Pack an extra virtual Road Trip Bag

Nov 2

Good morning from Mont Tremblant, Quebec. I have been looking forward to the "Fall back" time change for over a week. "Gaining" an hour in the morning is like a special gift. I love the feeling of having an extra precious hour added to my morning (my favorite time of day). I especially like this extra hour when I am on the ship, but this time I am at home. Last week, I invited you to pack your virtual sea bags to join me on my next ship, but you will need to pack an extra virtual overnight bag for a road trip along the way. I look forward to joining the Atlantic Huron, and I enjoy the bonus of having almost three weeks to finish up tasks at home before I join. When I received the call about the Atlantic Huron, Lorraine and I sat down and made a plan to make the most of our time together before I leave. I love making plans, and we started with the dates of commitments and then filled in the days in between with fun. I know that I am joining the ship mid-November, but I don't know the exact day or where. I wrote to the Atlantic Huron's cook, whom I am relieving, and she said (as I suspected) that she would disembark around the Welland Canal or in Hamilton. It is too early to know where the ship will be, but I made the first entry and penciled in "join the Atlantic Huron in the Welland Canal/area" for mid-November.

I check marinetraffic.com daily to follow the Atlantic Huron. I saw that they were on their way to Hamilton yesterday and wondered where they would go next. This morning they are in the Welland Canal with a destination for Windsor. I think they are going for a load of salt but it could also be the fuel dock. I will have to wait and see. For anyone who wants to follow the Atlantic Huron it is easy using Marine traffic. It is a free site for basic information. Just enter the name of the ship.

The next thing to add to our calendar is the event at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum. We will be there on November 9th, and we are looking forward to it. I will share more details with you at the beginning of the week. I received confirmation that the 2026 Porthole calendars would be ready for pickup on November 10th, so we added that to our plan. I can't wait to see them. Lorraine (my sister and best friend) is working through a list of requirements to return to sailing, and we added her two-day First Aid course in Ontario to our plan, bringing the total to four commitments before I join the ship. We looked at our plans and realized it didn't make sense to drive back and forth to Ontario and our home in Quebec, so we decided to leave tomorrow morning and, in between our commitments, visit friends and have fun.

https://www.detroithistorical.org/events/edmund-fitzgerald-50th-anniversary-commemoration
We will be at the event on November the 9th

It will be my first time visiting the Dossin Great lakes Museum.

You can see the museum from the ship, and I look forward to seeing it up close.

Packing my bags for the ship is one of my least favorite tasks, and I put it off as long as possible. I laugh at myself because each time I tell myself, "Don't wait for the last minute," but as I am writing to you this morning, less than 24 hours from our departure, my bags are still waiting to be packed. I am excited to add my new work shirts and new aprons, so I will try to use that as a motivator. All my laundry is done, so it is just a matter of packing.

I am excited to pack my new work shirts, aprons and the hairbands (which were an impulse purchase. They were 80% off so I added them to my cart.)

Another task before I leave is to look at what I have left in my fridge and figure out how to use up the items before I go. I often leave these items for Lorraine, but she is leaving with me, and the items will expire before she can use them. I like the challenge of shopping in my fridge. I opened the door of my all-fridge and thought how easy it is to see everything. I saw the half package of bacon, one chicken breast (uncooked), different cheeses, and a little arugula/roquette. My inspiration started with the bacon and chicken. I had purchased a package of two chicken breasts and, the day prior, had cooked one to eat with a Caesar salad. I love Caesar salad and always have a jar of homemade Caesar dressing in my fridge. I like to add bacon to my salad and cook it to a perfect crispy texture in my Actifryer. It was so delicious, and I would have used the rest of the bacon and chicken the same way, but I didn't have enough of my homemade Caesar dressing, so I had to come up with another option. An idea came to me: halve the chicken breast, pound it thin, and stuff it with the last remnants of the Caesar dressing that were hanging on the sides of the jar I made it in. I added a slice of provolone cheese to the chicken, then rolled it up and wrapped the bacon slices tightly around it before letting it rest in the fridge.

