Mariquita Comes Out of the Water

The yearly anti-foul requires Mariquita to be lifted out of the water in a couple of giant slings. Before the big crossing to the UK it is good to do this and this year there will also be a shaft check. It's always quite an exciting but strange thing to see your place of work and home taken out of its natural environment like this. Plucked from its soft, secure bed of water into the air and placed on 'stands'. It never feels right to be on a boat out of the water and I can't say that I enjoy it hugely.

We remove the boom from the mast when we do this because the boom overhangs the back of the boat by about 5 meters which adds slightly more to the bill. So with pullies and strops and knots and a winch or two, approximately a tons worth of boom is lowered slowly and safely to the deck by us lot - the crew. 

 

Hauled out on a jaunty angle. I was a little nervous about the coffee machine at this point having remembered I hadn't strapped it in place...

 

She is now parked next to Moonbeam 3, the boat on the left in the scoffolding.

And now we live and work out of our container. The kettle and a fridge have been installed and lunch has become daily visits to the sandwich shop.

And the really exciting news... George and I are home to the UK tonight to move into our new house this weekend! If you think you are more excited than me about anything I dare you to challenge me to a 'who's-more-excited-off'.

But I will win.

Thanks for reading,

Cheers!

Mariquita's New Season; Here We Go Again!

Isn’t it nice to feel wanted? Having avoided blogging for a whole month due to lets say - Life - I feel it's time to return to the keyboard and once again divulge recipes and classic boat adventures, spurred on by popular demand.

When I say popular demand I mean my Mum asked me when I was going to blog again so I thought I’d best get on it.

I was pondering on the metaphor of a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis as Mariquita is freed from her winter state in preparation for the new season ahead. But then I thought that was all a bit flouncy for the roughty-toughty sailor that I am so instead I’ll just tell you how good she is starting to look as we take off her protective deck covers and cap-wrap. Her cap rail has been sanded and has a lovely new coat of varnish. George and Billy have been re-rigging and once again the mast base is maze of freshly varnished and leathered blocks awaiting halyards and jiggers. Our hands have suffered from sanding and sewing leather and now that the sun is more out then in we have had to dig out the sunscreen from the bilges for regular application.

New crew! We have had quite a crew change for the season ahead so a big ‘Hi’ please to Adam, Pippa, Catherina and Martha! Yesterday they all had the mildly frightening introduction to the Mariquita Crew Manual; an instruction guide to their racing positions which when read through on dry land can seem somewhat overwhelming. But even so we are all getting pretty excited about the up and coming season ahead and putting some sails up.

We are UK bound. We plan to set sail from here in Cogolin in the South of France, April 12^th.  The journey will take us through the Gibraltar straights, into Atlantic waters up past Portugal, Spain, a hop (we hope) across the infamous Bay of Biscay and into English waters heading for home. In the next few weeks I shall be stocking up and provisioning, pre-cooking and praying for flat seas; the memories of cooking dinner whilst off the coast of Portugal in 40 knots of breeze, the fruit bowl (and me) flying across the galley whilst Mariquita slammed into huge waves, are still reasonably vivid.

Then whilst in the UK we have very busy schedule training and racing and getting involved with all sorts of exciting ‘events’. More of which I shall let on when I’ve been given the go ahead from the Captain, but suffice to say I’m sure you’ll want to stay tuned for ‘hot off the press’, inside info.

It’s all so exciting!

33 Degrees will be a year old in a few days. I was just looking over some of last years blogs and it is great to read and remember the adventures and food and experiences we had.

Here’s to more of the same.

Thanks for reading, I’ll be back shortly with recipes, rigging and reflections on life aboard a beautiful classic sailing yacht preparing for the long sail home.

Cheers!

 

The Drive.

On Sunday George decided we should go for an 'off-roading' session in his beloved Landrover in the snow and explore the tracks and trails around the hills of the Cogolin area and beyond. Being a bit of a snow-freak I of course thought this was a splendid idea so with snow chains attached, we set off.

