Here Kitty, Kitty

Our house is a geriatric home for all critters, big and small. We don't put our old animals down; we put them on a liquid diet, give them a lap blanket and sign them up for BINGO.
     I've made no secret about the fact that I WILL chew Elvis' food if need be and that I am saving one my kidneys for him, just in case. But don't get me started about Elvis. This is about Cassie.

Now before you start hatin' on me for trying to give my cat away let me go on the record as saying that I am not the kind of person who gives her animals away for no apparent good reason. Rabies are not even a good reason.
 

You see I am an animal lover. Some people may have even called me a crazy dog lady once or twice, which I won't deny.  I kinda love my cat too but call me a crazy cat lady and I will hiss at you and scratch your freakin' eyeballs out. Don't you do it!

Here's another thing that you may not know about me:  I am not the type to ask for help. Even if my arm were stuck in the garbage disposal up to my elbow I just always kinda figure, I got this, no help needed, I can chew my own arm off and get my own Band-aid. 
     But for now we have a date with the Colorado Blood Cancer Institute in Denver, so I've had to buck up and ask someone to flip the switch on the old disposal, if you know what I mean.

Over the past week or so conversations with my Well Meaning Friends (WMF) have went like this:

WMF:  If there is anything I can do, just let me know.
ME:     Really, thank you. Seriously? Do you mean that?
WMF: Yes, just let me know. Anything.
ME:     Well yes, since you asked there is something you
             can do....you can take my cat.

This is where WMF will take a step back and say: 
          a)    I'm sorry I can't, I already have two cats and
                 they don't get along with other cats.
          b)    I'm sorry, I'm allergic to cats.
          c)    I'm sorry, my dog hates cats, he'd probably eat it.
          d)    I'm sorry, I can't have pets where I live.
          e)    All of the above.

And these people love me and I love them back, but whaaaaat? Nobody wants my old matted up, she-devil-cat?

So meet Cassie.
I think the old gal is about 154 years old in cat years. She came to us back in the early 1990's, a tiny fur-ball of a stray. I fed her with an eye dropper and put her in my briefcase and took her to work with me.
     She grew into a mouse killing machine and for years I had the pleasure *coughbullshitcough* of waking up to a little "present" from her. Yes she loves me.

In her heyday she was fifteen pounds of Jack Russell-eating-hell cat. Most dogs who visited our home left with one of her claws as a souvenir, embedded firmly in their butt-sniffing noses. Years later those same dogs still have the scars to prove that they met Cassie and to this day they still tip their hats when they walk past her. An occasional tail twitch from her is the only confirmation that she may have even acknowledged their existence.

This is Butch when he was a baby, circa 1996. 

Don't you just LOVE my Dalmatian looking sweater?

Cassie may be the master cat of cool but she is also a grudge holder. She once waited years, I'm telling you years to get even with Butch, our Rottweiler, for his puppy terrorizing ways. On the day she found him pinned to the deck because his collar had gotten hung up on a board, she opened up a can of cat-whoop-ass. I found her perched squarely on all 150 pounds of Butch, shredding his ears while giving him a deep tissue massage at the same time. Butch was howling like a baby basset hound.

Now the poor old gal is on her last wobbly leg and I would never, never, think of disrupting her happy home if it weren't medically necessary.

Cassie and Paisley ~ 2011

This story does have a happy ending.  I sweetened the deal by offering to furnish the food, treats and cat litter.  My sassy, spy, beautiful, eighty-something-year-old Aunt Lil stepped up to the cat-food plate and offered to let Cassie live with her.
     I hope I didn't forget to mention to her that the 5 AM yowling is part of the package and that Cassie is a sore loser at BINGO so she'd better watch her back. Unless it needs a scratchin', that is.

Call me Aunt Lil, you still want her, right?

Cassie's next victim ~ Aunt Lil 2007~ ♥ ya Aunt Lil!

A killer mussel recipe coming up next...stay tuned to The Sauce!

