Christmas 2022 - preparations

For the first time in such a long time we will have guests for Christmas Day! Patrick's parents are here on the island for the whole month of December, and his sister and brother and wife are flying in for a week or so around Christmas.

Our plan is to do something totally different from the Irish or Canadian traditional Christmas Day dinner.  I find the weather, as beautiful as it is, really does not work for the big old Turkey and ham dinner etc etc.

We are working on....CRAB CLAWS! We are checking our trabs every week or two and we want to have a total of 21 claws which is 3 per person.  We have 17 so far so all is looking positive.

So! We will have a little smorgasbord of cheeses, crackers and Spanish ham and sausage etc prepared for the first course.  This will be laid out buffet style inside the house on the kitchen island.  When people arrive we will serve some festive beverages and people can help themselves to the board.

And then for the second course, the main act, we will head outdoors to eat.  We will serve the claws atop a big platter of ice and I will make key lime mustard to serve alongside.

I have some cute little Paul Costello paper napkins for drinks, some Christmassy red (Dunnes) for the cheese course and then some cute candy canes striped clith napkinsfor the main course

And I am excited to use my Spode crockery this year!  I bought it after last Christmas so this is the first time using it

Quick round up of events

What's been happening since I blogged last?  See below for a quick catch up!

We ate the last of this season's haul of Stone Crab Claws. Sad to see them go!  Season starts in October of 2022 and our goal is to catch enough for us to enjoy as a Christmas Day Dinner.

Jealous :( 

I missed a great night out with Enid and Alice.  Dionne Warwick was playing in the Bord Gais theatre and they met up with our friends/her band.  They are laughing hysterically in this photo because they both arrived wearing the exact same outfit aside from colour - a very cool jumpsuit from Mango.

I spent a lovely evening with one Mr Tom Cruise.  I also spent a great evening with Elvis Presley.  Both of these films get the Amy Stamp of Amazing and I recommend them thoroughly

Back protesting :(  

After repealing the 8th Amendment in Ireland a couple of years ago I thought I was finished with this cr*p.

But, no :(

Started preparations for our Canada Day party....i.e. ordered stuff from Amazon.

How cool is my tin cup?! You simply must have a drinking cup for a party, eh.  EH!!!!!!

Buddy helping with the decorations

Look at this lovely (wedding) gift from Alice!!!! 

Crab claw party!

In no particular order, in fact in completely random order I present some photos of a lovely neighbour's gathering to you!

It's been another slow stone crab season, so it took us a while to stockpile enough crab claws for a party but we eventually got there.  Crab claws with key lime mustard and devilled eggs.  And for dessert; Feliz brought a cobbler and Lisa a key lime pie!

For beverages we drank cava, beer and La Croix.

A fun, fun evening.  Enjoy the photos!

 

Anchor down

After the success of our last boat picnic, we decided to do it all over again yesterday.

Went out to the crab traps and had a bumper day! Six claws in total.  One giant one, four great ones, and one good one.  Delighted!

To celebrate the haul, we boated back in towards the dock.  Anchored down about 5 minutes away and enjoyed the chats, some sushi and prosecco. Fabulous and relaxing.  And fun!

Final crabs of the season??

 There is a change in crabbing and I guess it is a sign that the season is coming to an end.  While the quantity of crabs are there (in the trap) they are all very small so on each trip out now we are getting just one or two claws of legal size.  The halycyon days of 32 big claws and a party for 8 people seem very distant now!  

But! We still managed to have a little small gathering with our "across the street" neighbours yesterday. We had 9 claws which meant three each as F preferred not to eat and stuck to meat and cheese.

Oh! And devilled eggs.  Which reminds me, look at this double yolk egg I got yesterday.  Apparently it means an older hen (like humans: the chances of twins going up when a woman is older).

First time I've ever seen one of these!

After all those yummy claws we had a dessert of key lime pie and then a dip in the pool - fun and chats for the evening. A fabulous evening as always with a lovely couple.

I shall keep you updated on whether this is the end of season or not. We are hoping for one more meal of just ourselves and go out with a bang! Maybe a bottle of prosecco thrown in too for good measure ;)

Crab trapping - the best day yet!

 

Look at this!!

