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| Store Bay Sunset |
September is the hottest, wettest and most humid month in Tobago and the Caribbean. There tends to be less wind and a increased probability of hurricanes. There was still over two months to wait until the end of the official hurricane season.
Boycotting Bago's beach bar. After returning from a sail to Charlotteville in the north I met up with a mate, Olli on "Fagul Blu". I had met Olli in Cape Town and along the track; Namibia, St Helena and Brazil. Anyway, Olli is a good sort and we had a few stories to tell so off the Bago's we went. After a few Caribs Shirley, the licensee, wondered over for a chat. The place was not exactly overflowing with customers, I might add. Shirley asked Olli and I for our contact details; facebook, email etc. I scribbled an email address, which probably won't work. I mean why do I want to get spammed about promos unless it is free beer, which is unlikely. Shortly after this Shirley turns around to me and says she wants to get rid of all the yachts from the anchorage because of the apparent discharge of effluent into the water - a euphemism for what was actually said. As you can imagine I was a little taken aback. Fortunately, on this occasion anyway, I engaged the brain, despite being a tad inebriated, before I said anything. One moment she is trying to promote the place the next she is pissing off the customers! Odd, very odd. The next day I mentioned this to John of Store Bay Marine Services, he laughed having been basically squeezed out of his premises near Bago's with a 35% rent increase by the same licensee. A couple of points to bear in mind;
- there is no functional sewage processing on Tobago,
- effluent from Bago's goes into a septic, which ends up in the sea,
- there are no toilet facilities for people on the beach or vendors nearby.
I have never seen more than 20 yachts in the anchorage at any one time, some of the yachts are unoccupied and many have sewage processing systems.
The licensee should seriously consider a change in occupation or refrain from voicing her opinions to her customers.
Fortunately the beer is just as good and cheaper just up the road. I could go on and have a rant about Windows H8 that was on a new computer I recently acquired, however I will spare you that diatribe.
Boycotting Bago's beach bar. After returning from a sail to Charlotteville in the north I met up with a mate, Olli on "Fagul Blu". I had met Olli in Cape Town and along the track; Namibia, St Helena and Brazil. Anyway, Olli is a good sort and we had a few stories to tell so off the Bago's we went. After a few Caribs Shirley, the licensee, wondered over for a chat. The place was not exactly overflowing with customers, I might add. Shirley asked Olli and I for our contact details; facebook, email etc. I scribbled an email address, which probably won't work. I mean why do I want to get spammed about promos unless it is free beer, which is unlikely. Shortly after this Shirley turns around to me and says she wants to get rid of all the yachts from the anchorage because of the apparent discharge of effluent into the water - a euphemism for what was actually said. As you can imagine I was a little taken aback. Fortunately, on this occasion anyway, I engaged the brain, despite being a tad inebriated, before I said anything. One moment she is trying to promote the place the next she is pissing off the customers! Odd, very odd. The next day I mentioned this to John of Store Bay Marine Services, he laughed having been basically squeezed out of his premises near Bago's with a 35% rent increase by the same licensee. A couple of points to bear in mind;
- there is no functional sewage processing on Tobago,
- effluent from Bago's goes into a septic, which ends up in the sea,
- there are no toilet facilities for people on the beach or vendors nearby.
I have never seen more than 20 yachts in the anchorage at any one time, some of the yachts are unoccupied and many have sewage processing systems.
The licensee should seriously consider a change in occupation or refrain from voicing her opinions to her customers.
Fortunately the beer is just as good and cheaper just up the road. I could go on and have a rant about Windows H8 that was on a new computer I recently acquired, however I will spare you that diatribe.
Languishing in Store Bay and
still boycotting Bagos Bar. I kept myself occupied fixing things on the boat, socialising
with friends onshore, replacing Windows 8 with Linux Mint and learning how to
use Linux. Getting rid of Windows H8 was cathartic.
I spoke to John and Katy
about cooking a roast lamb in the cobb. I also mentioned pizza. Katy suggested
I cook Flat Lamb Pie a Syrian dish (Lahm bi'Ajeen). Getting a leg of
lamb/mutton was expensive so I went with the flat lamb pie. As I don't have
much to write about this month I'll include the recipe . This is my variation
of Flat Lamb Pie. I prepared the dough and filling beforehand on the boat then
lugged the cobb bbq and prepared food ashore.
Ingredients:
I used the Focaccia/pizza recipe
from the Cobb recipe book as the base.
Lamb Filling:
1 tablespoon oil
500 g minced/ground lamb
1 large onion, finely
chopped
1 tablespoon dry rosemary (I
soaked this in vinegar overnight)
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground
black pepper
1/2 can chopped, tomatoes.
Mint to taste
Salt
lemon juice
Serve with lemon wedges and/or yoghurt
Method:
1. Make up the dough for the
base and let it rise.
2. Heat oil in a frying pan,
add ground lamb and stir over medium high heat until colour changes and meat is
crumbly. Add onion and cook for 10 minutes, stirring often, until onion is
soft.
3. Add rosemary, mint,
spices, salt to taste and pepper, fry 1 minute longer, then add tomatoes. Cover
and cook on low heat until tomato softens - about 10 minutes.
4. Stir in lemon juice.
Remove from heat and cool. Mixture should be firm, but not liquid.
5. Punch down dough if used.
Roll out dough or pastry on a lightly floured board until 3mm thick - about the
size of the Cobb pan. Alternatively take balls of dough the size of an egg and
press each into a round with hand.
6. Spray/brush oil on pan.
Spread the dough on the pan. Place a tablespoon of filling onto a quarter of
the dough and another tablespoon on the other quarter. Fold the remaining half
of the dough over the filling - giving two pies - like a calzone. Spread
another rolled dough and fill so you have two folded pizza like pies in the
cobb.
7. Bake pies for 15-20 minutes
with the cobb lid on. Cut the half pies
giving 4 pies at a time. Serve hot or warm, squeeze lemon wedges onto pies, or yoghurt may be served with them
.
The Flat Lamb Pies turned
out well and the 6 of us had a good evening with many local Carib beers. No one
had seen the cobb bbq before and were impressed.