Grouper: The Homely Fish Is Pretty On The Plate

Now about that Creole Grouper...

Every once in awhile I get lucky and make a dinner that is something to write home about.  Get your pen and paper out because this is one of those dinners. 
     It's my own creation and once again was born out of necessity.  The "necessity" being that it was necessary for me to whip up a dinner for guests when I was down to the last of my produce. All I had onboard was a shitload of peppers and a few tomatoes that were trying to die on me.  It turned out to be a keeper and now I've been making it about once a week, usually at the END of the trip when all that other fussy produce has gone to that great compost pile in the sky and I'm down to the peppers and tomatoes ~ shriveled as they may be.
    
 

Anyhow, I've made this dish with Mahi-Mahi and Grouper but any white fish works well so name your poison. I prefer Grouper.
     Start with whatever varieties of peppers that trips your trigger. I go for red, green and yellow bells, Poblanos and jalapenos. Add some sweet onions and garlic and saute them down until they are soft and all relaxed and then add some fat, juicy tomatoes.
     Keep on cookin' it until the tomatoes give up their goods and every one in the pot looks all fat and happy. (Read: saucy and thickened.)

Give the fish a little massage with some olive oil and season it with Creole seasoning. You can use a store bought one if you like or you can make your own using paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne pepper, dried thyme and oregano, salt and pepper.

 Take the pepper mixture out of the pan, wipe the pan clean and then heat it back up and sear the grouper on one side until it's cooked about half way through. Put most of the peppers into a baking dish, top with the fish, cooked side up and them put the reserved peppers on top of that.
    

Pop it in the oven and bake it for 5-10 minutes or until the fish is cooked through. I serve it with Jalapeno and Monterey Jack Grits or with a Green Chile-White Cheddar mashed potato.  Either way, it's the shizzle and reminds of us of the wonderful flavors of Puerto Rico!

 

Here I am showing it with grits and yes I know, thank you very much, that these are shitty pictures and won't win me any food photog awards. Don't let that scare you...The Big Guy said it was the "best Creole ever" and he knows because he stayed in a Holiday Inn Express once. Just ask him.
 
Authors note: I may or may not have been standing over him with a knife and an offer to kindly remove his spleen, which by the way is not a necessary organ.)

Click on the "Seafood" tab at the top of this page to see the recipe. 

Good-bye Pisces

We knew this day would come. It’s the day when we pack up our flips flops and prepare ourselves for what comes next. I wish I could tell you that we got another wild hair and this time decided to join the circus...because...well because I can juggle and The Big Guy can lift a Clydesdale off the ground with one hand and arm wrestle a lion with the other, but no. Not even.  Reality's a bitch and she's not just knocking on our door, she's kicking it in.

So today we head home, for what is likely to be a very long time.  I’m so grateful that we have had the opportunity to spend three years in the Virgin Islands onboard our boat, but it's time to take care of The Big Guy and his health and well being comes first. 

We have enjoyed sharing this great adventure with friends and family who have been our guests onboard Pisces.  Together we have seen amazing sunsets and beautiful beaches. We have swum with turtles, stingrays and dolphins and dove shipwrecks and reefs. I've beach-combed to my hearts content and have dragged more conch, coral and sea fans back to the boat than is probably necessary or legal.

This past week as a grand finale and a farewell to us, dozens of pink flamingos flew over as we were leaving Anegada. It was truly breathtaking; the bright coral colored birds against the blue sky and turquoise water was a spectacular sight.  Karen at least thought to grab her phone and try to snap a picture, though this doesn’t do it justice because it was crazy beautiful!

 

And then there’s been the food and island drinks. We will miss ice cold Carib’s, Corsair’s pizza, Coco Maya’s duck confit nachos, Potter’s Anegada lobsters, the Soggy Dollar’s Painkillers and my own Creole grouper. (Recipe and pictures coming next blog...I promise.)  
     We have made friends with the locals and Big finally has that whole hand-shake-knuckle-bump-fist-grab-shake-it-out-thing down. Dock guys and waitresses know us by name. We are practically locals so it feels like we are leaving family behind.

