day 3 onboard

The second day onboard is always easier, well technically it's the third day because I arrived on Tuesday night but it is my second day cooking. It's always so much easier to join a vessel at the end of the day. I thought it was appropriate that I joined the Atlantic Huron in Windsor on a Tuesday, Tuesday is my favorite day of the week. (it was my day off for 24 years when we had the restaurant and Lorraine (my sister, best friend and publisher) would always do something fun mixed in with errands for the business) Lorraine and I continue the tradition and do something special on Tuesdays. Even if we are on holidays or I am off, we will plan something extra special. We knew I would be joining in Windsor and it is a 10 hour drive from our homes in Mont Tremblant Quebec, so we were already in St Catharine’s staying with a friend before we started out on the second leg of our journey Tuesday morning. The day before our friend introduced us to a beautiful trail which starts just across from the Lock 1 gate entrance. I had no idea it was there and of course it was extra beautiful with the fall leaves. I especially liked that there were benches along the way that you could sit at and watch the ships. I will look for the special bench location when I pass by on a ship.

Waterfront Trail

If you are visiting the Welland canal, this is a beautiful trail located just outside Lock one.

This was the perfect spot to sit and enjoy

I will look for this spot when we pass in the future. I like to think of someone sitting there looking for life on the boat, while we approach the lock. I will take a virtual walk down the beautiful path which was covered in leaves that beautiful fall day. I am sure it is nice in the winter too.

We started Tuesday morning off with a coffee and set out on our way. It was chilly out and I was grateful that my trip to join the ship would be with clear weather. As I just wrote that last sentence I was thinking how unpleasant it would have been to take the punt boat in the rain...or snow. Lorraine and I love a road trip and this was no different. GPS indicated it was just short of 4 hours from St Catharines to Windsor and in true fashion for a sister trip a celebration dinner was included in the plans.

Its tradition to pick up a good coffee before I join the ship. Good coffee is something I miss when I am on the ship.

I am the navigator (ok I hold the phone with the GPS doing the actual navigating) and searched The Keg in Windsor and was so pleased that there was a Keg in Windsor. Both Lorraine and I love their wedge salad so we planned on doing that. It was only 11 minutes from there to the ship so it was perfect. I watched the ship throughout the day and was surprised when it was tied up two hours before the ETA. The cook had said she would finish the day so there was no worries, however the Atlantic Huron is a self-unloader and would only be there for approximately 8 hours so there is a small window to make it on board. You also don't want to come near the end of the unloading process because the deck crew are busy. e had a lovely meal and as usual I spotted something on the menu that I wanted to try. I always get inspiration from restaurant menus and when I saw the fried cauliflower with Asian sauce and Aioli I asked Lorraine if she would share that with me and she agreed. It was delicious and better than I imagined. It was nice to have a special dinner knowing the next two months I would be eating on the run, grabbing a bite of my meal and then continuing on. I never sit down to eat when I am on the ship, I usually eat before the crew come in so I am busy preparing the meal and taste the items I am making as I go.

The Keg offers a delicious wedge salad. Lorraine and I both ask for extra blue cheese dressing.

The fried cauliflower with the Asian sauce and aioli at The Keg was better than I imagined and I look forward to having it again.

I should mention, I found a place that sells the Adobo in Stoney Creek. You can often find the Adobo in ethnic stores in Canada and of course in Walmart in the US. I use the Adobo in all my cooking and you will see it mentioned all throughout my cookbook -Recipes and Stories as I sail through my day. We are starting to see the Adobo in our Canadian Walmarts now too. I love to go into little ethnic grocery stores and the sign hanging over the door of this particular ethnic store (Punjab International Food Market)  proclaimed "If we don't have it, they probably never made it" I knew they must carry Adobo after reading the sign and carefully made my way through the floor to ceiling narrow aisles, letting a little scream of delight when on a shelf just above my eye level was a full row of Adobo seasoning. I was excited to see a new to me flavor, Adobo with saffron. As I made my way to the cash I was already imagining how I would use it. I have been using Adobo seasoning (the red lid) for at least 35 years. It adds a certain flavor that is not overpowering but just makes meals better. I always bring two large containers with me each weighing 2 lbs. I go through one every two weeks onboard. Its the first time since I started buying the Adobo that the container did not have the, oh geez, not sure what it is called, its the little piece under the lid with the little holes to sprinkle the spice. Anyhow it was missing and I didn't notice and what a shock when I gave it my usual shake over my pot of soup and a lot fell freely from the wide open container. Thankfully my quick don't ruin the soup reflexes saved the soup. I thought since I knew that it was wide open and missing the little piece that I would still use it, but I realized that using Adobo is so automatic for me that I almost poured too much in again so I opened my second container and thankfully there is the little piece with the holes and when that container is done I will just fit it onto the other. I found it interesting how automatic my movements are.

