Day 76 – Moored at Sullivan Bay

Groundhog Day. John went fishing at the early slack tide, about 8AM, and I lounged on the boat reading and doing some light cooking. We ran out of thousand island dressing so I decided to whip up a batch which is better than the store-bought version anyway. In fact my recipe has two-fold uses. Leave the chili sauce out and you have tartar sauce. When you want thousand island (or crab louie) salad dressing, add chili sauce and voila! John was gone for hours and just when I was starting to get worried, he finally returned to the boat with two really nice sized silver salmon! Now our freezer is nearly half full of salmon! After a very late breakfast at 11:30, we went to check the shrimp pots and got exactly 13 shrimp. Harumpf. Disappointing, but at least they were huge prawns so we will have a nice appetizer. The crab pots produced two more big keepers to bring our total to 6 for the overall haul, plenty for the two of us. I spent the afternoon cooking our crab and shrimp followed by cracking and peeling all the cooked seafood. We are set for Crab Louis and Crab Eggs Benedict. We went to the prix fixe Prime Rib dinner last night at the Sullivan Bay Restaurant and sat with a new couple that were interesting, sort of, but the kind you couldn’t get a word in edgewise! So we just sat back and resigned ourselves that our role was to be the listeners all evening, it was easier that way than to try and talk! On the walk back to the boat however we met the most darling two ladies probably in their mid-70’s who were guests on their sister’s/brother-in-law’s boat. They stopped to talk to us and chattered excitedly about everything, they were most delightful! Again, the kind of people that I would love to have in my circle, so much fun talking to them, but they were from Iowa and Colorado so I doubt I will ever meet them again.

RECIPE: Tartar Sauce/Louis Dressing: (For Tartar) 1-1/2 C good Mayo, 1/4 c. sour cream, finely diced sweet onion, chopped parsley, chopped dill pickle, chopped capers, dash of horseradish, dash of mustard, salt and pepper, dash of cayenne, squeeze of lemon juice. Add Chili Sauce for Louis Dressing. You will have to figure out proportions of ingredients on your own because I just wing it always! Actually I throw everything but the mayo, mustard and sour cream in my cuisinart and pulse until chopped to the right consistency, then add the mayo-mustard-s.cream and pulse a few more times until mixed up. Makes a couple of cups and lasts a long time in the fridge.