Just imagine, with the weather the way it is at the moment (windy!), we weren't even sure if we would get out on the water.  Well we did! And in the first trap we pulled up we get two monster crabs and get two of these monster claws off of them.  And this haul could have been doubled!! Technically (legally) you are allowed take the two claws, but morally we always just take one.

We ate crab claws last night and we have the makings of a fabulous Valentine's celebration dinner waiting in the freezer.  Sure feels decadent I tell you, nothing like that sweet crab claw meat.

Celebration!

 Two years on the island.  One year in the little blue house!  Time to take stock and celebrate...with a feast of champagne, crab claws, cupcake sushi and (not pictured) mac and gruyere cheese.

Here's to hoping for many more!

A great start to the year!

 It feels like since we came back from Miami we have just been celebrating or having a lovely time - whether with friends (OUTDOORS to stay covid safe) or our own eating out or eating at home.  It is like...things were good before that trip, but they are even better now.

New Years eve:

I worked until 3pm when Patrick collected me which was a nice treat.  Easy to throw the bike in the back of the jeep when the roof is off.  Later that afternoon/early evening we had a few drinks and a bottle of bubbly (prosecco) with our neighbours out the front of our house until about 8pm. We then had takeout of awful dirty sweet fire chipotle chicken wings which were fabulous! Toasted happy new year and were in bed asleep by 10.30pm lol (I was in work next morning at 7am fyi)

Half Shell Raw Bar:

Happy hour.  We were sat at the bar for the first time in forever.  While there was a big (nice) space between us and others at the bar which was good for covid safety, it still just felt nice and almost normal.

Saturday evening in our friend's house:

Yesterday we visited with G&K for drinks and dinner. We bought a bottle of bubbly (cava) and dinner was an amazing home made in the crock pot bbq pulled pork and divine mac and cheese. We ate outdoors.

Sunday on the baby boat:

Mixed it up and went out this afternoon rather than our usual Sunday morning trip.  Caught some throwbacks - an exotic looking (and foul tasting lol!) porkfish, and a big (but not big enough) mutton snapper.  And then caught some keepers of lovely porgy (aka "Sea bream" in Ireland). And three crab legs to add to our stockpile. 

Normally Patrick pulls the one crab claw off the crabs.  (Did you know? You take one, they grow it back. You don't take two as it leaves them defenceless).  Today I took over that task. It is hard! They are TOUGH! You need to be so careful you don't have your fingers near their pincers and then you really need to push/pull with all your strength to get the arm off cleanly.

Back to work tomorrow for this lad!  But I think he will tell you himself that he had a good break, and this was a great ending to his Christmas vacation

Christmas 2020

Christmas Eve: Wine and Cheese (manchego, gruyere, fontina and brie) dinner (and italian ham, scottish smoked salmon and spanish sausage) while watching "The Family Stone

Christmas Day: Whats app call with my sisters and then a zoom call with Patrick's family.  A lovely breakfast of home made sausage rolls, english muffin with brie and prosciutto.  And a little Bailey's coffee :) Work for Amy in the  PM.

Stephen's Day (Ireland)/Boxing Day (Canada): Work for Amy in the AM.  Dinner of crab claws caught by ourselves!  With dipping sauce and sides by Amy - key lime mustard and mac and cheese (from scratch - gruyere)

December 27th: Baileys Coffee.  Went and checked the crab traps (very cold and quite windy, but fun and adventurous!).  Hot shower.  More baileys coffee.  Plus brunch of smoked salmon, scrambled egg and rye bread toast.  Ordered a new cell phone because mine is dying a slow death.  It was 2 years old when I came over here so it has lasted 4 years which is a bit of a miracle for me tbh.  Phones live a fast and hard life with me and generally die young,

Does this blog post look messed up (the photos in particular)?  Yeah, no idea what happened there.

Barbecue Tales Part 15 - crab claws - giant ones! (Pretty much a picture blog post only fyi!)

Delish!

Barbecue Tales Part 2 - Seafood

Tonight the menu was mainly FISH!

Yellow tail snapper fillets
Crab claws (exorbitantly priced it has to be said, but nice for a special occasion - the special occasion being: I am in Key West woohoo!)
Garlic dipping butter
Wild Rice
Home made Guacamole
Purple corn chips
Frontera salsa
Wine
Vodka
Beer
Good company