Anyhow, turn the page.

Pisces is for sale, but for now she will go into a charter fleet while we move on to the next phase of our lives. It’s the uncharted waters that scare me, jumping into an unknown abyss, but no one, not ANYONE, you hear me, is tougher than The Big Guy and no one believes in him as much as I do.

The sea will always be calling to us and we will answer her call once again.  

 

The OTHER World We Live In

The Big Guy and I did our first dive many, many moons ago in Hawaii.  We were instantly hooked and came home, high on compressed air and then immediately signed up for scuba lessons.

  

This was in the 80's (you can tell by my hair, right?) and we were living in Montana, which you know has the crème de la crème of dive sites ~ NOT, so when it came time to do our open water certification we got to go the beautiful coughbullshitcough Colstrip surge pond where the visibility barely exceeds the distance between your eyeballs and your mask. 

We were doing our underwater skills and all was going pretty well until it came time to do the buddy breathe test. The Big Guy gave me the “out of air” signal; I took three big deep breaths and handed the regulator over to him, but somehow he had ended up on my right (read: wrong) side (this was back in the days before regulators swiveled) which meant that we fumbled the regulator because I handed it to him upside down. By the time he got it and took what appeared to be five hundred breaths (his side of the story is that he got only one breath) I ripped the regulator back out of his mouth and began sucking air at a rate usually only seem when one is breathing into a paper bag.
     With both of my hands firmly cupped around the reg, he signaled for me to give it back to him. I shook my head no. He signaled me again. I couldn’t exactly tell him that I had just made the executive decision that we were no longer buddies, so I gave him the finger, which in turn triggered a tug of war for MY regulator.  When I saw his eyes bulging I finally handed it over. 

Big took about five hundred more breaths (he claims he got only a half a breath) before I pried it out of his soon to be cold, dead fingers.   

     Pete, our instructor was giving me the palms-up-WTF-look. I gave him back my death stare, then The Big Guy and I yanked and pulled and fought over MY regulator all the way to the surface.

     Somehow we managed to get certified, probably because of my death stare and Pete knew I had a brand spankin’ new yellow dive knife to match my yellow fins, yellow mask and snorkel and he didn’t want to see me go postal. By the time the certification card came in the mail The Big Guy was speaking to me again.

So here we are many happy dives later and there has not been one fight over air.

Banded Shrimp

We spent the past week in St. Croix where we did a night dive at the Fredrikstead pier. The pilings are encrusted with sponges and coral and there are hundreds of fish that live there. Seeing the nocturnal sea life is quite different from diving in the daytime. Fish and turtles really do sleep at night; octopuses and seahorses come out of hiding and the eels still look pissed off ~ day or night. Below is a green Moray; he was about the size of my thigh ~ if I were on steroids.

We woke up this little porcupine fish; it just opened it's eyes for a second then went back to sleep.  We call this fish the "Gracie fish" because it looks just like Gracie, don't you think?

 

Below is a spotted Moray eel. Creeeeeeepy! Looks like snake...or maybe a purse with matching wallet and a belt, depending on how one looks at it. Check out the trunkfish in the background.

 You never think of starfish as moving. They always seem so stiff and brittle, but these are some spiny starfish that were shucking and jiving and hip-hopping all over the place. (Authors Note: Just because I used the phrase "shucking and jiving" doesn't make me a racist, so hold those angry comments or I'll think you are one. Jeeze, everyone is sooooo sensitive these days.)

Coral takes on a different vibrant color at night when lit up with a flashlight. It really is a spectacular sight. Do you see the crab in the picture below?

 
I never tire of swimming with the turtles. These big lumbering creatures seem anything but graceful when they are on land, but in the water they glide weightless and effortlessly, as if they were in space. This guy was sleeping when we approached. He checked us out but never even moved and we were within two feet of him. 

