Dining like You're on a Cruise Ship

from Lexi Eddings...

If you follow my blog, you know the DH & I went on a cruise earlier this month. Part of the fun of cruising is always the fabulous food. I've heard you can eat 13 times a day if you know where the fast elevators are. But because it's far too tempting to overindulge at the buffet on the Lido deck, we usually dine in the main dining room because there the chef controls portions.

And the dishes are really special too. Case in point: Baby Leaf Spinach & Fresh Mushrooms 

Want to make it at home? Here's the recipe from the Carnival Chef's Art Steakhouse. It serves 4.

Ingredients
Baby spinach, 1/4 lb
Bacon, 6 strips
Blue cheese, 2 oz
Olive oil, extra virgin, 4 TBS
Portobello mushroom, 4 (one for each salad)
Butter, 1/2 TBS
Mixed chopped mushrooms (shiitake, button, whatever kind you like) 1/4 cup
Salt, to taste
Crushed black pepper, to taste
Lemon juice 1/4 TBS
Parmesan cheese, 2 oz.
Chives, a few

Directions

1. Dice bacon and then fry till crisp. Drain excess fat & keep warm. 
2. Clean, wash & dry spinach in a salad spinner. (I have one of these handy dandy little gizmos and highly recommend them. They not only clean, but help keep your greens crisp.)
3. Remove the stem and gills from the Portobellos. (The gills have a musty sort of taste you'll want to get rid of.) Cook the tops in butter with salt & pepper. You can also cook the mixed chopped mushrooms at this time. When done, fill each Portabello cap with the mushroom mixture. Keep warm.

Now for the dressing:

Blend olive oil, half the bleu cheese, lemon juice with salt & pepper, Adjust seasoning to your liking. 

Presentation: (Make no mistake. Fine dining is all about the presentation!)

1. Place the warm portobello in the middle of the plate. 
2. Toss the spinach with dressing and place over and around the stuffed portobello.
3. Garnish with chives, remaining crumbled bleu cheese, and warm bacon bits.
4. Grate Parmesan cheese over the dish as desired. 

There you have it--a celebration in a salad bowl.

Bon appetit!

If you'd like to have the recipe for the soup course that goes with this salad, check out my travel blog, Two Old Farts on a Party Ship!

Rumor has it...

I don't like spreading rumors. If I haven't seen something firsthand, I'm loathe to pass the info on. But...

Something happened on my recent cruise that has bothered me enough that I feel the need to write about it. Let me hasten to tell you this wasn't something that happened to me. I had a terrific time on the Carnival Dream. But, not everyone did.

I was waiting to go to one of the art auctions (no, I didn't buy anything!) and sort of caught myself eavesdropping on a conversation between two women seated near me. It went something like this:

Blue-haired grandma-type: Say, didn't you audition for the Carnival Legends show?
(The Carnival Legends is sort of a karaoke show on steroids. Passengers are chosen to sing in an end of the week production impersonating pop stars with costumes & everything.)

Pleasantly plump Thirty-something: (Smiling broadly) Yes, I did.

Blue-hair: I thought so. You were so good as Madonna.

Pleasantly: (No longer smiling) Well, you're the only one who thinks so. I wasn't chosen.

Blue-hair: Well, that's not fair. You got way more applause than those other girls.

Pleasantly: I thought so too. So before I tried out the next day to do Britney Spears, I went to the judge and asked if it was worth trying. (tearing up) He said probably not.

Blue-hair: Whyever not?

Pleasantly: He said didn't I think someone my size wouldn't be comfortable in such a skimpy costume?

At this point, I was furious on her behalf. Ever since I took up two spaces in my kindergarten picture, I've struggled with my weight. But Pleasantly was obviously happy with who she was and had worked hard on her performance prior to coming on the cruise. The only question should have been whether she could do justice to the music.

Of course, Blue-hair's opinion notwithstanding, this wouldn't be the first time someone who couldn't really sing thought they could. My own father, God bless him, can't carry a tune with a gold-handled bucket. Yet he was blissfully unaware of this fact until my sisters and I tactlessly told him when we were kids.

I'm happy to report it hasn't stopping him from trying, but he'll never be mistaken for Willy Nelson no matter how loudly he belts out "On the Road Again."

So since I hadn't seen the audition in question, I had to wonder if the judge was trying to be tactful about her singing, and had instead made the mistake of stepping big time into the issue of her size. I didn't have all the information. I tried to reserve judgment, but I was still quietly steaming on her behalf.