I like Caesar salad and adding chicken and bacon make a perfect supper. I am guilty of being heavy handed when adding the homemade Caesar salad dressing.

This provolone stuffed, bacon wrapped chicken roll came together quickly and I will make it for future crews that I cook for.

Sometimes, in order to use up leftovers, I need to buy something to complete an idea. I decided to make macaroni and cheese with all my leftover cheese, but I didn't have any pasta. Lorraine and I often shop together. I live on the second floor, so I usually buy just what I need, thinking about the climb up the two flights of stairs. We drove to the grocery store to buy the pasta and a few other things. Lorraine asked if I had a list, and I rhymed off the four items. I love going to the grocery store, but I don't always go into the store with Lorraine because I am too tempted by the items on the shelf that beg to be purchased and turned into something delicious. I went in with Lorraine this time and selected a Bartlett pear (not on my list), then an orange (also not on my list), and then started to investigate the meat section of the store. I thought about what I would make if I were purchasing the items on sale, reminded myself that I was leaving, and kept moving along. Lorraine picked up the items she needed, and we headed to the self-checkout. We got into the car and left the store. I shared with Lorraine my plan of attack for the afternoon. I started with "As soon as I get home, I'm going to put a pot of water on". She looked at me and, already knowing the answer, asked, "What's going in your pot of water?) I laughed and said I'd forgotten to buy the pasta, one of the four items on my list. Lorraine turned the car around and ran back into the store, coming out with the Scooby-Doo pasta so that I could make the Mac and cheese. We laughed that if you write a list of items, you actually have to look at the list while you are in the store. When I cooked the pasta (Scooby-Doos), I was inspired to make another pasta dish that would use up the rest of my arugula/roquette and blue cheese. I thought it would go really well with the bacon-wrapped, provolone-stuffed chicken in my fridge that was waiting to be cooked. I cooked the chicken in my air fryer and added a little butter, some Adobo, and lots of pepper to the drippings. I added that to the hot pasta. I added the leftover arugula and blue cheese and tossed it all together. The final drizzle of balsamic glaze brought this already great plate to the next level. It was delicious. I would make this again on the ship. I don't usually have blue cheese on the ship, but I think it would be very good with Parmesan too.

The chicken went really well with the pasta, arugula, blue cheese and balsamic glaze. I will definitely make this delicious combination again.

The macaroni and cheese used up all the leftover cheese that I had in the fridge.

I had to decide what to do with the Greek plain yogurt in the fridge. I don't usually make desserts while I am home, but I thought I would make Mom's Cherry Pie Filling cake and substitute the sour cream in the recipe with the yogurt. It came out perfect! I actually used up some of my leftover blueberries from the freezer by adding them to the can of cherry pie filling that Lorraine had in her pantry and gave to me for my cake. I still had some leftover yogurt after making the cake, and I will make a ranch and blue cheese dressing to use up the rest of the ingredients. When we visit friends, we often arrive with some homemade goodies. Tomorrow morning, I will add these homemade salad dressings to a refrigerator bag to keep them cold and bring them with us. Groceries are so expensive, and I try not to throw food away.

Substituting the sour cream in the recipe with Greek yogurt worked well. I added some blueberries from the freezer to the can of cherry pie filling that Lorraine gave me to use.

Lorraine just called, and we laughed about how excited I am to have the extra hour this morning. She asked the obvious question, which I'm pretty sure she knew the answer to. "Have you started packing?" I said as soon as I finished writing to you that I would pack next. We often go for afternoon walks, but since I bought my new raincoat on Thursday, it has rained almost every day. Today it is overcast and cool, the perfect day for packing, so I have no more excuses to put it off. I wish you a lovely day, and I will drop in early this coming week to update the details of our Dossin Great Lake Museum event. Have a wonderful day.