ArcaMax

Making New Friends...

Let’s go back to the Italian trip. There’s so much that can be said about Italy, and the cruise, that I thought that I’d keep up my missive; that is, in-between stories that are timely. (Things like holidays will break up the Italy stories).

Getting on the cruise ship is always an exciting time. In our case we had traveled to England to do business. On the Saturday, we got up at about 3:45 AM to drive from our hotel to Gatwick and catch the only flight that would get us to the cruise ship in time to embark. Even that flight was cutting it close so I was a tad nervous. Add to that the fact that we got lost 3 times on the way to the airport and I was a complete Nervous Nelly by noon.

Getting from the airport to the port was supposed to be easy. Just hire a taxi and it should only be about 8 minutes. We didn’t “negotiate” the fare in advance so my husband was pretty miffed when the driver charged us over 30 Euro for the trip. That’s about $45 for 8 minutes. Oh, well. Lesson learned, but it all added to the stress.

I was all smiles as we checked into the reception area before getting on the cruise ship. There were several stations to stop at to pick up things like excursion brochures. Everyone greeted us warmly. Last station stop was to book in for dinner. We had asked for the later (or second) seating and we were not sure we were going to get it. I wanted to eat at 9PM so I had time to rest before dinner and maybe even have a cocktail while the sun set. I didn’t want to eat at 6PM with the children. It’s not that I don’t like children, I just had no idea how many would be on the trip and well…I didn’t want to be too out-numbered. I also was not interested in eating again at midnight, so the late buffet didn’t factor in.

The man took our name and looked over his seating chart and jotted us in. We ran off to catch the ship and get settled in. Once on the ship and in our stateroom, it occurred to me that I didn’t look where we were seated or whom we were to be seated with. This information is important to me and I completely forgot in all the commotion. When you are on an Italian cruise ship, things are more formal than a US-based ship. This has its good and bad points. In April there aren’t a lot of Americans on Italian cruise ships either, so we had no idea what would result. We did know that these ships run in a more traditional fashion. Everyone is expected to dress for dinner. Men in coats. Women in nice evening wear. You are also expected to sit at the same table with the same people for the entire cruise. Every meal you eat in the dining room you are expected to be in the same spot; especially at dinner. That means you have the same waiter each meal too. Pressure is on.

What if these people don’t speak English! Horrors! What if they speak English but we have absolutely NOTHING in common? Yikes! This could be a LONG week with a lot of meals eaten in silence. It’s understandable then, that I was nervous my first night walking into the dining room. Our table could have been positioned right next to the kitchen, (yuk) or the people we were about to meet might be boring. Boring would be the worst.

The table is right in the middle of the dining room. Whew. Five minutes into the conversation I took a sip of my wine and thanked my lucky stars. Pressure is off! These folks were fun! John and Carol are from Manchester, England. They not only speak English…they speak the original form! We had just left our clients in England and have done tons of business over there, so although they structure many sentences differently than we Yanks do, we understand their accents pretty well. England has regional accents just like the US does. The Jordies (those from the north east) sound completely different than those from London and so on. Even from one end of London to the other, the accent changes pretty dramatically. No wonder British, New Zealanders and Australians giggle when we Americans can’t tell which country they are from. If you don’t get enough exposure to the different accents they all sound the same. Foreign.

We had several things in common with John and Carol. John and my father, and even one of my brothers are all engineers. John liked that. We all have a love of travel, food, drink and more. Never a dull moment at OUR table.

We are looking forward to getting together again. Not only did we have dinner together each evening, but we also went on some excursions together and in Sardinia we even hired a private driver to take us around the island and spent the whole day together. These are two of the easiest people to hang out with I’ve ever met. True gems. We even found out we were reading much the same type of books. One of my biggest surprises came in the last few minutes we were together and I can’t wait to hear more. John mentioned how Carol has been a big cake decorator. That’s not something lots of people do in their spare time. I spent years decorating cakes. I started at 12 years old and by the time I was in college I was making a lot of money doing it. It can get tedious to do 2 or 3 cakes a night but over a summer you can earn enough for books, some tuition, and even a birthday gift for a boyfriend. I would love to hear more about Carol’s cake baking and decorating. I’m afraid in all the conversation I really didn’t get to know Carol as well as I should have. I will look forward to seeing them both again.

At the end of the cruise we were all accounting for our best memories of the trip. My biggest highlight, far and away, was the laughs and conversation with shared with Carol and John. And when you are competing against Pompeii, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Milan and Venice, that says a lot!

People can make or break a trip. I bring this up now cuz it’s time to point out a tidbit from our waiter. Remember we had the same guy for every dinner. That’s a lot of seeing the same guy. Leopoldo is from Milan. Husband, father and all-around Italian wise-cracker, Leopoldo (Leo) was always good for a story. I didn’t understand them all but he had plenty.

After we got off the ship and were venturing to find our train to Milan we ran into Leopoldo on the street. He was wishing us a good journey and then he said something that really hit me. He referred to John and Carol as the friends that came on the trip with us. We had not come together. We had never met. Yet, because we got along so well together Leo ended up assuming we were seated together because we had booked our cruises together. I guess it shows how John, Carol, my husband and I, truly did “come together” after all.

For today’s recipe I offer up a unique French chicken salad. In summer I want a dinner salad fairly often. I just still want something a bit warm so this salad mixes hot and cold. It also brings in a squash that I normally only eat in colder months. It was an interesting experiment and it worked!

French Chicken Butternut Squash Salad
Serves 4

1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed (1” cubes). Do not use any center parts that have seeds. Cut around them.
Olive oil for coating the squash, 2 – 3 Tbl will do it.
1 cup of walnut halves or pieces
1 broasted chicken (pre-made at the grocery store or bake your own). Cooled, pulled apart and chopped for chicken salad. White and dark meat both acceptable. Keep the carcass for making soup stock or toss it.
4 hands full of mixed lettuces or spinach
1 Tbl of fresh tarragon leaves, minced

For the dressing
1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbl of red wine vinegar
1 Tbl of Dijon mustard
1 Tbl. of mayonnaise
1 Tbl of white wine or water

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

For the salad: In a 9 X 13” ovenproof pan toss the squash with olive oil. Roast the squash for 40 minutes. Check to see if it is soft by poking with a knife. You want the squash completely roasted. The edges will even begin to caramelize (turn brownish which gives it a sweeter flavor). Toss in the walnuts and roast for 5 minutes more to give the walnuts extra flavor too.

While the squash is roasting you can pull apart your chicken. Put the chicken chunks in a large bowl.

When the squash and walnuts are finished, toss them in with the chicken. Careful to get the squash out of the pan without it completely falling apart.

Make your dressing. All you need to do is put all of the ingredients in a blender and whiz it until fully mixed. If you like your dressing runnier, you can add a bit more water or wine.

Pour the dressing over the chicken mixture. Gently toss. The squash is likely to still be warm. Room temperature is fine too.

Put the lettuce on the plates. Mound the chicken mixture on top and sprinkle on the tarragon.

Tarragon always makes a salad more French. Serve with a sauvignon blanc or even iced tea and enjoy a refreshing salad on a warm evening.

Cheers!
Zola

Send email to Zola at zolacooks@gmail.com.