Ok, here is the MAIN reason I went on this dive....I wanted to see a seahorse and our dive guide delivered in duplicate.  We saw TWO of them, up close and personal!  They are sooooo cute, ♥ me some seahorses!

And this dear people is what a little bit of heaven must look like, minus someones fins of course. This sea fan was huge and perfect and brilliantly purple.

The Big Guy and I have been diving together since 1985 and this...THIS is a special, breathtaking world to behold!  We will always be dive buddies, I'll even share my air now.

Why You Can't Name a Lobster

Here in the British Virgin Islands we have plenty of opportunities to eat fresh lobster.  The island of Anegada is known for its spiny Caribbean lobsters as much as it is for their beautiful beaches. That means that every trip to Anegada includes dining on the freshest lobster in the islands.  They serve up the whole thing ~ split in half and grilled, with not nearly enough melted butter.

Grilled Anegada Lobster

Confession to make:  I have NEVER cooked a whole lobster and I have no intentions of doing so.  Why, you ask?  Because if I ever bought one I wouldn't be able to stick a knife in it's head nor drop it into a pot of boiling water. Mess with my dog and I will cut you, but I can't personally kill my dinner. I'm civilized that way.
     If I ever did buy live lobsters I wouldn't be able to kill them so then I'd have to keep them in my bathtub and then I'd probably want to name them and I don't think lobsters make very good pets. Plus, there is that rule, you know the one:  you can't eat something if you name it, so for me the whole idea of buying a live lobster is as about as appealing as chewing on tinfoil.

My lobster tails ~ Somebody else did the dirty work

For that reason I don't get up close and personal with my lobsters.  I stick to buying just the tails, that's where all the goodness is anyway.
     The recipe that I'm sharing here is for a lobster salad appetizer, served with grilled sourdough. You can definitely turn this into a sandwich by adding a slice or two of tomato and maybe some avocado. Leave the bacon in strips and then put it on a good brioche and you have yourself a BLT.  (Bacon, lobster and tomato roll.)

Steamed lobster, rather than grilled (or broiled) makes for a better lobster salad so do it up that way. If you are just going to eat the tails with tons of butter and lemon, steam them until they are almost done and then pop em under the broiler for the last few minutes to finish cooking. They won't dry out as much.  Whatever you do, just DON'T name them ~ it ruins the taste.

The lobsters in this dish shall remain nameless and were not personally killed by me.  I swear they were completely dead when I sent them to the hot tub.  Click on the "Seafood" tab at the top of this page to view the recipe.

One Bad Ass Reuben Sandwich

I really don’t know jack about the Reuben Sandwich, other than I’ve eaten a few in my lifetime. According to our First Mate, Haney Buffet (Jimmy’s brother) I made thee best one he has ever eaten. EV-VER, he said so, and he and Reubens are tight so he knows a good one when he meets one. He wanted the recipe so I figured I better share it with ya'll. 

I didn’t have any sauerkraut onboard and the store didn’t have any either, but I did have a head of cabbage that needed to be used up so I thought I would just make my own. I googled a few recipes and every one of them said you had to ferment it. Or can it. Who has time for that?  Not me, I wanted a Reuben for lunch. Today, not in a month. 

So I decided to make my own sauerkraut, reason #1 why Haney said it was the best Reuben, EV-VER! I used some apple cider vinegar, juniper berries, a little brown sugar....I also spunked up that boring old Thousand Island dressing with a little Sriracha sauce—reason #2 why Haney was still raving about it the next day.

     Bonus: it was quick and easy, didn’t stink up the boat for a month and no pressure cooker was needed.

