Doesn’t that look appetizing! I love fresh fruit at breakfast. Sometimes at home I buy fresh fruit that has been cut up but it always seems ready to go bad at any moment. If I buy a melon it is generally not ripe and then I end up throwing it out!
Today I ordered ordered a blueberry pancake to go along with my eggs. It was interesting to see a bottle of Crown Maple syrup on the table. Crown Maple is bottled in Dutchess County where our friends C and J live, and also now M and G. Maybe if I plug our friendship they will give me more likes!
I had a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich again with my lunch. We had ice cream bars again for dessert.
Our first canapé was Mahi Mahi beignets. They were piping hot.
Our second canapé was Brie and spiced apple on a croute. Which is a fancy name for a cracker.
Our starter was Stone Claw Crabs.
I had the wild boar with gnocchi as my entree. Steve had the Hogfish. Since he was sitting far from me, I don’t have a picture for you.
I sat next to V, a retired vascular surgeon from England. He was a little hard of hearing, so I had to speak loudly to get my questions heard. You might see a vascular surgeon if you have high blood pressure, varicose veins, or other circulatory problems. He has been retired for over twenty years now, so when I discussed my blood clot medicines with him he had not heard of it as it is a new medication.
Dessert was a gingerbread auflauf with sour orange anglaise and spiced ice cream. It was very good. An auflauf is a German word for soufflé. You can add that to your repertoire of words to impress people!
Steve caught fourteen bonefish and another barrcuda. That barracuda was not twenty five pounds like yesterday’s fish. None of them big enough for him to sit at head of the table.
We had two departures today, including S who is attending medical school in Edinburgh. He skipped some classes to go fishing with his Dad, J, who is a barrister. We also lost D, the other barrister. D was telling me at breakfast how his wife loves to camp on her holidays. D does not share his darling wife’s love of camping. He does not like camping in the fields in a three bedroom tent with living room among a bunch of Belgians. I asked whether she always liked to camp (thinking that her liking camping would have been a deal breaker from the get go)? No, she just started to enjoy camping in the past five years. They had been married for over 12 years. He especially did not enjoy camping last summer in the south of France in 35 degree Celsius weather. That’s the equivalent of 95 degrees Fahrenheit!
Our new guests were V and J. They are a retired couple from England. They arrived yesterday. They had already spent a week in Nassau and will be spending a week in Delphi and then fly to another fishing lodge in the Bahamas.
Also J, from Lexington Kentucky via Belfast, a friend of J, whose son and friend D, left. J’s wife is from Syracuse, where I grew up! Of course we did not know each other.
Now most of the J’s that are here are really John’s. One J is a Jack. However as I am trying to disguise my guests names I have been using initials. Wouldn’t it be funny if all the J’s were really M’s, and the guys names were Mike and Matt. Could I be doing a double switcharoo and be fooling you? You will never know, now will you!
Does your name begin with a J?
Did you know one time we had three Linda’s here?
Do you like to camp or stay in luxury hotels?
Here is a picture of some of the pastries. Steve really likes the cinnamon buns. I really like the blueberry muffins. I often eat at least two each morning!
Here are my fried eggs. At home I usually have just cereal or biscotti. Every once in a while I swear off biscotti, as I think it’s pretty unhealthy to just drink coffee and eat four mini biscotti in the morning. Then I stop buying them. That lasts for about two months, and I decide to start buying them again. It’s a viscous cycle. My stomach fat says “No, No!” While my eye balls say “Yes, Yes!’
After a morning binge watching the Tidying Up series with Marie Kondo on Netflix I went upstairs to lunch. This trip we are staying on the lower level of the building. Last trip we were in the rooms above the great room. So it’s now upstairs to meals as opposed to downstairs to meals! As it was very windy today we didn’t eat ocean side. The breeze can be very strong some days on the veranda. When it’s windy we eat with a view of the parking lot and the bushes.
