Would you like to receive our FREE newsletter?
|
Would you like to share this newsletter with friends and family?
| |
|
|
Brad took this picture from the Rockland Breakwater on race day. Most of us on board are wearing our Great Schooner Race t-shirts, a gift from the American Eagle to all sailing that week.
As for the Race itself, we came in second in the windward class. The Mary Day finished hours ahead of us but as there were only two of us in that class, I can honestly say we came in second, she came in next to last.
|
|
Cruise News: Our Down East Trip
Day one -- 70 miles to Cape Split, eight lighthouses, sheep shearing on Big Nash Island as we sailed by, and bald eagles.
Day Two -- Eight bald eagles, more sheep, and a visit to Little River Light after we anchored in Cutler.
|
| |
American Eagle from the Light
photo courtesy of the folks at Little River Lighthouse
|
|
| |
Light from the American Eagle
|
|
| | Rowing back from the Light |
|
| | Anchored in Cutler Harbor |
Day Three -- Foggy at first, then clearing and a nice breeze. More sheep on the Brothers, sailed all around Roque Island to anchor off the white sand beach. Some of us were ashore long enough to pick up two big bags of plastic trash washed up on the beach.
Thanks to Ralph Smith for the pictures from our Down East Cruise.
| |
|
From Andy in the Galley
After I picked up my usual load of delicacies at Beth's Farmstand in Warren yesterday I went up the road to Appleton where Tom and Dayle Ward live, to pick up my lovage. Tom and Dayle are sailmakers by profession, but they've got a big garden with beehives and chickens and lots of greens. They have the only lovage plant I've been able to locate in mid-shore Maine, and I pick up some whenever I visit.
 | | Dayle Ward holding a lovely bunch of lovage |
Have I mentioned lovage before? I got some at a fancy place in Camden and it was a revelation. I still don't see how I could have been a cook for thirty years and not known about lovage. It's a relative of celery, but its flavor is like nothing on this earth. Maybe a cross between celery and sage and lavender. According to my Food Lover's Companion, when you buy celery seed, you're actually getting lovage seed, but the difference in flavor between the herb and the seed is comparable to the difference between cilantro and coriander seed.
I went all over the farm stands and markets around Penobscot Bay before I found some at the Ward Farm. They used to use it for Bloody Marys before the kids came. The stem of the plant is hollow, and you can use it as a subtly flavored straw. I put it in the fish chowder. I think it would be great in egg salad, too. Maybe corn chowder. I don't know what I'll do with it this week, I've got a couple of days to make a decision. I love experimenting with it. As 2012 was the Summer of Callaloo Greens, 2013 is the Summer of Lovage.
Speaking of callaloo greens, they're coming in like gangbusters. I asked one of the Jamaican farm workers at Beth's about them and he told me to cook them with buttercup squash. The squash dissolves in the water and thickens the broth, he explained. I can hardly wait to try it. My Food Lover's Companion lists pork, beef and salt cod as usual constituents of a real callaloo (not all at once; one or the other), so I look forward to trying my hand again.
 | | Kohlrabi, skapes, and lovage, oh my!! |
One night recently for dinner we had kielbasa with bell peppers and skapes. Skapes are the curling green tops of the garlic plant, with a piquant savor all their own. They appear for a couple of weeks in July, then grow too big and bitter to eat, kind of like dandelion greens or greenbrier shoots.
Now that we've had four or five weeks of good summer weather complete with sun and plentiful rain, the farmstand bins are a delight to behold. The kohlrabi is bright purple and the strange variations on the common tomato are filling more and more of the racks. The first corn, as well as the first blueberries, both bulbous high bush berries and hazy wild berries the size of twenty gauge buckshot, have arrived.
| |
|
Ralph's Food Shot
 | | Andy serving up Blueberry Rhubarb Pie |
|
|
Postcards from shipmates
These two images came aboard last Sunday; thank you Marie, see you on the Gloucester Trip!
Here's a view of Gloucester Harbor around the time the
American Eagle was launched in 1930.
The card below depicts the Esperanto, designed by Thomas McManus, built in Essex by Tarr and James, and launched on June 27, 1906. She was the first schooner to win the International Fisherman's Cup in October 1920, defeating the Canadian schooner Delawana.
Senator Harding, Republican candidate for President, upon learning of the Esperanto's victory sent a telegram saying, "Such competitions can only have the effect of stimulating interest in the great work of re-establishing and maintaining our American merchant marine and redirecting the interest of our people toward the sea. That is a task worthy the best efforts of all of us."
Each year the American Eagle returns to her old homeport of Gloucester, Massachusetts over Labor Day weekend to compete in the Mayor's Race. We've won the Esperanto Cup nine times so far.
|
|
Crews News
|
Down East Cruise Shipmates
They had all sailed with us before.
|
|
|
A dozen trips left to go and space still for those better 6-day cruises.
COAST WEEK ~ September 15th
On our last six night cruise of the season we spend a bit more time exploring islands we may not have visited before, enjoying harbors after the pleasure boaters have gone home, and relaxing on a handsome vessel in a great cruising area -- our Maine Coast. And wondering what's for dinner!
|
|
|
|
|