My kraut was a little hardier than that wimpy, super sour, store-bought stuff, which was a good thing because it didn’t make your bread all soggy. It was a nice combo of sour with just a touch of sweetness. I used pastrami because I like it better than corned beef; plus it was on sale and there was no corned beef at the Harbour Market deli. The mild bite of the Sriracha was just the kick it needed to elevate this sandwich from just a Reuben to a Bad Ass Reuben. The Big Guy said so. And Haney seconded it.

Check it out under the "Misc. Recipes" tab. 

And yes, I did have Juniper berries onboard. Whatever possessed me ~ we'll never know.

A Christmas Miracle: Hates Everything Cooks Dinner

You know my daughter, the one I refer to as "Hates Everything" because she hates everything? Well wait a second...that's not entirely true. She likes plain pasta, jalapenos, ranch dressing, and buffalo wing sauce. And maybe one or two other equally healthy things, like cheese quesadillas or nachos.

 
Anyway she offered to make CHRISTMAS DINNER this year.
     "Who are you and what have you done with Savannah?" was my first question.  Savannah barely eats, let alone cooks but since we were only coming home for a week and then leaving the day after Christmas I really didn't want to deal with cooking a big meal and then having leftovers so it sounded like a pretty good idea to me. Honestly, I was practically bursting with pride to think that Hates Everything actually wanted to cook. Something. I told her that I'd buy the groceries so to get whatever she needed.

A few days before Christmas I asked her what she was making. At first she was all secretive about it.
     "I am not eating Ramen Noodles!" I reminded her.
I made her fork over the grocery receipt and that's when I saw that she had bought eight packages of cream cheese. I forgot to mention she does like cream cheese.
    So she told me her menu ~ turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, jalapeno corn casserole, sweet potato biscuits, relish tray, cheese ball...
     It must be a really big cheese ball, I remember thinking.

I know she won't touch raw meat so I was wondering how the turkey was going to get into the pan since she couldn't exactly just dump it out of a can or the wrapper.
      "Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked her, giving her one last chance to back out.
      "I got this Mom," she assured me. "You just make the gravy."

Notice the baggies on her hands

 The day before Christmas she called me and said, "So how do you cook a turkey?"
(Author's note: Seriously?) 
     "Put it in your roasting pan, you'll need a baster and then..."
     "I don't have a roasting pan. Or a baster. Can't I just cook it on a cookie sheet? And use a spoon?"
(Author's note again: Are you shitting me?)
     "And what about the ham, what do I do that?"
(Another Author's note:  How did I fail this kid?)

So I told her but really I was still curious about what she was doing with sixty-four ounces of cream cheese.

The Big Guy and I, along with Big's parents and sister showed up Christmas day to a nicely set table, a lovely meat and cheese tray, a relish tray with Ranch dip, and the mother of all cheese balls.

And because there wasn't enough cream cheese in the cheese ball she made cream cheese stuffed  jalapenos and a jalapeno and cream cheese casserole that had a speck or two of corn in it. It was delish! Her sweet potato biscuits were really good, maybe even better than mine and the turkey and the ham turned out great as well.

Maybe there is hope for her yet. 


Oh yeah, and the cheese ball was good too. You'll never guess what her secret ingredient was:  Ranch dressing and then a little more Ranch dressing!  I talked her into sharing her recipe. Go to the "Appetizer" tab at the top of this page to see it but be prepared to 1/2 it. Or 1/4 it. Or maybe even 1/32 it.
(Authors note:  "Shit load of Ranch dressing and Shit load of shredded cheese," are her measurements, not mine and are usually not found on most measuring cups.  Use your own judgement.  Just know it's A LOT!)

We had already eaten a good portion of it by the time I took this picture.

Who Died and Made Feinstein God?

Dianne Feinstein, you ignorant gun-grabbing bitch!  You fought for an Assault Weapons Ban in California in 1994 and then in 1995 armed yourself with a firearm and obtained a concealed weapons permit. Never mind that in 1995, in California it was nearly impossible for an average citizen to get a permit. You weren’t an average citizen though so you used your political status to protect yourself from the very same threats that you felt the rest of us weren’t worthy of needing protection from. Do you think your elite status makes you more special or better than the rest of us?

