Summer in October......

At work we were discussing the inanity of the practice, here in Maryland at least, of closing all public pools and those associated with apartment buildings, on Labor Day Weekend, the first weekend of September. I guess the argument is that all the lifeguards have to go back to school but I'm not buyin' it. Not only does summer officially continue, meteorologically speaking, until the autumnal equinox (the end of September), but the average daily high temperature around here is in the 80's and stays in the 70's well into October. Anyway, that's an aside. Spent the past weekend on the island and, yeah, went swimming.

Baltimore has, of late, become a very popular departure for cruise ships. You can see the profile of one such liner against the sunset. This one departs Baltimore on Saturday evening and heads to Bermuda. I believe they return on Thursday.....



The first night out on the island I'm usually too worn out to cook anything proper so the tradition of red beans and rice has a six year history. I usually use Zataran's but used Vigo this weekend instead. I understand why my vision was a little blurry at this point, don't understand why the camera phone was too...



Below, browning the kielbasa to render the fat. Once that's done you simply add the packet, 3 cups of water, bring to a boil and let simmer for 20 minutes. Fool proof and extremely satisfying.

Tori.

The weather was spectacular and I was thinking how awesome it would have been to have a wide-angle high definition camera with me for the below photo. The string of clouds out over the Bay were the perfect accent to this shot of the island.



Coming back from the dock after chasing after some rockfish in the Boston Whaler. A cozy and welcoming site.



Tranquil afternoon. Light breezes, 78 degrees...you can see the parallel rows from the lawn mower in the grass.



A snapshot of the cupboard. It's vital to remember everything you might potentially need while you're at the grocery store. If not, it's two miles back to land and a 20 minute drive into town. I make sure I'm very redundant about the coffee, condiments less so. Left to right, top to bottom: bread crumbs for fish, salt (natch), cooking spray, Starbucks coffee, Worcestershire, mustard, soy sauce, tempura batter mix, green peppercorns (?), sugar, more coffee, red pepper flakes, pepper, olive oil and Old Bay. The other cupboards are stocked with cans of soup, corn, tomatoes, etc.



Crab meat was on sale. Normally $18.95 for a pound of backfin, on sale for $10.99. There are usually three kinds of crab meat sold in the region. Lump, the most expensive,which is only the largest chunks of meat from the back chamber of the crab. Backfin, a mixture of lump and smaller, more broken-up pieces. Backfin tends to have a little more flavor as some of the "mustard" from the crab gets mixed in. This is the most popular grade and good for any kind of crab dish. Claw is the lowest grade and usually used to make soup. It's not very common.

Sadly, I wasn't really paying attention (was watching Brett Favre playing AGAINST Green Bay, that was weird) when I was making crab cakes and added too much salt. Won't happen again.