I decided to try the grilled cheese and tomato soup accompanied by a side salad for lunch. A joined me again and we found out how much we have in common. Both our husbands, fish which we don’t care to do. We would rather lay about and read. Although A is energetic enough to walk down to the beach. I prefer to just look down from the veranda and say “Hmm. Yes, a beach lies below. Nice to look at. Perhaps I will go visit it some day. But not today.” A and her husband J, are from Scotland. They came with another friend S. When they get going talking, I find it hard to understand what they are saying. But it is so much fun listening to their accents. I wonder if they find my American accent amusing. I hope so. It would be horrible if they found it grating to their ears!
In December 2017, I did go to Nancy’s in Sandy Point, for lunch. It wasn’t for me. This was inside the bar. 
The outside didn’t look much better! 
I asked if there were any cookies or ice cream for dessert at lunch. We hit the jackpot with ice cream bars. Not as good as a Dove Bar, but refreshing just the same. 
Steve went fishing with Dana, the lone female guide on Abaco. Here she is holding a 25 pound barracuda that Steve caught. Although it was the biggest fish of the day, Steve didn’t get head of the table as only the largest bonefish counts to get that honor. He caught 2 bonefish, both too small to take the honors. Steve has sat at the head of the table many times, so he wasn’t disappointed. 
Our first canapé of the evening was quail eggs with celery salt. I was nervous eating them last year for the first time, but they are very tasty. 
Next up were salt cod fritters with a dipping sauce. 
Our first course was a beet salad. They used to offer a beet salad with lots of greens and feta cheese at lunch. I will have to ask Jason, the chef, if it can be put back in rotations. 
I had the Osso Bucco for my entree. Not as good as mine, but at least I didn’t have to cook or clean. 
Dessert was a pavlova with raspberries, mango coulis and chantilly cream. The recommend wine was $150 per bottle, so we passed on a dessert wine. We usually drink about 3/4 of a bottle each night. I have half a glass and Steve drinks the rest. On previous trips I would get a bottle of rose to drink at lunch for the week. However since I am on so many drugs trying to cure my scratching, I am not drinking at lunch. Now that I think about it, if I were in a drunken haze, perhaps I would ignore the urge to scratch.
We finally got our after dinner chocolates tonight. Jason the chef has been quite stingy in sending them out with the after dinner tea and coffee! Steve should have picked the truffle on the left, as it had no coconut on it, and Steve hates coconut!
I was the last one down to breakfast. Usually all the dirty dishes are put away and only the clean ones remain by the time I come downstairs. That wasn’t so this morning, and I had to hunt a bit to see which seating was clean. 
Off to the breakfast spread so see if they had the crazy fruit display from April. Someone might have noticed that I wasn’t to keen on the scary fruit display, and it has been removed from the rotation. I might have done a happy dance if I knew no one would see me!
I did some stretching in the morning and read a bit. I also scratched, a lot. I am allergic to something down here, and break out in terrible hives. We haven’t determined if it is the no-see-ums or the laundry detergent used. I can’t seem to stop scratching, and my legs especially turn into a bloody mess. I have tried all sorts of antihistamines, and try not to go where the bugs are but it is futile.
This is our lovely view. You have seen it before, and you will see it again. Likely every day. If you don’t like to see it, we’ll just scroll on down to the next picture. 
Ha Ha! Fooled you, I posted it twice, just to be silly!
We had blue corn tortilla chips and dips to start.
We both had the chicken Caesar salad.
We shared some French fries. They were suitably hot! Dessert was some cookies. Store bought, not the fresh chocolate chips that they have had in the past. Therefore they did not make the cut for the picture insertion in the blog. Mention, but no picture. I have to draw the line somewhere! 
I thought I should get a little exercise and put my iPhone timer on for 15 minutes, and off I went down the road. Once I hit 15 minutes I reversed. Boring.
Here is our first canapés. Smoked trout on a cracker. 
Next up was Arancini, that is deep fried rice balls for you non gourmets. I was going to use the word gourmand, but that just means someone who enjoys eating. 
Our starter was pigeon soup. Salty, but very tasty. 
I had the duck breast. Steve did too. I don’t have a picture of his dinner, but I bet it looked just like mine. I must have been enthralled with the dinner conversations around me.
Here is a picture that I got from the internet of Barristers with the short wigs, and members of the QC wearing the long wigs.
It’s January and time to try to continue Steve’s streak of a fish every month. Will he catch any on our trip? Hmm, this question really should be at the end of the post with my other questions for you. I’ll just have to copy and paste, and save me some typing.
