Comments from Mothers Regarding Previous Post on Country Hams

My previous post on country hams generated a swift email response from both our Mothers. Here's what they had to say.

Rick's Mom: "Loved your blog although the story about the country hams made, and still makes me nervous, I must confess."



Jenny's Mom: email subject "about this meat thing"
email content: "....gag me with a spoon! Yuck!

Mom"

Some Pics from Atlantic City and NYC

We hadn't intended to put into Atlantic City, but the lure of striking it big was strong and we pulled in early in the afternoon. Well, ok, it wasn't really the lure of big money that brought us in the Absecon Inlet, but the strong desire to go for a walk (and with any luck, find a shower). It had been almost a week since we'd been off the boat.

The bird lady of Atlantic City

Going against the warning from the City Marina staff concerning the one-mile walk to the Boardwalk (they were concerned about evil doers), we walked anyways. Along the way, we asked a bicycle-riding policeman, Officer Berg, whether it was safe for us to be walking through what looked like project housing at 10am and he assured us that at that time of day, we would be fine. Four in the morning would be a different story and certainly when I awoke the next morning at 4am, I heard many sirens.

The setting full moon over Atlantic City, 5am

Keeping watch
From Atlantic City, we had a big day (80 miles), motorsailing to Sandy Hook, NJ. Happy to have these long summer days. The next day, we moved up to Great Kills Harbor on Staten Island, where we spent the next 2 weeks, repairing the engine that overheated during our sail up Sandy Hook Bay and also taking time to visit Manhattan.

It's at times like this that I really miss the Caribbean.

We made 3 trips into Manhattan. The first trip, Rick's Mom met us, took us to lunch and agreed to do the tourist thing and board a Circle Line boat to circumnavigate Manhattan. My reason for wanting to do this trip was that once we left Staten Island, we had to travel up the East River and through the notorious Hell Gate. I'd been reading many scary reports about that area (some of which were sent by my own Mother!) and really wanted to see it before having to take my boat through it. More on this later.

The Bubble Man in Chinatown: bubble blowers for kids to lazy to blow their own.

Funny Lady in Washington Square Park: she had just snuck through the no-dog area.

On our two other trips to Manhattan, we met my cousin Ted, who came down from New Paltz to hang out with us. Since he's a minister, he felt it necessary to take us into at least one church (Trinity Church). I was more interested in the sculpture outside, which was inspired by an uprooted sycamore tree after 9/11. We got him back though by dragging him into New York Nautical and the 79th St. Marina.

Rick and I love the Staten Island Ferry. From our anchorage in Great Kills Harbor, we would walk a mile to the train station, take a 20 minute train to the ferry terminal (if you get off a stop early though, it doesn't cost you anything, a crazy man told us this and it works), then hop on a ferry and be in Manhattan. The total trip is about 1 1/2 hours if all of your connections go smoothly.
We'd wondered about the capacity of these ferries and how the crew know how many people are on board. The response from a crew-member after being questioned on this matter was that they don't know. Hmmmm, and they don't take into effect the growing size of Americans either.



Cousin Ted had earlier been asking what we do when it rains. Well, never one to just tell when I can show, I arranged for some rain as we took the ferry to Staten Island and got back to High Country. He got to see that we do as most people do, though we generally refer to it as "hunkering down". We hide down below and computerize, read, or cook.

(Ted on the left, Rick on the right)



Our second attempt up the New York Harbor (the first one aborted due to an overheating engine) proved successful. Here, I am pictured under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, holding the VHF radio close by, trying to understand where the traffic is. I don't know if it's me or the radio, but I can never understand anyone on the radio, hence, my heightened level of anxiety. Nevertheless, we managed to get in the way of only one supertanker and realised in time that he was headed straight for us.


High Country with lower Manhattan in the background. It turns out that shortly after we went up the East River, a swimming race began with 88 swimmers, who swam 28.5 miles around Manhattan. Amazing. I was nervous enough being aboard a boat!



