Cooking: Asparagus & Shrimp Sandwich

One of my favorite items from the Danish Smorgasbord is a sandwich my wife's MorMor makes from Asparagas and Shrmp. It can easily be made at home and can be used for a sandwich or even a great spread as an appetizer at your next gathering.

I'll take you step by step through the process here today!

Ingredients:
Shrimp (cooked, peeled, tail-off) approximately 1lb. of medium (2-3 inches)size.
Asparagas 1 can cut. You can cook your own, but this works just as well.
Mayonaise 1 cup. I prefer to use "light" mayonaise, fat free is a little too thin and regular mayo - well I cannot eat it - on a diet!


Directions:
1- Clean and dry the shrimp. Be sure to get as much moisture off the shrimp as you can, otherwise your mixture will be very runny. We are looking for a Potato Salad consistancy.

2- Drain and dry your Asparagas. Again, be sure to remove as much moisture as you can from the Asparagas. I use Papertowels to gently pat down the items.

3- in a large mixing bowl, combine the shrimp, Asparagas and Mayonaise and mix gently. You don't want to break up the Asparagas if at all possible.



After mixing you can put the Shrimp and Asparagas on pumpernickel bread, or thinly sliced french bread (toasted is optional). You can also put it in a nice bowl for presentation and then allow your guests to spoon it on to their favorite crackers.

I like to garnishe with a couple of fancy cut tomatoes, some dill and a touch of parsley. It's up to you!

Enjoy!

New Cooking Section: Danish Smorgasboard Anyone?

I would like to share with each of you some of the fabulous treats that my wife's family makes for us. My wife's family is Danish and they have a traditional style meal called "Smorgasbord". Smorgasbord includes many open-faced sandwiches with the likes of herring, seafood (shrimp or crab), meats, cheeses and much more.

It's a terrific experience and some of it is very easy to make. I have included some pictures here and I will post future entries on how to make some of these tasty little sandwiches!


Enjoy!

The Adventures of Captain Gale: Abaco Sailing Tours

From: BrianGale@alum.bucknell.edu [mailto:BrianGale@alum.bucknell.edu]
Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2003 3:15 PM
To: celebration_news@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [celebration_news] Abaco Sailing Tours

Hello all! The last two weeks I have continued as tour guide to the Abacos. Last week my friend Robin came down to escape the late-winter blues in downeast Maine, and this past week my friend Josh escaped the frozen city of Burlington, Vermont. Robin had a perfect week of sun and temps in the 80s, whereas Josh brought a little New England with him, 25 to 35 knot winds and cold temperatures for the first three days of his trip, though the weather has now returned to it's norm - perfect.



Josh also came down to celebrate his 30th birthday. The local reefs played along, and at the Pelican Cays Land and Sea Park we were able to watch SIXTEEN Spotted Eagle Rays swim circles in perfect synchroization. Spotted Eagle Rays are by far my favorite of the reef dwellers, and to see a troop of sixteen of these beauties, well, it just doesn't get any better.

Aside from snorkling daily, I hit the usual Abaco attractions with my guests. Pete's Pub, a great beach shanty in a small cove in the southern Abacos, yet the owner (Pete) is also a renowned artist. We had the good fortune to visit the pub/gallery/foundry on a day that they were making bronze castings via a 3000 year-old method. It was incredible to watch them pull a vat of molten bronze out of the blast furnace with a chainfall, then pour the liquid into the molds.

We also visited Hopetown and their lighthouse, one of three remaining hand-cranked, kerosene-fired lighthouses. It's neat to climb the staicase and check out all the machinery (not to mention the 1200 pounds of mercury that the light rests on!), and the view from the top is of course breathtaking.

And of course no tour of the Abacos would be complete without a visit to Nipper's Bar (or Nippa's if you're from the northeast). Nippa's is an incredible place - it's on the highest point on Great Guana Cay, so the view is fantastic. They've got two pools, good burgers with great fries, a perfect white sound beach as far as the eyes can see, and the third largest continuous reef in the Northern Hemisphere. (Kinda reminds you of taking college tours, doesn't it? Everyone had some obscure item that they were incredibly proud of - the oldest ornithology library, the largest eight-sided building in the Western Hemisphere. I believe Bucknell has the largest unsupported spiral staircase east of the Mississippi. 'Ray Bucknell...)

Oh yeah, Nippa's is also a bar, with a lovely little drink called the, uh, Nippa. In a word - yum. Makes you want to ignore that reef. Get nipped at Nippa's.

With Robin and Josh gone I now head back to Nassau to pick up my friend John for a few days, and then I'll continue south, first back down the Exuma chain to Georgetown, then east to do a circuit of a few of the outer islands.

Thanks again to all who continue to write, it's a big lift on a potentially lonely day. But please, please, PLEASE remember not to send me back my original email to me. It costs $3-5 to send each of these rambling updates, and when 10 people send it back to me - well, the budget really takes a hit.

I hear the Canadian-US border is geting knocked around with a bit of spring snow - 10" in Toronto? I'll try to send some warmth home with Josh!

Brian

Forecast for Saturday through Wednesday:
Sun, highs in the mid 80s, lows in the mid 70s, humidity in the 70s-80s, winds southeast 10-15.

Of course this is coming straight from Barometer Bob, so we need to take this with a MOUNTAIN of salt...