Here is Steve at the airport in Fort Lauderdale. We were picked up at the wonderful time of 5:30 to be brought to the airport in White Plains. Steve packed his jacket away as we were going to a warm place. Steve forgot how cold the airport terminal is. Notice that he buttoned his shirt (another one of his plaid shirts!) up to the very top. Pay attention to the couple in the background, there will be a story, but no direct quiz later.
I kept my jacket with me, but I was still cold. 
We both ordered the cheese burgers. My fries unfortunately were not hot. I decided from now on when I order fries, I will tell the wait staff “Make sure my fires are just out of the fryer, I want them hot! Otherwise I will send them back!”. There is not much worse than luke warm fries! 
Here is a picture of our happy couple. They had their hands all over each other. He was talented. He could check out his phone, while holding her hand. 
Here is one of the passengers waiting for his flight. He even had the sides of his man bun braided! That is some upkeep! 
After a very long layover we got ready to board our flight to Marsh Harbour. We had two trips where we missed our flight due to delays on arrival in Florida, so now we take flights with longer layovers. Today we had to wait 4 hours between flights. We probably could have gotten an Uber to the beach and back! 
We were excited that we would be sitting in row 3 on the plane until we found out that row 3 did not have windows. Yuck! I do look a trifle worried, don’t I? Although I am blessed with no gray hair, I do seem to have more than my fair share of age spots! The teeth are in pretty good shape, no implants for me! 
The flight attendant allowed us to switch seats to two rows behind us as they were empty. They have to be very careful with the weight distribution on these small planes. 
We landed safely and were picked up by Margery, the taxi driver that Delphi uses. She is always my go to source on the Abaco happenings! Here is Steve checking out the bed in room 4, his personal favorite room. 
The first canapé was squid tempura, with dipping sauces. 
Next was beef tartare. It had too much horseradish in it to please me. 
Our first course was watermelon salad with micro greens and orange slices. 
Steve and I each had the seared wahoo. 
The gentleman next to me had, the rack of lamb. He had to send it back as it was a little too rare for him. 
Dessert was a date and almond phyllo parcel. Very sweet. 
Then it was time for after dinner coffee or tea. I usually go for the mint tea.
Here is Steve showing off the new coffee maker. The machine makes regular and fancy coffees. I did love the old French Press coffee makers, that Delphi used to have. Although sometimes when you pushed too hard you got an explosion of coffee and grinds all over the table. It did make great conversation though! 
That creepy arrangement was still there! I hope it is gone by now! 
More eggs. Steve had an omelette. As usual.
Here we are all in line heading toward the plane Looks like Steve has his travel shirt on. In fact in his passport picture he is wearing the same shirt! Hmm, Steve appears to have one foot on the white line. He could get yelled at by one of the Silver employees! 
Over the marls, and some of the many islands of The Bahamas and we made it to Fort Lauderdale. Customs with the Global Entry card was a breeze. Then it was off to wait forever for our flight to White Plains and then home. Shortly after midnight we made it home. Did I mention yet today how much I hate traveling? That is until a week later, then I am eager to plan our next excellent adventure.
That scary arrangement was still on the breakfast board. I think today will be its last day. 
Here are the delicious blueberry muffins. They are small, so I get to have two. 
More fried eggs and bacon. I do love bacon. They make it just right here. Nice and crisp. Some places serve bacon undercooked. There is nothing worse, because then you have to nibble around the underdone pieces. Heaven forbid, you abstain. You just pray that you don’t get ptomaine poisoning. 
Lunch was just me again. Good thing I like myself. 
The same blue corn chips with the trio of condiments. And you thought condiment only referred to ketchup! 
I had the mahi mahi on greens. I liked the orange slices with it. I do not eat olives, so I ignored them as best as I could. When my sisters and I were growing up my little sister liked to put the black olives on her finger, and then wave them around! It was very amusing! 
I did get two cookies as I was the only one at lunch. Yesterday I said I was eating by myself, but we did get some incoming guests today, so I ate with them. Today they took off in the car and I ate by myself again.
