Day 112, Year 10: Julia Child’s Beef Bourguignon
Date: Friday, January 30, 2015
Weather: Warm and Beautiful, NW Winds 10-12 (turning E late day)
Latitude: 25 23.607 N
Longitude: 080 13.808 W
Location: Anchored in Caesar Creek Cut, Just South of Elliott Key, Florida
What in the world was I thinking? Before we left Fort Lauderdale, I bought three pounds of chunked beef and two pounds of Baby Bella mushrooms to make beef bourguignon—enough to feed a small army. It is yummy, but making this the Julia Child way, on a boat, with limited water for clean-up, is just not smart. But I bought the stuff, so I spent this entire beautiful day in the galley cooking. We had the stew for dinner, but I have so much of it that I think I’ll can the rest of it tomorrow. Hopefully that won’t take all day.
The forecast for today called for very light winds, so we thought we would have to motor all the way from Biscayne Bay to our first stop in the Key at the south end of Elliott Key. But not so. We actually had a delightful downwind sail. Once we made our exit from Biscayne Bay into Hawk Channel (which runs just outside the Florida Keys all the way to Key West), Mark poled out the headsail. Hawk Channel was like a pond today—flat and smooth. And this made downwind sailing in light winds a whole new experience. Usually downwind sailing in such light winds is wishy washy for us, but today it was so smooth you could hardly tell you were on the water. Sure wish we were going to have a few more days of this, but the forecast is for very heavy winds from the east for the next couple of days. The mangroves here should protect us from the east winds, so we’ll stay put here tomorrow and do a little exploring in the dinghy. And yes, we will eat more beef bourguignon. Here’s to you, Julia!
We are thinking of my sister Patsy tonight who is in the hospital with a bowel obstruction. This is the second time this has happened since her uterine cancer operation in March two years ago. I talked to her this afternoon and she is feeling fine and is in good spirits. But of course, she would much rather not be in the hospital. We’ll hope against hope that this condition can be dealt with quickly and that she can go home soon.
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| 150130 Day 112 Florida, USA–Biscayne Bay to Caesar Creek (Elliott Key) |