With the dependable grunt of the Landy in chains, a force to be reckoned with, we climbed up and above the village of La Garde Freinet and into the narrow tracks of the snowy hills. This is an area more suited to bathing in the famous Cote D'Azure sunshine which teases and tickles the lavender and vineyards and olive trees into flower and fruit. But as we drove, we passed by many a fallen olive bough, the burden of cold snow too much to carry for some.

We continued to climb and twist and turn, the view opening up over the white valleys of the French Riviera on one side, the other side stretching for miles towards the distant piercing-white of the Southern Alps busy catching some rays. The views were paused in their tracks as we slowly ambled through the darkened tunnels of trees, hooded heavily with snow and silence.

 George stopped the car occasionally so I could take photos and it seemed that the stillness the snow had brought with it had effected him somehow. He was very quiet.

But he's like that when he's deep in thought so I left him to it and continued to admire my beautiful view. Lucky old me.

Then after a while George decided to stop to show me a path that led to a view apparently worth photographing. I smiled inwardly thinking how sweet it was for him to indulge my love for my camera and a good view.

We sat on a rock under an olive tree and took in the stillness and the amazing view of the snowy valleys in front of us.

And then he got down on his knee and asked me to marry him.

Oh and I said 'Yes'.

Our Rock.

Now Thats What I'm Talking About!

Oops, was that me? They do say be careful what you wish for but this is what I'm talking about! Snow falling in La Garde Freinet is a very rare event indeed but in the course of an evening I think we've had six inches already and it's still floating down like a billion angry feathers.

I love it!

I think a snow boarding trip could be imminent.

Unfortunatley George has a Landrover and the snow chains to go with it, so trying to blag a day off work tomorrow to build snowmen and take millions of pretty white photos could be tricky. Oh well, more sanding it probably is then. And I'll stick with 'probably', because you never know...

Trying to move Billy's car. Good sign for tomorrow...?

The crew house

Here I am in winter maintenance mode... glamerous no?

Oh look! I'm sanding.

Tim and Joe trying to keep warm in the forepeak

If you made it all the way down to the bottom by the way, it's still snowing.

Sugar and Wheat-Free Roasted Butternut Muffins.

Well I’ve got myself into such a pickle. I feel cheated of my Lazy Sunday. Things started on the wrong foot when I woke up early enough to go to work. That’s always a disappointment on a Sunday isn’t it?  The laundry pile is threatening to take over the universe and I’ve got so many things to do, I’m in a tiz-woz about where to start. I’ve had to write a ‘To Do’ list with the 3rd entry being ‘Brush Your Teeth’. At least that one is achievable; hang on…

That’s better. And now the recipe for those muffins with a fresh and minty out-look and calming cup of coffee. Everything else can wait. This is what I want to be doing today, my Lazy Sunday. The rest can wait. Everybody else can wait!

I don’t even have kids yet.

But back to those muffins I promised yesterday.  After they had been extracted from the oven and left to cool on their little rack in the kitchen, I returned a little later to find that half of them had already been eaten; the boys licking their lips without a glimmer of suspicion in their eyes. I took the risk of uttering those undesirable words; ‘sugar and wheat-free’ so as not to feel that I had knowingly tricked them into a corruption of their rugged steak and beer-swilling masculinity. But this information didn’t seem to faze them at all.

Interesting.

So as always, these are easy enough to make on a boat or caravan, provide plenty of good energy and fibre, taste fantastic warmed with a little butter and lemon curd or natural yoghurt, however you please. But yes, they are totally sugar-free and wheat-free and if you only use corn (maize) flour, they can be gluten free too. And if you are a steak-eating, beer-swilling sailor type, it would appear that you will also like them. Who knew?

So for 12 large muffins you will need;

1 large butternut squash

200g wholemeal spelt flour

100g of fine corn flour (maize)

2 tsp baking powder

50g unsalted butter

200ml natural sugar free yoghurt (goat or dairy, I used goat)

1 free-range egg, beaten

2 tsp of vanilla extract

25g desiccated coconut (optional)

2 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp mixed spice (optional)

Zest of 1 lemon, juice of half or if you prefer use an orange instead.

Method;

• Heat the oven to gas mark 5/190ºC, 375ºF.  Cut the squash in half and place cut side down onto a lightly greased baking tray and bake until soft, about 45-mins to an hour.