While I was busy eating, reading and generally just laying about Steve was busy fishing. This is a picture of one of the fish that Steve caught on Friday. On his lower lip you can see the fly that Steve used. The hook was well set, that fish was going nowhere but into Steve’s arms! 
Here is the side view. That is some fish! J has as his goal to catch a permit. Some people say that it takes about 1000 attempts to land a permit. That means not only just casting willy nilly, but to actually see and cast at the fish. So far J is nil on catching a permit. Steve was so inspired after he caught his December fish to try to catch one also. Steve is now also nil at catching permit. In fact, the next day, Steve went right back to fishing for bonefish. 
Here is a picture of someone from somewhere who was lucky enough to catch a permit. The man looks happy, the fish less so. I don’t want to think about the poor soul who gets to wash those pants of his! What a mess!
First canapé was tuna poke. 
Then we had these very out of focus conch fritters. 
Our first course was a delightful quail broth. It seems to be out of focus also. No need to adjust your screen controls. 
I had the hogfish with risotto. 
Steve had the duo of Cornish hens. 
We had a cheese plate again, so I asked for ice cream. 
This is a picture of Jason, the chef. You can see the cheese course next to him.
This morning we had a very interesting fruit arrangement on the credenza. It was a little scary looking and if I were hungover, I might just have wanted to turn around and go back to bed! 
I was back to fried eggs again. I think poached eggs are a little bit boring. However if you get them covered in Hollandaise sauce and on top of an English muffin with some spinach, it might be a little more exciting. I’ve never had them that way, I think it would be too rich with the sauce. 
I was by myself for lunch, and this time we had the blue corn tortilla chips. I still managed to eat everyone! 
I decided to go for the pork burger with sweet potato fries. Not sure what is wrong with regular beef, but the menu is what it is. Maybe there will be some complaints and we will have regular burgers. It was okay. I should have asked for regular fries, and I like them better. Last year when there were more ladies there we had discussion on sweet potato fries vs. potato fries. We had a good laugh over the thought that sweet potato were healthier. Come on! 
As we had some new guests with us we got four chocolate chip cookies. They were very good. The new guests were from New Jersey and came down for a long weekend.
Here is a view of the beautiful sunset from our deck. The sunset is really off to the right, but then you don’t get to see the beach. 
First canapé was crab pitettes with micro greens. 
Here is Kentral serving the shrimp tempura with wasabi mayonnaise. She usually is not in my pictures, just the food. But I made the executive decision and decided that she should have more than her fingers appear in the blog! It appears that she has wacky thumbs like Steve does. They go back instead of staying straight up! Steve prefers to call his thumbs normal, and mine stiff! Can you guess what one of my questions will be today? 
The starter was conch salad. I ate the micro greens. There was spirited discussion one of the prior night’s about the conch pistil. It is considered to have special powers. As I don’t eat conch, nor have the special equipment required I can’t vouch for the powers. Steve doesn’t eat conch, nor do I comment about his special powers. 
Steve and I both had the red snapper. 
Dessert was a date and almond phyllo parcel with allspice ice cream.
Steve actually took the day off from fishing with a guide to be with me. Well, he didn’t take a day off entirely, he was going to go down to the beach and test his luck. Today was a cold front day, and fish are off their feed on this type of day. It was going to be a very windy afternoon also.
Anyway, it was just the two of us at breakfast. I haven’t shown you the cold cereal collection, yogurt and assorted toppings yet. Well, now I have and we can go on to something more interesting. 
A coffee machine! Many of the guests had been unhappy about not being able to get coffee when they woke up until the kitchen opened. Breakfast starts at 7, but many people are used to getting up at six a.m. and NEED THEIR COFFEE! There weren’t any Keurig makers in the room, so these poor guests would stumble around muttering COFFEE until the kitchen opened. With new ownership of the club, a purchase was made of a fancy machine that makes regular coffee, cappuccinos, macchiatos and espresso.
Here is the table set for the two of us for lunch. It was very romantic! Although there were no candles, or violinists to serenade us. Sometimes you have to take what you can get! 
I had the salad with fish. Those Chinese noodles are so crazy looking. They remind me of Bernie Sanders. 
Steve had the salad with chicken. That was the better choice as my fish was overcooked. 