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The Adventures of Captain Gale: The Suprise Visit

From: BrianGale@alum.bucknell.edu [mailto:BrianGale@alum.bucknell.edu]
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2003 11:27 AM
To: celebration_news@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [celebration_news] The Surprise Visit

Hello hello. When last we met our intrepid hero had fearlessly crossed the dreaded Devil's Backbone Reef, with his knees barely knocking...

I spent about a week in the waters near Harbour Island. Harbour Island is a good place to see the Cluster Effect in action. When a boat comes into a harbor, they look for where the other boats are and immediately anchor there, regardless of wind, waves, tide, holding, scenery, etc. When I reached Harbour Island, I unwittingly fell int this trap and spent the night off the town docks. Endless water taxis zoomed by at all hours of the night, and their wakes, combined with the 2 mile fetch the wind had to create waves, created a restless night. The following morning I wised up and sailed two miles to the southern end of the bay. I found a beautiful sand ancorage in 7' of water, with my own private beach an easy swim or dinghy ride away. It was a ideal location, exactly as I had dreamed this vacation would be like. I would dinghy over to Beagle's Beach in the morning with my book and chair, and spend the morning reading. If it got hot, I'd move the chair under a Palm tr!
ee. If it got hotter, I'd go for a swim. At lunch I'd swim back to the boat for lunch and a nap. In the afternoon, more reading, swimming and napping. If I wanted t go to town, I had an easy half hour sail. Paradise. I could have stayed there forever. I might have, in fact, were it not for a certain friend of mine.

I decided one afternoon that I was in need of an ice cream, so I sailed over to town. On a whim I checked my email on the way to the creamery. Not much mail, except for the three emails from my buddy Brian.

Number one, written on Friday, telling me he lands in Nassau on Saturday.

Number two, written on Saturday, letting me know that he'll definitely be in Nassau on Saturday.

Number three, written Sunday morning, letting me know that indeed he did fly in on Saturday to Nassau.

I was reading these emails Sunday afternoon.

I never did get my ice cream. I managed to make it to Nassau by Monday, and Brian and I, together with two of Brian's friends from North Carolina, left Nassau directly for the Abacos, where we spent the rest of the week. I taught the Carolinians about sailing, and they taught me about such delicacies as canned Vienna Sausages and Beanee Weenees. (For those of you who have never tried these canned delights, they taste about as good as they sound, which is to say not very.)

The North Carolina contingency left a week ago Saturday, and on their heels were three days of incredible storms. Marsh Harbour, where I was holed up, got up to 8" of rain between Saturday and Tuesday morning, and when one boater asked another what the wind got up to in one particularly violent squall, the boater replied, "well, my anemometer reported up to 67 knots before it blew away!"

On Tuesday the weather returned to normal, I've spent much of the remaining week with my friend Ben and his family in Hopetown on Elbow Cay, where Ben and his family rented a house for the week. They treated me to some fantastic homecooked meals and let me use their even more fantastic shower! Also while with Ben and the fam, I saw the most incredible sight I have seen in my five months on the boat.

While we were floating along in a motorboat, a five foot manta ray leapt out of the water about 100' from us. I have often seen the splash of a ray landing, or out of the corner of my eye the flash of the sun reflecting off a ray's back while in midair. But with this ray I happened to be watching the water at the exact spot he took off from, and was able to see his entire trajectory, from surface to the crest of his arc about five feet above the water to the crash-landing 10 feet from the take-off point. To see this ray soar to remove parasites from his body was absolutely incredble, though since manta rays can grow to over 22 feet and 3000 pounds I have decided I do not need to see a larger one jump!

Ben and his family left this morning, and this afternoon my friend Robin shows up for the Abaco tour. After Robin comes Josh from Burlington, and then I reclaim my boat for another month or so of solo saling before i begin my trek north. I hope all is well with you all.

Brian

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The Adventures of Captain Gale: A couple of personal e-mails

Des here - Captain Gale and I are good friends and every so often he dropped an e-mail directly to me. Typically it was in relation to a Jimmy Buffett song he heard while on his adventures or Bruce Brown's surf Film, The Endless Summer (many boats with this name - and I love the movie ES I, ES II & ES Revisited by Dana Brown (Bruce's son). Here are a couple that came along at this time of year back when Captain Gale was sailing the Caribbean!


From: briangale@alum.bucknell.edu [mailto:briangale@alum.bucknell.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 7:22 PM
To: desmond@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Wassup?

Hey. I haven't a choice but to think about you. I spent the night with a boatload of older people, and as usual I ended up looking at their music. Older people must invite me aboard their boats, its practically the law, but they have no compunction to actually talk to me. if they EVER do, they see me at the cd pile and assume (incorrectly) that I'll do the least damage there.

This evening I'm looking through the pile when I find a certain surfing music player that you like, one connected to Endless Summer. I throw on his Christmas album which is awesome, he has 16 guitars overdubbed on some songs. God bless, it is AWESOME...

hope all is well in the non-work world. I wish I could have made it to your big 30 party last year. say hello to Michelle for me.
Brian
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From: briangale@alum.bucknell.edu [mailto:briangale@alum.bucknell.edu]
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 9:20 AM
To: desmond@xxxxxxxx
Subject:

1st sighting of a boat named Endless Summer...
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"The Bar" photos now available

Boat Drink - under construction
Originally uploaded by mauiss7.

These photos are of "The Bar". Lots has happened at and around this bar, my father in law had it for years and years andnow it lives at my house. I asked him for my wife's han over this bar, his answer..."Are you sure you want to do that??? She's quite a handful..." appearently I had no idea what I was getting myself into - LOL.

Please enjoy the photos!