Date:                           November 4, 2009

Location:                    Daytona Beach, FL

0900

            The life of a retired full time RVer can elicit stories of adventure and exploration that might make anyone enter into the realms of jealousy.  A cavalier wondering attitude of new horizons and new explorations might await the lucky people that live this life every morning and every day of their enviable life.  This can be true, but if you bothered to read the blog dated yesterday you might realize that reality is also a passenger on this bus of adventure.  Some days the sun is hidden, the clouds are gray, and the riders on this enviable bus are in a funk.  And yet, here we are fully enjoying the life we live and not yet willing or desirous of giving up the dream we are living.

            One of the pleasures of getting a bit older and not having mundane daily required chores to accomplish is that you can make a simple obligation as extraordinary as you wish.  A task that is performed by most people day after day can, if one wishes, takes on the mantle of adventure and can be a source of wondrous memories.  What, you ask, is he trying to say?  It is simple; actually, Connie and I cooked dinner last night.

            Now if I were to stop there the story would be told but he memory would be lost.  And, we all know that I do not sit in front of my laptop each morning just to keep a fact filled log of mundane daily happenings.  I would rather spend an hour and fill a page with long overly wordy descriptions of what it is we do all day aboard this bus on any given day.

            As I stated, Connie and I decided to cook dinner and, as usual this started with a conversation that went something like this;:

“What would you like for dinner?” 

“I don’t know what would you like?”

“What do we have and what would be easy?”

“The cupboards are empty so we can either have nothing or go and get something, so what do you want?”

            I am sure that most of you can visualize this exchange and see that it really has no good ending.  We decided finally to venture out on an adventure and see what materialized.  I felt like having some bay scallops and we had some left over whole wheat noodles.  With some imagination we might be able to find a dinner out of that if we could find some scallops.  Since we are near the ocean this should not be a big problem and off we head on an exploratory mission. Luckily we just happen to know about a fresh fish market just a bit down the road.

            We arrived at the market hungry and anticipating the pleasure of choosing the freshest and most tender bay scallops available.  The market had a wide variety of fresh fish, and some stuffed crabs which we purchased.  The problem began when we found that Daytona Beach does not seem to have fresh bay scallops.  They have a lot of very large ocean scallops, but we had decided on finding the smaller bay scallops.  What do we do now?  The conversation begins, somewhat like the one before, as we attempt to rethink our dinner menu.  After some pondering, some long salivating stares into coolers packed with fresh fish and an in depth discussion we purchased the afore mentioned stuffed crab and a beautiful salmon steak.  Now what do we do?

            On our way out of the parking lot and as we headed home we rearranged our menu and decided on a new gourmet feast for the evening.  Sautéing salmon in garlic butter and layering it atop some noodles may be fine, but it was not what we hungered to have for dinner.  A bed of fresh vegetables, ala Joe Aiello, some Italian seasoning and a baked salmon steak sounded much better.  It was time to head to the local grocery and search for the freshest garden produce and, of course, a nice bottle of white wine.  The only sad or negative part of our story is that Daytona Beach is not the center of gourmet cooking and as such we were relegated to doing our produce searching at the local Publix store.  Not a bad thing, but a minor glitch in our adventure.

            By the end of the day Connie and I had purchased all of the needed elements for a wonderful gourmet meal of steamed salmon cooked on a bed of fresh squash, zucchini, red and green peppers and tomatoes.  All of this was sautéed first in bath of olive oil and garlic.  For a wine we had a bottle of Blue Nun wine, our wedding dinner wine.  The vegetables were succulent and tasty and the salmon literally melted in your mouth. The stuffed crab augmented the meal with savory elements of spice and delicacy. And we balanced the meal with those leftover whole wheat noodles cooked in sun dried tomatoes.  It was an elegant meal that any chef would have been proud to present.  The colors, the aroma, the balanced presentation and the blessed taste were all out of this world.  It was special.

            The point of this story is not that we managed to cook a gourmet meal of which to be proud, all though we did.  The point was that Connie and I spent nearly a whole day planning, shopping and preparing an evening meal.  We shopped for fresh food, local produce and succulent fish.  We stood side by side as we sliced, diced and sautéed our meal together.  It is form this we will manufacture memories and it is form this that a message should arise.  When you are retired it may be easier, but we should all take a few moment so to slow down and take time to enjoy the simplest of daily chores. It is from the sharing of time with your loved ones that fond memories materialize.  Of course a dinner of steamed Italian seasoned salmon on a bed of sautéed fresh vegetables served with a wonderful bottle of wine is nice also.

26 DAYS to EMBARKATION

Wfdo2@wfdo2.com