Waterbloggers’ Food Tour so far

Turnout has been low – let's see more responses!

As far as I can tell, I have had only two responses to my writing challenge to describe the menu for the Waterbloggers' Food Tour – what would you serve if you were entertaining your tired and hungry fellow waterbloggers after a day on the water?

The requirements are fairly simple: It has to be yummy. It has to be relatively easy to prepare, as you will be just as tired as your fellow waterbloggers at the end of the day. And it has to be on or near the water, using whatever facilities are available wherever you are.

First, almost simultaneously with my issuing of the challenge, Baydog came in with his oysters with shiitake mushrooms and jalapeños in a cream reduction garnished with basil chiffonade. Now, some might debate whether this dish meets the criteria for the contest, but I'm going to make a couple of assumptions here. One, he's a foodie who doesn't mind putting forth the effort to create this dish even at the end of a long day; and two, his kitchen is somewhere near the water, so he can prepare this food more-or-less on the spot.

Today, Bonnie Frogma rang in with her entry, a complete meal rather than just the entrée: Spam musubi from L&L Catering, plus side dishes made from fresh produce from her garden. In fact, she had originally toyed with the idea of having L&L do the whole meal, but then she decided the garden produce needed to be given its chance to shine. Wait a minute, I hear some of you saying, isn't it cheating to have a caterer provide some of the food? Well, if you look at the rules, I don't actually have a requirement that you, yourself, prepare the food. The requirement is that you, yourself, not over-exert yourself since you're as tired as your guests. As long as the food is on or near the water, and you have the budget to pay for it (and of course you do, since this is fantasy), you could conceivably take us all out to a waterfront restaurant and serve us up something special in the banquet room.

I, of course, have already described my main dish, beer-can chicken, but I will be adding side dishes and beverages to make this a complete meal. You can expect some down-home cooking thanks to my Arkansas relatives, but there's one dish I picked up in England that will add an international flair to the menu (and no, it's not mushy peas). Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, I'm still looking forward to hearing from some of the rest of you. Tillerman, with your house facing the water and with Tillerwoman's bountiful garden, what will you serve? Captain JP, what can we look forward to on the London stop of the Waterbloggers' Food Tour? O Docker, even if you have trouble keeping basil from going the way of Monty Python's parrot, can you serve up a banquet on or near the Berkley Marina? Zen, is it possible to create Asian fusion on a boat?

And anybody else out there, feel free to jump in with what you would serve up, given the resources available to you, if you were hosting a gathering of your favorite waterbloggers. The deadline is midnight Sunday, June 20. Of course, since this blog is about using time zones to advantage, that's midnight in the UTC-11 time zone.

If you have a blog, write a blog post describing your meal, and put a link in the comments here. If you don't have a blog, put your meal description in the comments.