the sweet escape

How to entirely remove oneself from a week of crazy finals, crazy work, crazy everything…

Step 1: Climb Aboard.

Actually, climb below deck, to a magical nook with built-in bookshelf, skylight, and cute boy.

Ahhhhh.

Admire the “bar”. Admire everything, really, all these absurdly tiny and fun little nooks where you find little tiny things. It’s like a dollhouse. Of cleverness.

So my fantastic aunt and uncle have a fantastic sailboat. My aunt’s name is Jeanie. My uncle’s name is Tim. The boat’s name is Terrier II.

I had an Anatomy final. I had a Nutrition final. I had a chemistry final. I had an absuuuuurdly bizarre ostensibly not-an-interview interview, and then an official interview that turned out to not be a real interview (do you get it? Good, explain it to me). This all happened in two days.

I felt, like I’ve felt for most of the past few months, unfortunately, a time at which I’ll hopefully look back at as a very unhealthy period of my life (no horrific substance abuse or anything, just deplorably poor time, stress, and nutrition management), just… lousy. Freaked out. Tense. High strung.

Friday night, finally done with all of it, I stayed up til two am just wired in my living room, unable to turn my brain off, watching a marathon of My Drunk Kitchen (which, for the record, was awesome. I’m not complaining that much).

And we headed up to Maryland and met up with the fam and drove up to a sweet little marina near Annapolis and we LEFT CIVILIZATION!

Steve celebrated with this homemade Chipwich second breakfast:

(I ate like five of those damn ooey gooey amazing chocolate chip cookies).

Once we were due for proper nourishment, I brought out some homemade white bean and Swiss chard soup. Vair nice. Lamb stock is a convenient thing to keep in one’s freezer. It elevates anything.

 

Jeanie got out Triscuits to serve with it. Excellent!

 

For the next few hours… seriously, I have no idea what I did.

Talked? Sure. Looked at scenery? Sure. Not really sure what else. An issue of Vanity Fair was involved. Lots of Diet Coke (it’s vacation, damn it).

Steve, newly a sailor boy, swabbed the entire deck. Seriously.

The point is, I kind of did nothing. It is great.

And then it was appetizer and cocktail hour!

More triscuits, soprasetta, and GLORIOUS GLORIOUS CHEESE. God this cheese was amazing.

This. Buy this:

 

And I enjoyed my first DARK AND STORMY! Holy cow.

A Dark and Stormy contains dark rum, ginger beer (not ginger ale or it won’t be delicious), and lime.

Seriously, Steve and I may make these for every gathering we ever host again. It is the most perfect cocktail. Plus, as I pointed out, the lime is good for sailors since it prevents scurvy. And ginger prevents seasickness! And rum makes me laugh.

Jeanie made a yummmmmy chicken dish with capers and red peppers.

 

And then pasta (which turns out to be kind of a pain to cook in a galley that has, yknow, teeny baby burners and very little counter space and a wee dear little sink for the colander and so on. My aunt is great).

The pasta contained frizzled proscuitto (yum!) and lots of wonderful fresh asparagus (yum!)

Stirred (carefully, on a gently rocking boat)

And dinner was a fun and crowded and chatty affair.

And then you light the dear little lamps.

  

And retire to the dear little cabin which has dear, dear reading lights.

And then I proceeded to have my best night of sleep in yearrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs. Years! Rocked by the waves into dreamland.

Steve not so much but he did get to pee off the side of a boat, which is basically every man’s dream.

I woke up warm and cozy, drenched in good sleep, sun coming in the skylight. Coastal weather report blasting on the radio (I mean Tim is ship’s captain, so that is his prerogative).

And then Jeanie brought me coffee in bed! Dude, my dad’s mother was the QUEEN of bringing hot cups of tea/hot chocolate/coffee (depending on the individual and their age) in bed. It is the BEST tradition. I am bringing it back for my future houseguests. And Jeanie does it for her (boat)guests because she is the BEST.

And we sort of meandered back to port and got off the boat and went back and…

I JUST DIDN’T WANT TO GO BACK TO THE REAL WORLD WAHHHHH.

So Steve and I took off on one of our epic walks (cause yknow, after a day consisting of sitting down and eating, one does actually crave activity). Ten miles or so.

A nice midpoint was Del Ray.

First visit to The Dairy Godmother.

Steve just did the damn thing with a sundae. I got a strawberry rhubarb sorbet which should have been awesome except the rhubarb got lost :(

And then more walking.

And then an impulsive Groupon Now because in fact, in fact, the day I woke up in a cabin was also the day I woke up having been the girlfriend of my cute Steve boy for a year and a half OFFISH. Isn’t that nice?

A mini celebration. At a CUTE little Lebanese place that I wouldn’t’ve known about without Groupon. Layalina

Pretty, if slightly ridiculously ornamental, inside.

Warm, if not homemade bread.

 

Dizzying choices of mezze. Was very very very very pleased with what we selected.

This was like a quesadilla of delight: pita grilled filled with the most wonderful beef filling. Almost sweet; could it’ve been pomegranate molasses?! And pickled turnip, mm.

 

And the veggie sampler. AGH SO GOOD!

Starting at your 2:00, that’s pickled cabbage, some falafel (let Steve dominate that one), hummus, baba ghanoush (howwwwww do the Arabs do it so amazingly?! I have yet to make good baba ghanoush myself), fattoush salad, and last but certainly not least the most amaaaaaaazing green broad beans stewed with tomato.

I know it seems like we just ate all weekend (and, uh, basically did), but this was a nice, vaguely light and healthful sort of thing.

And it concluded with Greek/Turkish/Lebanese coffee (which are all the same thing; and the name of which depends on the ethnicity of the person who is describing it).

Well, the coffee is the same but this place added CARDAMOM! Yes yes YES! Served in that delightful long-handled serving vessel (we Greeks call it a briki).

 

And in the wee dear espresso cup. I made Steve drink it and Mr. Coffee hater loved it (even I as a very small child would have sips of my mom’s Greek coffee. It’s also quite sweet, traditionally :D)

And though they didn’t have decaf, I grinned and drank the real stuff, and still got into sleep feeling a squajillion times better for my little escape from the world.