Boats: small, medium & large

It appears we seek out boats.

Model boats in Central Park (this time we rented two and raced them):

Coast Daylight (with bunting) in Bristol harbour:

John, helming Coast Daylight.

Harry, a-snooze on Coast Daylight (note the Outward Hound lifejacket):

At the end of our CD adventure (post-swim):

At the Newport boat show. Overkill, anyone?

Our view from the dock of the Uncle Sam's boat tour boat that we took the day after this picture was taken.

The enormous tanker that came down the St Lawrence Seaway, past the wedding lunch:

Roomies, en-kayaked:

The Uncle Sam's boat tour:

Our Duck Tour, in Boston:

About to splash into the Charles River:

A sister-duck:

The boats at Community Boating in Boston. We'll be back.

A cruise ship, from our J-22 in Newport Harbour.

A schooner in Newport Harbour:

Coast Daylight in Newport harbour:

The 1/6 scale model of Reliance at the Herreshoff museum in Bristol, RI.

Us on our first J-22, named Intrepid, of course, in Newport harbour:

And the second one:

Bonus pic: John's "Life Is Good" tshirt, complete with sailboat, on the High Line in NYC with Emily:

Sunset, 4 locations.

Sunset 1: Stowmarket station, evening of departure.

Sunset 2: Over the St Laurence River, near Cherry Island, in the Thousand Islands, NY. (Note: while the sunsets and the wedding were beautiful, a region whose most famous export is salad dressing made from ketchup and mayonnaise may have some disappointing food experiences).

Sunset 3: from the Lobster Pot restaurant in Bristol, RI, over Narragansett Bay.

Sunset 4: Manhattan island, as seen from a car on the Whitestone Bridge, en route to Kennedy Airport for the red-eye to the UK.

Aaaaand we're back

Whirlwind US trip (90% Rhode Island, 8% upstate NY, 2% NYC metro).

This is Harry the Dog. No, he doesn't drink gin, he just likes to chew on plastic bottles.

Breakfast of champions

 Sourdough bread (or english muffins), prosciutto, scrambled eggs, sauteed tomatoes and mushrooms.

YUM.

Review: sailing books

I've recently read two sailing books: Fastnet, Force 10 and Love with a Chance of Drowning.

Both made extremely clear the ruthlessness of the ocean.

The Fastnet race in 1979 killed 18 people, as a result of a "perfect storm" hitting the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the UK and Ireland while the race from Cowes to Fastnet Rock was happening. The writing style reminded me a bit of Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, and was utterly terrifying. The combination of relatively small ships, far out to sea, and a confused sea with spectacular waves resulted in massive boat damage and loss of life. The storm happened before I was born, but John remembers being in a harbour in France on a sailing trip with his parents, and watching boats break loose in the harbour as the waves crashed over the harbour walls.

Anyway, give it a read, preferably NOT before setting out on a sailing trip.

If you DO want a book that will make you want to go to sea, I really liked Love with a Chance of Drowning, a memoir about following a boy and a boat and sailing across the Pacific ocean.

Sign me up!

August food

We had the boy for 2 weeks. We ate a TON of fruit (the strawberries this year have been amazing and just keep coming)!

John made cinnamon-raisin bread, which was demolished in short order:

With butter.

And James and I went to Cambridge (John was sailing, and my iPhone needed a Genius), and had some dumplings at Zonghua Traditional Snacks. Yumsters.

{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by SouleMama.

The Boy making Ultimate Chocolate Cake for granddad's birthday.

New England Summer

I spent 6 excellent summers at camp in Vermont, which meant that I thoroughly enjoyed the recent rerun of This American Life's Notes on Camp. 

All campers, past and present, should go have a listen. I thought I'd heard it before but I think I only caught the first few minutes last time. Our days at Lochearn were slightly more structured than most camps, as far as I know, but they really went for it with the Traditions and "Colour War" (although ours was only ever referred to as Blue-Green, "Colour War" being a much too aggressive term). True Blue for life, in case you're interested. I still get goosebumps thinking about standing in a circle with all the other Blue team members, calling Good Luck to the Green team at the end of an event.

I also just finished the third Penderwick book, The Penderwicks at Point Mouette - I love these so much and would have been completely obsessed with them had I discovered them when I was 10 or 11. The three youngest Penderwicks (and their friend Jeffrey) go on vacation to Maine, and have all sorts of merry adventures. LOVE.

We even had an excellent morning of thunderstorms this morning - it made me think of sitting on the porch with my parents, watching storms roll through.

Sailing off into the sunset

Best Friday night ever.

Rhubarb Jam

Between the sailing, we had some rhubarb from the in-laws.

And now, we have rhubarb & vanilla jam. And a fresh batch of rhubarb in the fridge for more jam!

