Day in the Life volume II

Well, after that thrilling first volume, I got more, hopefully a bit more condensed, but another “day in the life” coming your way, with boats and birds and…. Ummmm, you know what?  I’ll bet nobody much gives a hoot about the boats and birds and such..SO, let’s forget that for the time being and do something more interesting, like a reviewing a eating place

FORE!

Having lived in Breton Bay for three years, near the golf course (ah, those were the (geographic) bachelor days) I often played some of the course, but rarely went to the club house.  Well, as fate would have it, we had a small meeting

 of a committee and it was at the Breton Bay Golf Course club house.

It was lunch time and there were quite a few non-golfers there, enjoying the views of the course and having lunch from a surprisingly varied menu, although probably slanted toward the sporting side

With many choices of sandwiches, wraps, and…. HEY!  What’s that in the middle of the menu, eh?  OMGosh it’s

Beauty! What a surprise.

Well, our table stuck with manly fare consistent with the setting (golf club house) of a Reuben

And an all American chicken salad sandwich

(And I’m not going to whine about the marbled rye)

And (reluctantly) the Feeder had his 9,466^th Chicken Caesar

Our table had nice view of the first fairway.  It brought back memories of when I carried clubs “Bill, I think your ball is across the street in those folks front yard”

Actually the food was quite good, fresh and served by a lady who know most everybody by first name, kind if Cheers like.

If you’re out that way and peckish it is a nice stop. 

FOR THE BIRDS

Okay, just to keep my word, here’s some bird pictures.

The Eagles are very active now for some reason, with the older generation quite present,

Although the kids are now joining in the fun

Plus we’re now getting more Vultures (NOT Buzzards) soaring around

then drying out their wings

The crow people and their antics are always worth watching

Hey Charlie, what ya got? Want to share?

No? well the heck with you, then -  you have to eat your lunch all by yourself

Later, dude.

OUT AND ABOUT

On those days when I avail myself of the “new“ drive-thru Starbucks,  I always look in the window of the “old” location as I pass.  For weeks there was only one sheet of 8 and a half by 11 white paper taped to the door presumably directing you to the newer location.  Today I noticed the windows were all covered with brown paper (a sure sign) and another sheet telling us

This genre of places seem to be rivaling and slowly outnumbering the old standbys of pizza and burger joints and so-called Mexican food restaurants.  off the top of my head, we got Mongolian BBQ, Peruvian Chicken, Copacabana’s Charcoal Chicken, Fiesta Pollo (Fire grilled Mexican Chicken), and I know there’s been several “Jerk/Caribbean" style places that have closed. 

ROAD SHOW

Also on the way home, I noticed an ever expanding “car show” taking place in the “Nicolletti’s” parking lot.  One of those places where (for lack of a better term) “muscle cars” are on display, mostly with hoods up, and more and more people milling around

Nearly got run off the road by a roaring something cutting me off to make a sharp turn to be with his buds.  All the way into the parking lot the engine was repeatedly “revving up” making guttural power sounds.  Have to admit sounded pretty nice.  Anyway a local sight to see on a Sunday morning.

And for icing on the cake, how about a few rants for sweetness:

RANT DEPARTMENT

    Have you noticed the increasing emergence of the phrase; “breaking it all down for you” mostly in newscasting.  “We’ll be back in a minute with the story of the jewelry store robbery when will break it all down for you. Translation: “we know you’re too stupid to understand this so we’re going to talk to you like 4^th grader”

    And in the interest of brevity, I’ll mention one more and leave two in the hopper. 

    Background: for MANY years when I coached hockey at various levels, teaching defensemen was kind of my favorite thing to do (no surprise, but both FOJ's played defense).  Players often ignored for the flashy forwards scoring the goals, they toil at getting the puck from opponent’s forwards.  If the forwards screw up, it’s just a loose puck, if the defense does, it’s “Good luck Goalie!”  so now a commercial appears for what turns out to be Doritos type snacks.  The little tyke rushes into the kitchen yelling “Mom, guess what?  Coach said I could play FORWARD today!” and proceeds to demonstrate what little dance she will do when she scores a goal.  Well, sweetheart, guess who’s going to give you the chance?

    Unintended impromptu: as I sit and watch the Ravens and the Chiefs. The latter are juuuust a little too much into posturing, pointing, and strutting.  Hey Andy Reid, how many Bowls have you won?

Okay enough for today

DFD and leave Mason Jars for canning.

A Days in the life

  

Strap in....

Editor’s note one: after starting, I find I will have to break up “day in the life” into a couple of volumes.  Don’t want to waste your time and energy

Editor’s note two:  Okay, I give up.  Have you ever starting something and keep finding things you wanted to do?  I have been waiting for three days for a lousy picture of a “commercial” head boat. But I’m not going to wait for that… off to press.

Editor's note three: a  LOT of pictures...

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Here we go:

We are very lucky to be living here on the (Patuxent River) water, we get a show every day.  As someone (MFO) always says, “there’s always something going on on the water!”.  So an album of the passing scene. 

The day usually begins with a “between the toes/bed posts” view of the sun; this was taken on the 7^th (of September) as I track the autumn march of Old Sol as he marches south from Drum Point to Cedar Point – very close to half way.

Of course, being “on the water” means (duhh) you see lots of water craft, from

Big Boys in the bay

Grandeur of the Seas Cruise Ship

Hong Jing Bulk Carrier

Spain to Baltimore

Grand Phoenix Vehicles

Jax to Baltimore

More Vehicles to Baltimore(note Towboat US)

Grimaldi Lines

Chesapeake Coast (tug)

Norfolk to Philly

And now that the LNG plant at Cove Point is “up” we see lots of these now (not my picture)

And thus a need for a whole fleet of “support” boats

I have no idea what their mission is, but they go back and forth a lot

Staying  in the “commercial” side of things there’s many “Triple A” type boats for boaters with dead engines etc.

