'Twas the night before Christmas...

..and all through the boat we are summoning up the spirit of the season!

The turkey is boned and stuffed with a pork,sage and parsley stuffing. It's covered in butter and bacon and sitting patiently in the fridge ready to go. Bread sauce is made. Pate is in the fridge, bread in the freezer. Vegetables ready for peeling and just the dessert to make. No Christmas pudding this year sadly.

TBH has just put the carol cd on and we are listening to I'm dreaming of a white christmas! Actually it's raining here this evening...

And now it's time to put up the decorations, unearth the tree that has traveled the oceans with us, wonder if the lights will work this year? Time too to open the vino and sit back to think of you all, where ever you are and what ever you are doing.

Merry Christmas to you all.

Bread Making

I love making bread, particularly on a cooler morning. The smell as the dough rises and the warmth of the oven make the boat feel very cozy.
The delight of taking the crusty loaves out of the oven and that first hot slice covered with melting butter, mmmnnn!

After the excitement of the pig killing yesterday I settled down to make my usual white crusty farmhouse loaf but decided to have a go at a new, to me, recipe for green onion and sage bread. It sounded like just the thing for those turkey sandwiches that I am anticipating later this week! Boy was it good....

This is the recipe I used. I didn't have any wholemeal flour so used all white, no fresh sage so I substituted one and a half teaspoons of dried sage. Two loaves are in the freezer waiting for the turkey and we've already finished the other one...

Dan Lepard's green onion and sage loaf recipe

475g strong white flour, plus more for shaping 150g wholemeal flour 1 tsp fast-action yeast 2 tsp fine salt 1 tsp sugar 50ml olive oil 1 medium egg 250ml warm water 6 medium green (spring) onions, finely chopped 20g sage leaves, shredded Sea salt flakes and olive oil, to finish Put the flours, yeast, salt and sugar into a large bowl and toss with your fingers. In another bowl, whisk the oil, egg and water until smooth, stir in the onions and sage, then add to the flour bowl and mix to a smooth, soft dough. Leave for 10 minutes. On a well-oiled patch of worktop, lightly knead for about 10 seconds, then return the dough to the bowl. Leave for 10 minutes, then repeat the light kneading twice more at 10-minute intervals before leaving it at room temperature for 90 minutes. Divide the dough into three, shape each into a ball with flour, then sit them touching like a clover on a baking tray covered with nonstick paper. Cover, leave to rise for about an hour, then brush with oil, sprinkle with salt flakes and bake at 240C (220C fan-assisted)/465F/gas mark 9 for about 30 minutes.

Digital McCarthyism.

A really coherent interview with Julian Assange on the dangers to the first amendment and the American Constitution.

Pig Killing day!

'Gerry'

....the voice wafted through the hatch  sometime before dawn this morning. It was dark, chilly and starting to drizzle. I was already up and dressed, not warmly enough but at least I had some clothes on!

John, the manager, stood bundled up in a big jacket on the dock.
'C'mon it's pig time!'

Ephrine, the guardian here, and his family rear a couple of porkers every year. Today was D day for one of them. We cruisers were offered some of the meat to buy but we needed to be on hand once the butcher started his work as, how can I put this, butchery isn't quite what we understand  here in Guatemala!Their cuts are somewhat abstract to say the least!

We carefully made our way in the gloom down the boardwalk to the rear of the marina property where Ephrine and his family live, in amongst the swamp. Man those mosquito's were biting!

The slaughter had taken place around 2am right there in the jungle, the pig had been scalded and flayed by the time we arrived. It's quite a communal event. Two other cruisers arrived to point out the cuts they wanted and a convivial time was spent discussing 'animals we had butchered', 'hunting in Alaska' and ' strange joints I have cooked'!

The butcher was a scrawny little guy armed with a large knife and a lump of wood to use as a mallet. He worked away down in the grass under a lamp in the dark, sawing and pulling and chopping away at the fast diminishing corpse.Buckets and pans were pressed into use to contain the various cuts and the rest of the family busied themselves weighing and bagging and working out the cost of each parcel on the mobile phone!Young Allan, the eldest child(12), was contemplating the delights of a roast leg and various relatives were claiming the joints they had ordered.

It is quite different here to other 'pig-killings' what I have attended! In Portugal the occasion was a village event, all the women got together to process the carcass,making salami, blood sausage, tripe, brawn and all manners of delicacies. Not a piece was wasted. That doesn't appear to be the case here. No bacon curing, ham smoking or sausage making that I could see. I wonder why that is,  maybe the lack of refrigeration in such a humid climate ?

I claimed a pair of 'patas', trotters and yup, you've guessed it, I am going to make another mammoth pork pie! For now though the meats in the freezer, that's a job for after the Christmas holidays.

Nothing like a choirboy for Christmas...

oh lordy the tears are starting to flow! Memories of the son as Senior Chorister at his Prep School, so many years ago,,,,

Christmas...

Son James, took this last night from his window in a tiny, snow covered village in England....Brrrrrrrr!

Jolly Olly

I was reading yesterday about young Olly Rofix as he gets ready to set sail on a round Britain fundraising attempt in an 18 footer!
 Recovering from a near death experience with a particularly rare form of Leukaemia he has set a target of  recruiting a thousand new donors to The Anthony Nolan Trust . A most worthwhile challenge.

I have been pretty scathing in the past about some of the attempts at long distance sailing that you read about in the 'sailing comics' BUT this one looks like a well thought out, well prepared and praiseworthy challenge. I wish Olly lots of luck.

If you feel like sponsoring him or donating please do this looks like an excellent venture. I will be following his experience with enthusiasm. It's going to be quite a challenge in such a tiny boat but good on Olly!