The Call of the Land

Salad buffet for dinner.

I went home with my family on Friday night, because Smith had given me the morning off. What a luxury! To sleep in a real bed. To take a long shower and shave my legs and armpits, and wash my hair really well - twice. To not have to be the one to make coffee or breakfast! Then to get up in the morning and go waterskiing... I did not want to come back. Being home was my siren's call.

But I did. My sister loaned me her big white van, and I drove back with a cooler full of extras from their CSA farm shares. I stopped in Tecumseh for bread, and showed up with not a minute to spare, made a sandwich buffet and took a deep breath. "What? Storebought bread?" exclaimed Neb. They ate it anyway, but were keen to point out that my homemade bread was better.

It was so hot in the galley. I'm not sure what the temperature was that day - mid-nineties or over a hundred. It was certainly over 100 in the galley. So I cooked the pork loin that I'd had marinating from the day before, and let it cool during our first sail. Unfortunately, they ended up having only a short window of time during the next sail to eat, but I don't think any of them wanted anything more filing than a salad anyway.

After dinner, it was taking them a long time to put the boat bed, and a thunderstorm was on the way. So I hopped out on the staysail and helped the girls bust out the sail (this involves a combination of holding the sail tightly around the boom while banging it in places to flatten it and get the bubbles out, while securing it with a length of line. It's not hard, it's just a little tricky, especially if you're new.). It was long after sunset before we were finished that night.

Saturday's Menu
Breakfast
I left banana bread for breakfast, because they were on their own
Lunch
Sandwiches (on store-bought bread!)
Dinner
Pork tenderloin salad with dried cherries, candied slivered almonds, oven-roasted onions and fennel bulbs tossed in balsamic; croutons (I knew that store-bought bread would be good for something!); dressing from the pork marinade, with flour; hard-boiled eggs and apples.
I also made dips, a tapenade and a pinto-pepper dip.

Cleaning up the deck late into the evening.