For dessert we had the allspice ice cream.
The first canapé was smoked mackerel pitettes. 
Followed by spiced apple on Brie. 
Our starter was Shrimp Brushetta. 
Steve had the wahoo with polenta and green beans. When our son was in high school he had a friend that would come over for dinner every once in a while. He had never had polenta before. He thought it was the strangest thing. Whenever we asked if he wanted to stay for dinner he would ask if we were serving polenta. I can’t remember if he liked it or not but it was funny. Believe me, it was funny. 
I had the duck, I should have had the fish. I didn’t like that the pieces of potato, looked like pieces of duck. I would be all set to eat a piece of duck, and then find out that it was actually potato. 
Dessert was white chocolate pannacotta with raspberry and crystallized rose. Those little chunks floating on the raspberry sauce do not look like any part of a rose to me. 
For the first time all week we were served fresh chocolates. I had three.
Another day, another view of the breakfast sideboard. 
Breakfast today was two eggs, but I went outside of my comfort range and had them poached! Instead of an English muffin, I just had a slice of bread toasted. Watch out, I am beginning to walk on the wild side! 
Another lunch by myself, but the table was placed at an angle. Staff must have sensed that I was going to be adventurous for the day! 
More yummy chips, salsa, and sour cream. For some reason no guacamole. 
I had the chicken Caesar salad again. 
Surprise, surprise I also ordered fries!
This is the view of another beautiful sunset that we had. 
First canapé was quail eggs. I didn’t have my reading glasses on and thought the dish had a brown dip in it. Instead it was celery salt! Quite the surprise. One of the guides raises quail for bird shooting and he sells some of the eggs. 
Here is the trio of Dutches County residents. No names, but his initials are TB. I am holding someone else’s drink as I don’t drink regular martinis! 
We also had beef tartare on toast. 
We had a small group at dinner tonight. Sometimes there are over 20 at dinner! The young man at the end was on his first bone fishing trip. As Max, the manager was off for the night, I filled in the spot as host/hostess for the evening. I sat at the other end of the table. LH was just accepted into William and Mary Law School, so we made a toast in his honor also! 
Our starter was grilled peaches and goat cheese. I love peaches and Steve doesn’t really care for fruit so I got to have a double portion of peaches! Yay! 
Steve and I both had the Osso Bucco. It was good but not as good as the Osso Bucco that I make! Steve says no one makes it as well as I do. I follow the Marcella Hazan recipe.
The evening’s dessert was pot au chocolate with tangerine creme fraiche. I prefer whipped cream, as I don’t like the sourness of creme fraiche.
Another day and another breakfast. I love this arrangement of melons and pineapple.
I decided that I would find out when low tide was and I would take a walk on the beach. 
The water was warm, and if I were a good swimmer I would have gone swimming. But alas, I was by myself, and I am not a strong swimmer, so instead I walked along the beach, looking for nonexistent shells. 
You can see how private the beach is. Only one house shares our stretch of shoreline. 
Then it was back up the hill, huffing and puffing as I went along. I am lazy and would rather not walk back up the hill, so I rarely go down to the beach when we stay here. I prefer to just look at it once in awhile and then continue my reading a book from the stack of romance novels that I brought with me on vacation. 
As everyone else was off fishing, the table was set up for just me. Ipad, book and view in hand I enjoyed my lunch. 
Lunch was grilled chicken, greens, vegetables and Chinese cellophane noodles. 
A proper size cup of cappuccino and a leftover mini banana muffin for dessert. 
First of the two canapés was conch fritters with a dipping sauce. 
This was followed by hummus on a cracker. 
We were served crab and pumpkin bisque as our starter. 
Steve and I both had the mahi mahi with vegetables. It was Jason, the chef’s night off and the breakfast cook made dinner. 
Dessert was Tiramisu. It was very sweet and I couldn’t finish all of it. 
Steve decided to hunt for permit today at Sandy Point. He saw four, but the fish did not take his fly. Permit are notoriously hard to catch. They are hard fighters and can weigh over 25 pounds! Steve caught two bonefish for the day. This is a picture of one of last years fish, that I had posted on instagram. Steve looks like a bank robber here, he is just trying to prevent sun damage.