanes or not, Trip.

Tropical Storm Hanna appears to be not more than a big storm and is currently harassing the Eastern Seaboard of the States. Hanna did cause some deaths in the islands but pictures shown of the Carolina coast 5 hours after it hit show people in the water and hardly a ripple. Hannah is busy racing up the coast and will drop some rain in places where they are not used to such storms. Ike is on its way and that is already a Category 3. They are predicting it will strengthen, after it has passed Cuba. Josephine is still a Tropical Storm. If you are interested, there are all kinds of videos on the weather channel if you click here you can see them. The picture was taken from the weather channel a day or two ago. Someone made the crack the other day "I don't like Ike". In case you don't remember that's a reference to the buttons people wore when Eisenhower became president "I like Ike". Well, only just over a week and we head on out for our trip. It will be nice to get away. The car is all ready, we didn't end up spending and arm and a leg, just an arm. Matt does the packing, I am useless at it and that won't get done til Sunday. We bought new suitcases for our trip to England and one of them is ginormous. I think we could pack for a couple of months if we took it. Picture from dawsonresort.com Manitoulin is actually quite a big island we are told and there is lots to see. Me being me, I wonder what the restaurants are like. We had a magazine in our mail box last week called Home Basics. I am not sure where it came from, but it is full of delicious sounding recipes. One I am particularly interested in was a cold soup which I will give you the recipe for. In fact they listed three cold soups all of which look pretty good. This one looks so good it caught my eye instantly. Chilled Cucumber, Avocado and Shrimp Soup Serves 4 Source Home Basics 1 medium Avocado 1 medium cucumber, peeled and diced 1/2 Cups chicken or vegetable broth 1 Cup plain Yoghurt 2 Tbs lime juice 1 tsp salt 1 cup diced, cooked shrimp 2 green (spring) onions, finely chopped 4 small, cooked, peeled shrimp. Cut the avocado in half and remove the stone. Wrap half the avocado in plastic wrap and set aside. Peel the other half and cut into chunks. Place the avocado, cucumber, broth, yoghurt, lime juice and salt in a blender. Process until smooth and creamy. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or until very cold. To serve, peel and slice the remaining avocado half. Stir the avocado into the soup along with the diced shrimp. Ladle the soup into 4 bowl, sprinkle with green onions and float a single shrimp on top of each bowl. The picture shows the tail still on the shrimp. I personally hate tails left on and always remove them otherwise the person eating them has to then find somewhere to put it. Have a great weekend.

Manitoulin, Chi Cheemaun and Current Books

Well we didn't do very much at all this weekend. I did book the ferry trip to Manitoulin Island which I mentioned a week or so ago. We will be catching the Chi Cheemaun at 1:30 in Tobermory and we have booked a couple of nights at the South Bay Guest House to start off our visit to the area. One of my girlfriends happened to go to the St. Jacob's market this weekend and picked up my diabetic socks for me. So she called in on Sunday and it turns out she knows Manitoulin Island very well and also knows the owners of the South Bay Guest House. As usual, its a small world. Of course I did a lot of reading this weekend. I finished Goblin Hero by Jim C. Hines which is the second in his Jig Dragonslayer series. They really are fun these books, and I can recommend them. I already have the third book, Goblin War to read but thought I would read some of the other books I have on hand. I am now reading a book by a new author, Alaya Dawn Johnson, the book is called Racing the Dark and it is her first book. By the looks of it, it won't be her last. You can hardly see them, but in the cover picture, the protagonist is shown with huge black wings. The series is called The Spirit Binders. The author was born in 1982 so she is very young and if this is a sample of her work, she should certainly be encouraged. I highly recommend this book. Glenda Larke (see her blog link this page) shared with us a snippet of her new trilogy. The first book is tentatively called Rogue Rainlord, which I think is a fabulous title, by the time it gets published most of us will have bitten our nails to the quick in anticipation. As an already published author, I can't believe she hasn't got a publisher for this series yet. I am crossing everything on her behalf. Makes it difficult to type though. No rush today, I don't have to eat early to go bowling, I will miss it until September. At the moment we are dithering between bowling on Monday or Friday. The parking lot is tiny and to ensure a reasonable slot, I feel I have to eat my lunch at breakfast time in order to get there. The bowling starts at 12:30, I have no idea why, most bowling leagues play at 1:00. If we bowl on the Friday, there are only about 9 people there so parking won't be a problem and the whole thing will be more leisurely. However, we have quite a lot of fun with the Monday crowd, hence the dithering. Below is a recipe I picked up from Good Morning America which I thought sounded very good. I have given you the recipe, but there is a video of Wolfgang Puck, of Spago fame, preparing the dish click here which you might like to watch. For my own convenience I have amalgamated the two recipes, one for the chicken and one for the couscous. Works better in my cookery book programme that way. Delicious Summer Couscous and Chicken Chicken 2 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil 2 Tbs lemon juice 1 small shallot, minced 2 tsp chopped fresh thyme leaves 1 clove garlic, minced 1 tsp finely grated lemon zest 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper 4 large boneless, skinless, chicken breast halves 2 lemons, each cut into 4 wedges Couscous Salad 2 cups (500 ml) good-quality canned chicken broth 10 oz (300 g) dry instant couscous 1 tsp salt 1/2 tsp freshly ground cinnamon 1/4 cup (60 ml) extra-virgin olive oil 1 lemon, zested and juiced 1 small red onion, cut into small dice 1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded, and cut into small dice 1 red bell pepper, halved, stemmed, seeded, deveined, and cut into small dice 1 bunch green onions, trimmed and finely chopped 1/4 cup (60 ml) chopped cilantro leaves Freshly ground black pepper 1 Chicken 2 In medium nonreactive bowl, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, shallot, thyme, garlic, lemon zest, salt, and pepper. Place in large, heavy-duty sealable plastic food-storage bag. 3 Using a fork, pierce each chicken breast all over several times to help the marinade penetrate. Cut each chicken breast into 8 large equally sized chunks. Put the marinade mixture in the plastic bag; add the chicken, seal the bag, and move the pieces around to coat them thoroughly. Put the bag in the refrigerator for about 1 hour. 4 Preheat the grill. Meanwhile, thread the chicken chunks onto 8 skewers, including a lemon wedge in the middle of each skewer. 5 Grill the kabobs until the chicken is nicely brown and cooked through, 8 to 10 minutes, turning the kabobs once. Serve on a bed of Couscous Salad (recipe follows). 6 Couscous Salad 7 In a saucepan, bring the chicken broth to a boil. 8 Put the couscous in a large, heatproof bowl. Stir in the salt and cinnamon. Pour the boiling broth over the couscous, stir briefly, cover the bowl, and leave it at room temperature for 5 minutes. Uncover the bowl and, with a table fork, fluff the couscous to separate its grains. Leave it to cool completely to room temperature. 9 In another large bowl, stir together the olive oil, lemon juice and zest, red onion, cucumber, bell pepper, and green onions. Add the cooled couscous and toss until thoroughly mixed. Stir in the cilantro leaves. Taste and adjust the seasonings with more salt and pepper, if necessary. Serve at room temperature. Servings: 4 Recipe Source Author: Wolfgang Puck Have a great day.