Often referred to as the “ride of shame”

The Calvert Marine Museum runs the William B. Tennyson for a short ride in the river and bay

And also operate the Dee of St. Mary’s a renovated Skipjack that once belonged to our beloved waterman “Capt. Jack”

While in their day, Skipjacks were used for “oystering” and then would unload their haul to a “buy boat”.   Always kind of represents a dichotomy to me, that a lowly “working boat” has such beautiful lines.  Wonder if the watermen who made their living on one ever stopped and said: “Gee, that’s pretty!”

Another Level Down

Speaking of “working” it was apparently a good year for “Callinectes sapidus” aka beautiful swimmers, or blue crabs.  Many mornings we awake to “crabbers” working just out in front of us, some more elaborate than others

Toward the weekend, there’s always some so called ”head boats” with hopeful fishermen paying to use the fish finders in such boats to locate dinner.   Side note, I’ve never been on one, but they endure.  A lot of people enjoy having somebody bait your hook for you, take it off the rod, and ultimately clean and filet it for you.. and look like this in a converted crab/oyster boat

Others prefer to do it on their own:

Looks a little precarious to me

Or  a group of people get together in somebody’s boat from smaller to larger

Then there’s the whole universe of “pleasure boats”, sometimes with sail(s)

Extra Credit:  what type of rigging is this?

Or, sometimes without, or “motoring”

Or, if you prefer to get over there just by pointing the boat and going " over there" (instead of tacking 50 times) you have your “power boats”

Some faster than others

And there are those rugged individuals who generally come out when the weather is bad

Or those with “personal water crafts”

Which were known in my day as “jet skis”

Then there are those poor souls who like to be on the water, but can’t afford anything but a small powerboat

Had enough for Volume 1? I promise you the next volumes will be shorter.   Just wanted you to see the incredible variety we’re treated to. As yogi said “you can observe a lot just by watching” and I do!

End Papers

We had a brush with Dorian last week, here’s a record of the impact at the digs

If I enlarge it more, the formatting goes nuts, so to save your eyes:

Dark blue = barometric pressure (minimum was 29.70)

Green = wind speed in mph 9(maximum sustained 23, saw a gust near 40)

Black bars = rainfall in inches (max 0.09)

So all in all, not much – not that we’re complaining, mind you

English Lesson:

Palindrome: A palindrome is a word, number, phrase, or other sequence of characters which reads the same backward as forward, such as ‘’taco cat’’ or madam or racecar or the number 10801.

For somebody who used to pay a lot of attention to such things, I had to be reminded that we’re in a period of Palindrome dates:

  9-10-19; 9-11-19; 9-12-19; 9-13-19; 9-14-19; 9-15-19; 9-16-19; 9-17-19 ;9-18-19; and 9-19-19

   and guess what? here's another:

   DFD

   Thanks for hanging in, that was tough! are these how your      eyes feel now?

Caption: Not only have my eyes glazed over - they have turned completely into cinnamon rolls

Oh Baabee!

There are only so many Chicken Caesars (dressing on the side, please) and grilled salmon with seasonable vegetables (no salt added please) dishes in the world, and I’ve consumed my share.  Of course MFO gamely goes along with this vapid diet, but occasionally (actually – fairly often as a matter of fact) will cook something different.  Bless her heart.

Anyway, the other day she was busily working on mise en place for something. Turns out it was for a recipe she found in Southern Living, one of the many publications that fill up our coffee table.

BTW, I have grown fonder (if you can be fonder of a magazine) of Southern Living over the past few months.   They have veered away from articles on how to make gingham curtains into more foodie stuff.  They do have some interesting recipes, such as “Dutch Baby”.  What the heck is that? you may ask.. as did I.

Well, it turns out to be a “pancake” that is similar to a large Yorkshire pudding, and is always baked in the oven, rather than being fried on both sides on the stove top.  As to the name “Dutch Baby”, it may have been derived from the German Pfannkuchen, but the actual name Dutch Baby was coined by one of Victor Manca's daughters, where "Dutch" perhaps was her corruption of the German autonym (Huh? autonym (plural autonyms) (taxonomy) An infraspecific name in which the specific epithet is repeated. Synonym: type variety. (linguistics, anthropology) A name used by a group or category of people to refer to themselves or their language, as opposed to a name given to them by other groups Got It?  The Feeder always seeks to educate!) Deutsch. Manca's Cafe claimed that it owned the trademark for Dutch Babies in 1942.

Well, who the heck is Victor Manca you might ask, as did I.  Well, Victor Manca (April 1933 – September 2015) was a legend of early Seattle's food world, operated Manca's Cafe - first at First Avenue and Cherry Street, then at Second Avenue and Columbia Street - from 1899 to 1957.  Now grandson Mory Manca and great-grandchildren Mark and Michele Manca have revived the tradition, including Victor's original recipe for Dutch Babies. Customers who frequented the downtown Manca's for breakfast, lunch and dinner are relating memories of the puffy baked pancakes, the combination salad, the razor clam hash and canned asparagus imported from France.

So, carrying on our own tradition, MFO followed the recipe

She combined the eggs, milk, flour in the blender and then poured into our cast iron pan  Put it in the 425° oven for about 20 minutes. Sure enough, upon emerging from the oven it had risen dramatically

And then she added the cheese

Back in the oven till the cheese melted, added the bacon and chives from the garden, and

Voila!

Plated it up, and enjoyed it. 

Of course we enjoyed it after

So it was fun and we were,

DFD and of course no MJ to be seen.

As an aside, Kelly Clarkson is the female Steve Harvey..