• When the squash is cooked remove from the oven to cool and turn the oven up to gas mark 6.

• Now sift the flours into a large bowl and add all the other dry ingredients including any of the spices you would like to use

• Melt the butter and then mix into a smaller bowl with the yoghurt, beaten egg, vanilla extract, lemon (or orange) zest and juice.

• Using a fork, roughly mix the yoghurt mixture into the bowl of flours, blending the ingredients together but not too much.

• Mash the cooked butternut squash with a fork. Add this to the muffin mixture and fold the butternut in with a large metal spoon. Again, do this gently and you don’t have to over-do it. Muffin mixtures always work better if they still have a few lumps here and there.

• Put a good couple of tablespoons worth into each muffin hole in your muffin tins and if you like, shimmy a little extra cinnamon over the tops before putting into the oven. Bake for about 25-30 minutes but check them after 20 as your oven probably doesn’t lie about its temperature like mine does.

Well now, that’s another tick in the box. Well done me. My Grandmother used to say, ‘Everything in moderation’, and she lived till she was a hundred. Think I might take a leaf out of her book and leave the ‘to-do’ list till a bit later. Mustn’t over-do things.

Now, lets not all get too excited but I do believe that that is snow over in them there mountains…

Things are looking up.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers!

Sugar-Free Muffins in the Making

At last we have rain. That’s not something you hear said very often unless you live in the Serengeti or here when there is no snow in the Southern Alps, mid-winter. If there is rain down here, there is the strong possibility of snow up there – we hope and pray.  So today, being Saturday and rainy, is a perfect day for baking. Methodical, easy baking with the predictable happy ending that most baking produces and every rainy day needs.

I’m currently baking a whole butternut squash in the oven which will be the main ingredient for today’s Butternut Muffins. Now these little mounds of treasure are muffins with quite a difference. You could call them savoury – or you could call them sugar-free. Depends on the psychological edge you need them to have. I am calling them sugar-free because that is the aim of my New Year resolution so far; to depend on sugar a lot less than I didn’t realise I apparently did…  (Let’s not dwell on whether that makes sense; it feels like it makes sense).

I’ve always considered myself to be without a sweet tooth. When I was a kid I would spend my ‘sweet money’ on prawn cocktail crisps or sketch books and crayons. I have obviously always liked chocolate of course, although without the strange emotional need for it that some (girlfriends) experience. But generally I’ve always said I’m more of a ‘pastry girl’.

But doing a bit of research I have discovered that I do actually consume a fair amount of sugar and cutting it out or down is a much harder task then it may first sound. White breads,  white pasta and white rice send blood sugar levels soaring; most convenience, pre-packaged foods, pickles, ketchups (ouch) and dairy products like yoghurts etc and when you start adding it all up it doesn’t half make you think.

And checking out my muffin tops I decided to find some healthier ways of eating and some low-sugar alternatives to those times of the day when one finds ones head very unexpectedly thrust into the fridge or the bread bin looking for a ‘hit’.

I found this recipe for sugar-free, butternut squash muffins and have given them the usual Suzy-twist to make them more acceptable to my gluttonous palate. They are not meant to be a savoury snack but a sugar-free ‘sweet’ snack. I know that doesn’t make sense because they have no sugar in them but by teasing your brain and taste buds with the flavours of cinnamon and vanilla, you can feed your craving but not your muffin-tops with muffins!

Now I think my butternut should be roasted and ready and the amusing display I have been watching out of my bedroom window of the neighbour trying to ‘walk’ her cat has ended in – I would say – reasonably predictable failure as it walks off, tail and nose held high in the absolute opposite direction. So I shall go bake and I’ll be back later with a recipe and pictures.

I reckon these would be great for kids too and also for breakfast. If you’re not worried about your sugar intake then these muffins warmed and smeared with some honey would be pretty good and since they’re full of good fibre, they would still be a very healthy and low-sugar snack. But don’t let that put you off.

Try ‘em and see. They are delicious, soft and light and fluffy and very satisfying. Even and especially at that time of day around 4pm when biscuit tins around the world are being wrenched open in the search for a blood-sugar revival.

Thanks for reading, back soon.

Cheers!