I was so excited to find the Adobo in the little Ethnic store. On the left with the pink lid is the Adobo with saffron. I have never seen it before and quickly added it to the items I planned to buy.

The day before was perfect timing for me to go out and wave at the Blue Water Bridge and I enjoyed seeing some waving back. I ran back in and served lunch. I knew that it would be approximately 24 hours to the Soo lock. I took some beautiful photos on Lake Huron and will share them with you today. I had forgotten that the Atlantic Huron had the Blue picnic table on her port side. They already moved it away from the railing where it sat all summer, offering a place to sit and relax and catch the nice summer breezes. It's so nice to have a place to sit on deck and I plan to enjoy the blue picnic table whenever possible.

I love a shadow picture, and the setting sun cast such a beautiful shadow of the blue picnic table

I can’t resist a shadow picture

Atlantic Huron on lake Huron

I enjoy having a back door in the galley and saw the white snow covered land as we made our way through the St Mary's River. I would have gone out to enjoy the smell of the fresh air but my first few days are always busy, not offering the extra time to go outside. I did take the time to go out and wave at any onlookers at the observation deck but there was not one person there. I waved to the webcam and then went back in to the galley. The sun felt so warm and I decided as soon as I was finished I would go sit outside on the blue picnic table. It was beautiful. I wanted to go for a walk on deck but thought I should take a little break. I sat and enjoyed the extra warm day. We were not going far, we were dropping anchor for about 24 hours. We will be loading in the Soo and then we will be going down through the seaway to Quebec City. I am so pleased to go down through the canal and rivers. Maybe Lorraine can visit in Quebec. Fingers crossed.

What a surprise to look out the galley door and see the snow in the St Mary’s river

We had company following us. Another CSL ship

I waved at the webcam and went out to look but didn’t see anyone out at the observation deck. it was such a beautiful sunny day. I love days like this. I’m a winter girl.

The CSL ship still following us and waiting her turn. I think it was the Whitefish Bay.

I mentioned to you in my story yesterday that the dough hook was missing from the mixer so I thought I would try and make the bread dough by hand. I have to say, it was easier and more successful than I thought it would be. The results were so good that by the time the bread dough had risen and baked, I was actually happy that the dough hook was missing because I would never have tried making it by hand. There are 27 crew here so it would have been difficult to make that much bread dough in the mixer anyway, so it was meant to be. I shaped the dough into buns to go with Italian sausages. I fried onions and peppers and had garlic mayonnaise to top them off. The second choice was pasta with homemade tomato sauce (Sues tomato oil in the book). The third choice was a fried egg sandwich. I also had rice and sauteed kale mix. It comes in a bag with shaved brussel sprouts and is sold as a salad but it is very good sauteed with olive oil, butter and Adobo. For supper I made beef vegetable stew served with baked mashed potatoes and green peas. The second choice was fish creole. I used the leftover fried onions and peppers from lunch, added some of the tomato sauce, hot sauce, hot peppers, diced tomatoes and some fish soup base. It came out very nice. It will be in the next book. I cut the leftover buns in half and they went well with the beef stew. The soup of the day was Tuscan and I looked into my own cookbook to refresh my mind. It really is a good soup and I remember how much my customers loved it when we served it our the restaurant years ago.

Making bread by hand was actually much easier than I imagined

For lunch we had Italian sausages on a bun with fried onions, peppers and garlic mayo. Most went for the combo plate asking for the pasta with the homemade tomato sauce and sauteed kale mix

Using up the leftover fried peppers, onions and tomato sauce, I added a few more ingredients and made fish creole for supper.

I had leftover mashed potatoes for the roast pork dinner the other night so I added a little sour cream, whipped them up and baked them. They went well with the beef vegetable stew. Beef vegetable stew smells so good when it is cooking.

The Tuscan soup that we used to make a Creperie Catherine when we had our restaurant for 24 years. The customers and the staff loved it.

It was a fun day and I am starting to find my beat. It's a great job! Below is a picture of our anchorage spot outside the Soo. I had hoped to see more ships but it has been fairly quiet. Maybe I will see some today. I finished writing this story to you this Saturday morning before breakfast. We came into the Soo dock yesterday around 15h00 and started to load. (I asked, it’s a refined iron ore a little like slag.) I am a day or so behind in sharing my stories and photos. Each day gets easier and will allow more time for me to write to you. Stay tuned. Remember to order your books soon if you are planning on gifting them for Christmas so that we can mail them out to you. See you tomorrow. www.shiptoshorechef.com 

Our anchorage outside the Soo for just over 24 hours.

If you plan to gift your books for Christmas. Order them soon so Lorraine can mail them out to you.