     Better question: just what in the hell makes you think that you have the right to take away our constitutional right? And when did anyone ask you to speak for us?   

Here is what I really think:  Feinstein is a washed up, senile, old hag who has the audacity to believe that the rest of us are too stupid to own a fire arm.  She has now introduced another bill to ban assault weapons.  She is calling it an “assault weapons” ban when in actuality it is her desire to ban ALL weapons and to disarm ALL Americans. 

     I would agree with dumb Dianne that assault weapons have no place in the hands of a mentally unstable person but this really isn’t about assault weapons because she is labeling all semi-automatic guns as assault weapons. Those of us who own guns know the difference and so does she, since she is a gun owner herself.  This just isn't about banning guns. It's more about another one of our constitutional rights being trampled on by hypocritical politicians. When the second amendment is gone which one is next.

     

When her own weapons ban bill expired after ten years she did nothing to attempt to renew it but now is exploiting the tragic Sandy Hook killings with her newly proposed weapons ban. She is an anti-second amendment activist and is forcing her progressive idea (that came two days after the Sandy Hook shooting) down our throats and wants to create a National Firearms Registry, which historically has been seen as a prelude to confiscation of firearms. For $200 per gun you can register your weapon(s) and then you get to keep it…maybe.
     I applaud her genius and as soon as all the criminals register and pay the proposed fee, the rest of us should sign up and do likewise.  I’m sure if she just asks the thugs nicely they will be lined up around the block to register because you know, murders, gang bangers and psychotic school shooters are going to want to keep their weapons. The woman's brilliance is noteable and I wish someone would have thought of this sooner. It most certainly would have eliminated the recent movie theater and school shootings. 

     Studies found that the Federal Assault Weapons Ban did not reduce or prevent violence. You can read about it here. Or here. The reality is that banning guns increases demand, therefore increasing sales (and/or production). It's a vicious cycle and it is happening right now. Just walk into any gun store and see what's missing from the shelves. Guns! It's because they are selling like nickel beer at a redneck reunion. 

News Flash Feinstein:  Each year more people die violent deaths at the end of a hammer or a baseball bat than at the end of a gun. Should we be registering Little League? You know those little shits are going to grow up someday and at least one of them probably won't turn his bat in.

This is what I really want to ask Feinstein when she wakes up from her coma:  Dianne, do you really think banning guns will keep them out of schools?  Do you really think posting “Gun Free Zone” signs work? The short answer is, "no," it does not and it’s been proven time and time again.

     If you want guns out of our schools then put an armed guard at the door. This country has plenty of retired police and military personnel who would probably gladly stand guard (even volunteer) at their kids and grand kid’s schools. Teach gun safety and proficiency and arm a school official, because then the crazy-depressed-didn't get no lovin' from his momma-drug fueled coward who wants notoriety won’t be targeting schools. Infamy will be much less obtainable, which is really his goal. 

Gun laws don’t disarm killers, they disarm law abiding citizens leaving them (and you and me) with no way to protect our home and our family! Ironically if/when we are unarmed and invaded, robbed or attacked the first thing that an unarmed person does is call for someone (the police) to come to our rescue with a weapon. The first thing an armed person does is reach for their weapon and then call police. I know in what order I want to have to make that call.

     If you don’t want a gun, don’t buy one and if you ever find yourself in a position that you need someone with a gun to protect you, call Dianne because she has one. Her DC number is (202) 224-3841 or in CA (415) 393-0707.   I don't want an arsenal, I just want one gun to be able to protect myself and my family if the need ever arose.

So Feinstein I suggest this: why don’t you crawl back under your rock with the rest of your crooked cronies until it’s safe to come out. You are going to need a place to hide because we law abiding gun owners aren’t forking over our guns. We’ll pop a cap in your ass before that happens.

And by the way ~ just wondering ~ who died and made you God?