It was a wonderful weekend with new girlfriends at a small lake in southern Indiana.  Impressive how 5 women can share a single small kitchen and yet produce such wonderful food, shared together outside “al fresco”.  We all learned something about cooking from each other.

  • Fennel, which most had never cooked with, has a strong licorice smell, but when sliced and cooked under the fish on a cedar plank, added a wonderful mellow flvavor.
  • Roasting vegetables is so easy;  toss chunks of veggies in olive oil and add Sea or Kosher Salt and pepper and cook at 400 until done.
  • Cook shrimp, then marinate in a mix of olive oil, lemon, basil, and garlic and chill…mmmmm!.
  • Soak chopped apples and pears in 7-up to keep from browning while you prepare the rest of the salad;  greens, Craisins, cashews, and gorgonzola or blue cheese (no, the cheese should NOT be forgotten;  its a great addition!) with a nice sweet poppyseed dressing.

P.S.  We worked up quite an appetite on the boat (insert “Gilligan’s Island” music here) as the boat didn’t perform quite as expected (insert “African Queen” sputtering engine sounds here) and had to be towed to shore…twice! Susan proved to truly be the ‘hostess with the mostest’.