Silversea Water Cooler: Welcome! Part Two

[jpalbny]

That's a good shot, Jeff. Though I agree; without a DSLR and that ridiculous lens I would have been frustrated trying to photograph this. My camera focused very well until totality, then it got finicky. I had to make sure the focus point was exactly on an edge of the moon otherwise it could not handle it. Would have gone to MF next as it's pretty easy on a DLSR/lens combo, but never needed to.

 

WRT Riesling - only the dry ones work for us. Even the dry ones with no residual sugar, if they don't have enough acidity, aren't as good. But a well-crafted dry Finger Lakes Riesling, with mouth-popping acidity, citrus flavor, and a full body... Delicious!

 

We tasted many this weekend and came back with a few favorites. The heat during the last two vintages accentuated the sweetness, but diminished the acidity. Without acidity, it's not the type of Riesling we like. So we have to be careful about choosing them.

 

Darn, I just got thirsty, and we have made a new rule that we won't open more than one bottle per day. Oh, and we're having steak tonight so it's a red with dinner. What have you done to me, with this Riesling talk? :)

[UKCruiseJeff]

JP,

 

I understand that second bottle grief. Sadly I wheigh myself much more often than I am told sensible people should. But I am older and fatter and uglier than you. so today was supposed to be wine free. But in the Trattoria, it was a lovely autumnal sun, and wifey was all gregarious, and that meal seemed to be a meal worthy of being insulted without a bottle. And so it was.

 

That meal has been on the mind today, and I am repeating the meal over the weekend with a bit of adjustment and development but I am agonising over the substitute if anything for the meat balls. I am thinking that some corn fed chicken breast diced would go with the sauce and gnocchi. Corn fed chicken loves Noily and cream ... I also have a nagging thought that either peas or sweetcorn and no proteins would do. I also wonder whether some flakes of sea bass.

 

I could also completely change it and take out the Noily, and add just a dash of Ouzo for obvious reasons (bouillabaise) , a dash of ketchub, a dot of chilli,and some seafood or just shrimp with the gnocchi mix. A little sweetening. Some white pepper. A completely different dish but seems to be sort of attractive to me.

 

What do you think? Any thoughts really appreciated.

 

Jeff

Edited September 29, 2015 by UKCruiseJeff

[jpalbny]

Meat balls are great with this dish. But - my suggestion would be to make them from ground veal, with a decent amount of cracked black pepper. They will be lighter in texture and go even better with a cream sauce.

 

Darn it, now you have me both hungry and thirsty. Jeff... I have to stop reading this forum!

[UKCruiseJeff]

Thanks JP!

 

I added a bit and we crossed. I wonder whether veal is still just a bit top heavy.

 

Appreciate your comments on my additional stuff I added to the post. Seafood gnocchi? I missed out I'd add some garlic and chopped dill.

 

Jeff

 

ps sorry to keep you up .. and hungry ... the good thing is that soon it will be 2 am and I'll leave you alone!

 

:D

 

Jeff

Edited September 29, 2015 by UKCruiseJeff

[UKCruiseJeff]

......what have our lives come to JP? A couple of sad blokes exchanging recipe ideas on an internet forum ... in my case in the early hours ....

 

Thank god we both don't knit. :D

 

Night night all,

 

Jeff

[TLCOhio]

......what have our lives come to JP? A couple of sad blokes exchanging recipe ideas on an internet forum ... in my case in the early hours .... Thank god we both don't knit. :D Night night all, Jeff

 

Don't worry, Jeff or JP. I will not be exchanging recipe ideas and/or talking about needing knitting tips/ideas. My sins are elsewhere. Yes, good night!! Got to get up early for a breakfast meeting on Tuesday.

 

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

 

From our Jan. 25-Feb. 20, 2015, Amazon River-Caribbean combo sailing over 26 days that started in Barbados, here is the link below to that live/blog. Lots of great visuals from this amazing Brazil river and these various Caribbean Islands (Dutch ABC's, St. Barts, Dominica, Grenada, etc.) that we experienced. Check it out at:

http://www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2157696

Now at 29,117 views for these postings.

[jpalbny]

......what have our lives come to JP? A couple of sad blokes exchanging recipe ideas on an internet forum ... in my case in the early hours ....

 

Thank god we both don't knit. :D

 

Night night all,

 

Jeff

 

Good food and wine are the elixir of life. Not sad at all discussing that!

 

Seafood would be fine; I'd use fresh tomatoes - halved cherry tomatoes cooked a few minutes in your liquor of choice with sautéed garlic, herbs, and maybe a little chicken broth or salt, depending on how much flavor you want to add.

[MrsWaldo]

Good food and wine are the elixir of life. Not sad at all discussing that

 

Nope not at all. Time frames can be interesting and your overnight discussions give me inspiration for the day ahead.