This was the recipe I used - it's a bit too sweet so I think I'll use slightly less sugar next time.

NYC "Love" Wedding Quilt

My friend Emily got married back in September, and I wanted to make her and her new husband a quilt.

My inspiration: the "Love" sculpture, by Robert Indiana.

I liked this quilt, but I wanted to go for something a bit bigger and a bit more graphic.

This was my initial layout design:

Emily is a librarian, so when I saw that Lucie Summers' "Summersville" fabric had a library in the city pattern, I knew that I had to make a feature of it in the quilt. My embroidery skills aren't going to win any awards, but I LOVE how it came out!

Then, I found the perfect backing fabric - "To Work" from the Commute collection by Jay Cyn Organics. Shut up, New York.

Here it is, all completed on the back.

Oh, ok, I'll show you the picture of the Library again. Surrounded by Big Apples, of course.

Here's the completed quilt top. I used the bicycle fabric that I bought because it reminded me of a dress Emily has, and I used some of the leftover red bicycles from Ed's Rangers Quilt for the bottom of the L.

One New York quilt, now with its happy new owners!

Arroz con pollo

We had some friends over for supper on Saturday. When I was trying to figure out what to cook, I was aiming for something a little bit spicy, relatively straightforward, and warming, since we were supposed to have been sailing all day (which was subsequently cancelled due to crazy high winds).

I found Smitten Kitchen's (who else?) interpretation of a 2007 Gourmet magazine recipe for Arroz con Pollo. I mostly left the recipe the same, except I used red peppers instead of green, and boneless chicken thighs. We also left out the beer, because John was worried that English Beer would make it taste funny.

It was delicious and was very well received. It was also fairly easy - I did all the prep beforehand (and marinated the chicken all day), and then just put it all together as everyone arrived and let it simmer for half an hour.

Can you tell I love any excuse to bring out the Le Creuset?

We served it with salad from the garden and a mustard vinaigrette (which actually went really well with the chicken & rice). Dutch apple pie for dessert. Mmmmm.

In which I finish a sweater and read several books

I finished my Blakeslee Tee a few weeks ago - it's super cozy and not too warm, but good for chilly English summer days. No pictures of it On Me yet, mostly because I still need to figure out the best angle. The horizontal stripes are somewhat chubby-making. I love it anyway, though. It was an excellently mindless knit.

The slipped-stitch stripes are so pretty, especially close up.

I've been reading up a storm, lately. I downloaded Dark Triumph, the sequel to Grave Mercy. I started reading it and realised that I really couldn't remember who any of the secondary characters were (several of whom were featuring heavily in the sequel), so I went back and reread Grave Mercy. I enjoyed it as much as the first time round, and then jumped straight in to Dark Triumph, which I loved, too.

Then I thought I'd read something improving: Crusoe's Daughter, by Jane Gardam. It was recommended on a few blogs, and reviewed favourably in the NYT when it came out. The prose was lovely but it was Utterly Dull. I really wanted to like it, too. Oh well. Who needs plot when we have pretty writing?

To recover, I read the much-recommended book by John Green, The Fault In Our Stars. It's the story of love between two teenagers, one with terminal lung cancer, and it is improbably quite funny but also predictably heartbreaking. Cathartically so.

And finally, I blasted my way through Insurgent, the second in Veronica Roth's Divergent trilogy. Post-apocalyptic Chicago with teenagers and running around and kissing? Why, yes, I don't mind if I do. Too bad the third one's not out for a while. And I'm worried the movie might be crap...

Current favourite recipe: Eggplant Dirty Rice

I agree. It's not the prettiest recipe title. But what it lacks in curb appeal, it makes up for in taste.

The Amateur Gourmet blogged about David Kinch's Eggplant Dirty Rice, as featured in Food and Wine magazine. We tested it out last week and liked it so much we had to make it again when The Stepson was here (he loves spicy food).

I'd never heard of Dirty Rice. It's apparently a Cajun thing, and as a born-and-bred Yankee, I had no knowledge of such awesomeness.

The only changes we made: no salt added (other than the soy sauce), double the garlic (5 cloves -WOOO!), and no white pepper, because we didn't have any. Oh, and a courgette was looking somewhat forlorn in the fridge, so I added it at the same time as the eggplant.

Oh, and we had red romano peppers, rather than green ones. Pretty colours!

Here's the Amateur Gourmet's effort:

And here's ours (I wasn't quick enough to get a shot of the full batch...hungry boys):

We used some of the Cajun hot sauce that The Stepson gave me for Christmas - it was perfect.

Result? 3 very clean plates and 3 very happy campers.

I took the leftovers from batch #1 to work the day after, and it was equally tasty reheated in the microwave the following day.

What are you waiting for? Go make it!