Then another Carnival employee came over. He apologized for eavesdropping (something I neglected to do!) but he couldn't help overhearing. If true, he said, it should never have happened. He encouraged her to go to the office and report the incident. It was totally unacceptable.

He was very sympathetic and supportive. His response went a long way toward mitigating how awful Pleasantly felt. And settled me down as well.

The thing is, Pleasantly was on vacation. She wasn't trying to make a career of the stage. What would be the harm in letting her perform, even if she spilled out of the costume a bit? No one had the right to make her feel bad about herself for trying something different.

The judge for the Legends Show needs to take a page from the Hard Rock Cafe.

Love All, Serve All.

Actually, I could stand to live by those words too!

Carnival Dream

from Lexi Eddings...

My DH is taking me on another adventure! We're off to New Orleans today and tomorrow we'll be boarding the Carnival Dream for a week of fun in the sun! Here's our itinerary:

Date	Port	Arrive	Depart
Sunday, January 8	New Orleans, LA		4:00pm
Monday, January 9	At Sea
Tuesday, January 10	Cozumel, Mexico	8:00am	6:00pm
Wednesday, January 11	Belize City, Belize	8:00am	5:00pm
Thursday, January 12	Roatan, Honduras	7:00am	5:00pm
Friday, January 13	At Sea
Saturday, January 14	At Sea
Sunday, January 15	New Orleans, LA	8:00am

If you want to join us on this trip, pop over to Two Old Farts on a Party Ship! There's a way to have new posts delivered to your email address if you sign up to follow the travel blog.

Hope you come along!

A Straight Apology

from Lexi Eddings...

I'm not making any resolutions this year. There have been too many Januaries in my past that were littered with failed diets, dusty treadmills, diaries that fizzled, and the self-recrimination that comes from not meeting my own expectations.

But I am trying to make a change. Before I share what it is, I want to tell you a little story. A true one...

A few years ago, I was at a writers' conference. It was between workshops, so a group of my writer buddies and I had taken over part of the hotel lounge and we were having our own little confab over coffee, tea or whatever. Then another of my author friends joined us with a new guy in tow. He was a writer of gay romance and they'd just come from crashing an inspirational panel (read: evangelical Christian writers). He was absolutely spewing anti-Christian venom. Totally jazzed about disrupting things, too.

I didn't know what to do. My first instinct was to defend my faith, but he was already so wound up, anything I might have said would have been like throwing gasoline on a fire. Instead, I sat in stunned silence as he continued his tirade. So did the rest of my friends. Guess they were feeling as attacked as I was.

Anyway, it seemed like not responding in kind was the right thing to do, because he ran out of steam fairly quickly and, like a wind-up monkey, he finally ground to a halt. He settled onto the over-sized ottoman next to me. And I started a conversation with him, looking for common ground. We talked about the writer's craft, about the publishing biz, about books we loved, about music and theater. He was fun to talk to. Considering that the encounter started with him trashing my God, my faith, and my fellow Christians, we made great strides.

A workshop I wanted to attend was coming up, so I had to leave after about twenty minutes, but I left feeling pretty good about how I'd handled the situation.

But something niggled at me.

I couldn't figure out why I kept going over this meeting in my mind. It bothered me for months. Years, actually. Then it finally hit me.

He wasn't lashing out at Christianity because he hated Christians. He was acting out because he'd been hurt BY Christians. Deeply. Repeatedly. He'd been made to feel unworthy. Rejected. Irredeemable.

I'd lash out, too.

And I started wondering what might have happened if I'd responded differently. What if I'd been discerning enough to recognize the pain that motivated his rant? What if, instead of stunned silence, I'd reacted by saying something like:

"I'm so sorry that someone has used the name of Jesus to hurt you. Sometimes, Christians use scripture to condemn others when we're supposed to let it change us. No matter what anyone says, God doesn't think you're junk. He loves you. He thinks you're worthy. He doesn't reject you. And neither do I. Instead, I ask your pardon for the hurtful things I have done and the helpful things I have left undone. Can you forgive me?"

What would our conversation have been like then?

Anyway, back to the change I was talking about making earlier...

My goal for this next year is to become a more compassionate person. I want to have a deeper empathy for others. I want to be able to discern the motive behind their actions and words, and use that discernment to help them if I can.

I have a feeling this is going to be much more difficult than if I'd just listed off a few resolutions that I could laugh about having abandoned after a month or so. This is about working on myself on a much deeper level than losing a dress size or two.

The world is tough. It's easy to become hard. But I don't want to be like that. I want to be tender.

It's probably going hurt, but I have to try.