Wow! We returned on the 29th of December to Once Around in St. Petersburg, FL to find that Santa Claus had not missed the boat (no pun intended) on his Christmas rounds. Low and behold, he had outfitted her with brand new Garmin touch screen chart plotters at each helm and Garman radar on the mast while we were gone! Santa, I think you are spoiling her…but thanks!
On the 30th we drove (by car) down to Port Charlotte to the home of Moonstruck and her crew. The Admirals, Doug and I had an absolutely hilarious day of shopping for all the (“Eye-talian” as Doug says it) specialty ingredients, cold cuts, cheese and wine that I needed to cook dinner for eight at their home on New Year ’s Eve. Garth and Kathy from Algonquin and Sid and Evelyn from Something Special would be joining us the next day.
Saturday was spent mostly in the kitchen. Italians cook with one hand on the wooden spoon and the other on a glass of red wine, so by the time everyone else got there our New Year’s celebration was well under way.
My First Mate whipped up a great salad of greens, beets, red onion, oranges and goat cheese with citrus vinaigrette. We followed that with a porcini mushroom risotto as a second course. The main course was braised short ribs in Borolo wine. Nobody would leave the table hungry! In fact, Kathy finished us off with a “Red-Velvet” cake she had “baked” that afternoon (at Sam’s Club).
left to right: Sid, Evelyn, Doug and Judy
left to right: Sid, Evelyn and Garth
Kathy's cake, which was slightly damaged on the way as Zeke sat on the box
We love you anyway, Zeke
We had a blast catching up with everyone. We had parted company with Moonstruck and Something Special last in Alabama in October, and we hadn’t seen Algonquin since Cape May, NJ back in June. There were lots of lies…I mean stories to tell and the night seemed to fly by. Still, Loopers are basically old farts and by the time the clock reached 2012, we were about half comatose, especially Garth, who sort of dozed in and out for the last half hour of 2011.
We were all sad that Linda, the (Italian) Admiral from Jeremia and her captain Jeff could not make it due to a horrible back pain Linda has been fighting for months now. We sincerely wish her the best and a quick recovery in 2012. We’ll cook together another day, Linda!
Also, conspicuously missing were Ron and Jan from Jolly Tolly. You will recall that Jan seemed to disappear under suspicious conditions, to say the least, a few weeks ago. Well, New Year’s Eve Judy received a beautiful bouquet of flowers signed only “Jolly Tolly”, with their regrets at not being able to attend our gathering. But a few minutes later, I received a text message with a very interesting photo of Captain Ron. I am now more concerned than ever that Ron might have completely “gone overboard” (pun intended) with regards to the number of pump outs he has had to put Jolly Tolly through. Check it out and see what you think?
Personally, I think we should all still keep a close eye out for Jan.
(On a serious note, we all pray for Jan’s mom’s health to quickly rebound, which was the real reason for our friends on Jolly Tolly’s absence. We missed you guys.)
As some of you know, the Admiral’s dad played football for Stanford a few years back. Today he is in Glendale, Arizona watching his beloved Cardinal take on Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl. We couldn’t be there with him, but the Admiral ordered the colors raised for the day in his honor.
Once Around in her Stanford regalia, and my beautiful First Mate
No comments:
Post a Comment