"I beautiful cabbage, you only poor fish"

As all trippers can relate to, food is a BIG DEAL. Whether it's a warm bowl of soup that could get us through that rainy watch, or afternoon snacks in the sun, getting creative over the last month with what we have (or what we could find in Haida Gwaii) has been a challenge and also a lot of fun. Watching Captain's Courageous last night with Declan we reminisced over all the fish and cabbage we were eating in our last days before coming into Alert Bay. Now that we're back in town we've been able to restock (croissants for breakfast were the tastiest of all time!), but despite not grocery shopping for over a month, we ate gourmet, having focused our culinary creations on hearty vegetables, and living off the sea.

Classy afternoon tea

By Murchison Island (renamed Urchinson Island by Char and I), we had a fantastic time exploring and gathering from the rich intertidal. Without sea otters in Haida Gwaii (they were all hunted out during the years of the fur trade boom) sea urchins have taken over as a pest. We helped a bit with the pest control operation by gathering these colourful creatures for our dinner. Breaded with a side of tartar sauce they were delightful!

Urchins and sea cucumber

"my, how pointy you are my little urchin friend"

We were also amazed at the mussels! (They really ARE the size of lady slippers. A tall lady.) As we filled up our bucket (didn't take very much) the guests on the Island Roamer probably thought we hadn't eaten in days upon observing our excitement. Maybe it played a part in them inviting us over for dinner a couple of days later.

Woah! They're HUGE

Didn't take much to fill the bucket.

It's a small boat, but we have great sit down dinners:

A salmon feast!

Using fish guts, we've been really lucky with crabs.  This was a haul of 5 crabs (couldn't eat them all, so threw 2 back!):

Sometimes the crabs bite. Nasty.

On the vegetable front, we've gotten creative with sea asparagus. As an intertidal plant it's quite salty, but has been great in stir frys, or used in salads after a fresh water rinse.

Seas of asparagus!

Peanut investigating the new greens

Pizza with fresh mussels, salmon, and sea asparagus done up on the BBQ. Got to love our Friday night pizza nights! 

Bonfires are also splendid--save on fuel for the stove, and utterly delicious. Spicy prawns on shishkabobs, corn, salmon and crabs.

Surf and surf and surf.

Sometimes we don't even need to bring cooking things ashore!

Going to Rose Harbour we got Susan and Gotz to help us id the mushrooms we picked, and cooked a feast with our fresh oyster mushrooms from Ikeda Cove. Eating fresh salads with an array of greens from Susan's garden was a real treat, and I especially loved the fresh mint tea. In helping Susan weed, we kept the compost pile down by munching on the old spinach stalks she was taking out for new planting beds! We're worse than the deer!

"Yes, well these ones are smaller, but they look delicious.  Shall I take a bite?"

Cooking up a storm at Susan's 

Weeding and grazing on greens

Jigging for halibut with Susan.  "Twinkle twinkle little hook, I'm going to catch a hali-but..." 

Dinner at Susan's, Rose Harbour 

 Here are a couple more food favs:

Home made pasta with nettles.  SOOOO yummy!

Pasta feast

This is the pressure cooker.  Oh my goodness, if I could marry it, I would.  This is the beer-up-the-butt-chicken we roasted.  Didn't pressurize on this one, but have been using it for all kinds of soups and cakes and delicious dishes!

Friends from Tanu gave us yummy huckleberry jam that we've been eating on our pan

Back to town food for the time being.  BANANA POPSICLES ARE MY FAV.