 

Sticking with the seafood theme it's a Tempura Barramundi here tonight. Fishmonger had some wild caught, not frozen and it smells nice (uncooked) it's still dry season so it won't have that muddy after taste it gets during summer. Tossing up between the mushroom/soy/ginger dipping sauce or more of a Nahm Jim style.

 

To cut the fry on the side it will be a plain stir fry of baby corn, snow peas, green beans, carrots and sesame seeds.

I know salad make the most sense but I'm a bit over salad as the shop tomatoes at the moment are not that great and my garden supplier (aka mum) is not online yet😉

Spent most of the afternoon making a coconut gelato to go with some strawberries which are macerating nicely in a dash of creme de cacao for flambé at a later point. Tossing up whether to make some tulle to go with them.

[UKCruiseJeff]

Good morning all,

 

Thanks JP .... "food for thought"!

 

Mrs Waldo ... that is impressive, particularly the tempura which sounds lovely! Tempura is ambitous for many and I hope you might take a piccy? And that gelato is interesting. All these things make me think too much about food. :)

 

I'm really looking forward to next summer when wifey has approved my plan to get my Lincat double fryer out of store and to be parked for summer by my beehive oven in what will be our pop up fish and chip shop. I want to have a season of cooking in beef dripping - something I have never done - and one day a week will be fresh fish and chips cooking in said dripping. I spent a lot of time some years ago learning about fish batters and how to deep fry better .... and more healthily.

 

I have some great memories of talking to Chef Dave about some interesting research done by a New Zealand Phd student into chip saturation and better frying methods ... and how counter intuitive some of this study was.

 

I'm looking forward to some real fresh fish and chips next year.

 

Jeff

 

Edited: Source of some of the different studies added ....

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12054325

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CEwQFjAGahUKEwiVyLO745vIAhVC2BoKHXd9DLE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fresearchspace.auckland.ac.nz%2Fbitstream%2Fhandle%2F2292%2F2318%2F02whole.pdf%3Fsequence%3D4&usg=AFQjCNGUHaEXE_7gTbOUIzBUO8aVwmNStA

Edited September 29, 2015 by UKCruiseJeff

[UKCruiseJeff]

La Cucina is pretty much now complete and open for business. It was a wasted unused area to the side of the house and I'm pleased with how we're using it. It is a quiet haven that no one can see!

 

The ceiling nets have been removed for Winter, and yesterday my trellis arrived via DHL from Germany. I couldn't get the white one I wanted from the UK, and I saw the exact one I wanted on Amazon Germany so I thought I'd try and order it .. and much to my suprise the order wasn't cancelled and arrived yesterday. And the whole thing delivered was much less than if I had been able to buy it in the UK.

 

There are so many lighting options for different moods and one night I'll take them all and post. There are the dozen changing colour garden floods dotted around and they all change in sync and are programmable, a couple of wall downlights circuits and the fisherman lights with those old fashioned bulbs and extra spare switched circuits for ..... Christmas lighting ... :eek:

 

This is what it looks like at daytime now ... and I do like a little bit of tasteful kitch ie pretend vines on the trellis which covers bins. And some lovely kiln dried beech for Winter ...

 

 

Jeff

 

 

 

 

 

 

.... older piccy of beehive in pre-Cucina days .... it has a door for slow cooking and the area below it also has some removeable doors and is used sometimes as a cold smoker for salmon etc ..

 

 

Edited September 29, 2015 by UKCruiseJeff

[MrsWaldo]

Sorry jeff

 

Master w (prob at 24 should now be mr) was adamant that we destroy food quality due to the photo delay... More so with fried for which becomes "gluggy"

Miss w didn't want fried so her was steamed over coriander and kaffir lime

My chips are a triple cook...

Chips

Fry at a nice high temp, in the oven for 20 mins at 210c the finish off in the oil again. They are even better in duck fat (I try to keep it after I have rendered off a breast)

I can post a photo of the empty gelato glass

 

Edited to add.. The big plus when doing tempura is to use ice water for the batter... And rice flour for the coating before dipping

Edited September 29, 2015 by MrsWaldo

[UKCruiseJeff]

Soapy Girl is apologetic for not being able to reply to posts and has asked me to apologise on her behalf.

 

 

Still no luck with logging in...CC webmaster have told me that they have no registration for specialcruisegirl .....jeez....I've been bleedin posting for ever....

 

Anyway l can't log on and when l go to re register they refuse ....would you be so kind as to mention in one of your posts that I'm having problems while I continue to sort out! I notice LL mentioned me and l hate not being able to respond. Thanks....

 

Jeff

[jpalbny]

Soapy Girl is apologetic for not being able to reply to posts and has asked me to apologise on her behalf.

 

 

 

Jeff

 

Poor Sophia! That's ridiculous. I can find her prior posts easily. CC must be having server problems.

