Rebak Marina Christmas Night Buffet 12-25-2009

Dessert first…..

I knew that I needed to take photos right away or there would be nothing left to photograph! Chocolate cake that was moist and chocolaty; Yule logs……..

Chocolate fruit cake with cream sauce and cream caramel! Yummmm

And I ate some of everything! All of the cake was moist and rich in flavor. It all tasted as good as it looked which isn’t always the case with desserts. On Thursday, the marina manager had brought bags of cookies to each boat and those cookies were all just wonderful; baked by a real baker. They’re gone too, though not all in one day, thank goodness.

The bread here is wonderful, the best selection we’ve had since we left home, really!

You can see the boats docked in back. Even though we were on the furthest, A Dock, the walk back and forth didn’t begin to work off even one tiny bite of dessert!

Lost in thought!

These young men were getting everything ready. The marina employees are all very good at their job no matter what it is.

Turkey!!!!

When they announced that “dinner was served” Randal and I made a bee-line for the turkey.

There were a lots of exotic sounding dishes included as part of the dinner; but we had our priorities straight. Turkey and dessert! While I was waiting in the turkey line, the couple in back of me said they’d never eaten turkey before. They were from Austria and had heard so much about turkey that they couldn’t wait to try it. I immediately became very protective of our other “national bird” and told them that turkey was wonderful but sometimes, just sometimes….the meat could be dry. I felt America’s culinary honor was at stake! Did they like it? They loved it, and so did everyone else. The meat was really moist and tender. Just perfect! Then they quizzed me about the historical accuracy of turkey being eaten at the first Thanksgiving and did it come from the Indians. Uh, hmmm, having visited Plimoth Plantation* in elementary school you’d think I would know. One of their friends said she thought the Pilgrims had eaten chicken. I said, at one point they would have eaten bark since they were pretty starving but we always made turkey cutouts tracing our hand when we were kids so it must have been turkey. I told them I’d look it up and let them know. They also knew that President Obama had pardoned 2 turkeys; did I know that? Sort of, though since it doesn’t relate to the Red Sox off season, I hadn’t really paid attention.

Salad, flat bread, wine and my turkey with ” fruity turkey sauce” hidden by my wine glass.

The sauce was kind of sweet and fruity but wonderful with the turkey. I ate my salad and turkey and then went back for more turkey…got dark meat that time which was also really good. Now if I had just stopped there….

Along with the salads and turkey I could have had roasted tomato soup, chicken piccata, poached mussels with lemon sauce, prawn sambal, lamb stew, baked barracuda with turmeric spice sauce, sweet and sour fish, roasted herb potatoes, Palau rice with green peas and corn kernels, beef with cashew nuts and dry chilies, carrots stewed in yogurt.. and I would love to have tried them all, but I was already full from my turkey and salad. I know turkey isn’t as exotic as many of the other dishes, but I really like turkey. And really, since we left home, pretty much everything I eat is pretty exotic. Which I should have done….

I have no photo of my dessert plate because I ate everything with not one thought of photos in my head. Remember those first photos of the dessert table? I had some of just about everything!

Julia and Jim Parker on the catamaran Papillon, home port Bokeela, Florida.

Happy Holidays from Randal and me!

Hope all of you are staying warm and safe with all of the snow and sleet back home. Wish we could share the sunshine!

Ru

DoraMac

*It really is spelled Plimoth though it is in Plymouth, MA.