 

Here is a link to her last post on CC (#545 in the cooler): http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=47753459&postcount=545

 

If you forward the link to her, maybe she can in turn forward it to the CC folks so that they can find her, and figure out what happened to her profile.

[mysty]

La Cucina is gorgeous Jeff! I love that trellis! Perfect solution for hiding bins. If you can communicate with Sophia, kindly pass best wishes for a great cruise! Thank you!

[UKCruiseJeff]

La Cucina is gorgeous Jeff! I love that trellis! Perfect solution for hiding bins. If you can communicate with Sophia, kindly pass best wishes for a great cruise! Thank you!

 

She can read but cannot post. :)

[UKCruiseJeff]

Poor Sophia! That's ridiculous. I can find her prior posts easily. CC must be having server problems.

 

Here is a link to her last post on CC (#545 in the cooler): http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=47753459&postcount=545

 

If you forward the link to her, maybe she can in turn forward it to the CC folks so that they can find her, and figure out what happened to her profile.

 

Yes,

 

I've suggested that she clears out her cache and tries to reregister under specialcruisegirl2 but nothing appears to be working. I've tried registering specialcruisegirl3 and sent her the password .... hopefully the automatic reg confirmation will get to her and if she clears the cache she can log in afresh and use the password I set and then change her password. Hope it works.

 

 

Jeff

Edited September 29, 2015 by UKCruiseJeff

[Mark_K]

Jeff,

 

You may have mysterious chalk horses around where you live, but we have mysterious chalk flowers around here. :)

 

 

Mark

Edited September 29, 2015 by Mark_K

[UKCruiseJeff]

Jeff,

 

You may have mysterious chalk horses around where you live, but we have mysterious chalk flowers around here. :)

 

[ATTACH]363873[/ATTACH]

 

Mark

 

 

:D

 

 

We have more than horses ....

 

[UKCruiseJeff]

A meal in the spirit of JP.

 

The Swiss House today in Prater.

 

 

[Mark_K]

:D

 

 

We have more than horses ....

 

 

 

Reminds me of a somewhat bawdy song I heard once about getting older. One of the lines was "you used to watch me shave, now you just stare at the floor".

[jpalbny]

MrsWaldo - that tempura sounds delicious. I have to reluctantly agree that messing around with photography might make it less tasty. Our loss.

 

Jeff - nice pictures of the Cucina. And thanks for reminding us of the food we're missing out on over in Germany/Switzerland/Austria, while waiting for my new Audi to join up with us again. It's only been 2 weeks and a day but it feels like a lifetime!

 

I do need to find some more Picpoul next summer. It's a little cool out for that now.

 

Mark_K, I have no words. I wish I knew the words; sounds like a great song! I only know about the Old Man from Nantucket.

 

**

 

Tonight's dinner was a little inspired by yesterday's conversation. I had a veal shoulder chop that needed to be trimmed into bite-sized pieces. Floured and seared a few minutes in olive oil and butter. They came out and rested a few minutes while I put halved cherry tomatoes, wine, garlic, and green onion in the pan. After a few minutes the veal rejoined the pan and the flavors melded at a low simmer.

 

Over lemon-pepper pappardelle pasta, with a shave of Grana Padano cheese... it was simple but tasty!

 

[mysty]

JP, that meal looks and sounds wonderful!

[UKCruiseJeff]

JP,

 

That is a lovely dish .... a really light touch and it is clearly really tasty. I now get your suggestion about using veal in the other dish.

 

A walk around the village was an interesting affair. Lovely autumnal light and crisp but also a warm sun. The conkers were raining down and whilst I knew that the law of averages meant that it was safe I did manage to get "conkered" as we walked past the village church. They seem bigger this year.

 

I so wish we had some sweet chestnut trees close by, but the closest is in Mottisfont Abbey a drive away. We have membership to the National Trust so each year I pop down in the hope that their trees will produce some edible sized chestnuts .... but they never do. I keep looking to see when the sweet chestnuts are in the shops but still too early. I want us two to sit at our own Christmas Market stall in Cucina with some maroni, punch mit Ameretto schuss when it gets colder.

 

These are some village piccies and some of this years lethal larger conkers.

 

Jeff

 

 

 

 

[MrsWaldo]

Garden variety lasagne here tonight ..... Added a little basil to the pasta mix

 

Rolling the sheets always takes time

 

Going to serve with a green bean and snow pea salad

 

Serving it with a Nepenthe Winemakers selection Shiraz

[lincslady]

Sophia - amazed you have been non-personed. I know it has happened to others (!) who have been a bit too contentious, but cannot recall you ever being insulting to anyone! Even though some of us deserve it now and again.

 

Do come up with a snazzy new name if you have to have one.

 

Lola