Due to the strong currents we expected to find while transiting the East River and Hell Gate, we prudently put on our life jackets. I had never put one on while aboard High Country, and you know, they're kind of comfy, a back cushion wherever you go. At one point, just before entering Hell Gate, the GPS read 10.1 knots, certainly a record for this old boat. All in all though, the Gate was happily uneventful, even though we went through at full flood.


Very happy to be through Hell Gate, unscathed (note Manhattan in background). And it only cost us 1/2 a jar of peanut butter and a package of Asian fried broad beans (during times of stress, we both turn to our comfort foods, Rick dives for the peanut butter and I lunge for anything salty and fried).

The end of the Country Ham

The end of the country ham looks rather like a cordless drill I think.

Not having refrigeration and having a husband who likes a lot of meat in his beans, I was thrilled to learn about country hams while back in Virginia. It turns out that country hams are cured in such a way that they do not need to be refrigerated. I had vaguely known about country hams since last year, but had not yet been brave enough to purchase a whole one, not really being sure about the whole idea of 20 lbs of meat hanging unrefrigerated on the boat. Fortunately for Rick’s beans however, we met a fellow while at the boatyard who not only had a country ham hanging over his galley, but had been eating them for quite some time with no ill effects. With his assurances, I went in search of a country ham and found one, in all places, at a Sam’s Club. Still uneasy about buying a 20lb hunk of meat, I told the butcher what I had in mind. I explained that I lived on a boat, had no refrigeration, and intended for this ham to last me several weeks. He wasn’t so sure about my plan and planted in my head an image of flies and maggots. With that in mind, I bought it and took it home.

It was 2 days after purchase that I worked up the courage to open up its cloth sack and see what I’d gotten myself into. What I found was initially disheartening, 20 pounds of moldy meat. Now, I had heard that cured meats occasionally form some mold and that you just wipe it off with some vinegar and all is well again. But I was not prepared for this quantity of mold. Holding back my tears of disappointment, I muttered something about figuring out a way to wash it down. We were still at the dock and my first thought was to take it on the dock and hose it down, but I didn’t want to scare away future dinner guests, so I proceeded to give the sink a good scrubbing and set it in there. Not knowing how to properly disinfect a country ham, I heated some water and mixed in some peroxide and started to scrub it down. Hams have numerous creases (like an elephant), requiring the use of an old toothbrush to work out the heavy mold. Twenty minutes later, I had a mostly mold-free ham, ready for cooking. After slicing off several big chunks for a batch of beans and also split pea soup, I wiped the whole thing down with vinegar, dried it off, wrapped it in fresh parchment paper, tied it up with string, put it back in its sack, and found a place to hang it where it wouldn’t hit us on the head when out sailing.

That ham lasted about 6 weeks and made many pots of beans and soup. Each time I would open it up, there would be a little bit of mold, but nothing like the first time. I’ve since learned that country hams are known to be rather ugly. Calvin Trillin, in his book Alice, Let’s Eat, makes reference to an enterprising student in New York City who, to support himself in college, took to “uglying up ordinary hams to make them look like properly cured country hams…” apparently to sell to desperate Southerners stuck in NYC. Sadly, I am now in the northeast, where such things as country hams are not sold, though I did happen upon an Italian deli in Staten Island where they had salamis hanging from the ceiling. I once again explained my situation (boat, no refrigeration, keep meat several weeks, etc) and the deli monger thought I’d be fine with the hanging meat. So, rather than a ham hanging over the galley, there is now the remnants of a fine salami.

Dead fish and sea flies: The Chesapeake Bay north of Annapolis and the Delaware Bay

Left Annapolis Sunday morning on a hot, muggy, hazy day. Light winds moved us slowly downwind at 2 knots, a good speed to drag the fishing line with. Alas, as usual, I didn't catch anything and probably a good thing because the rest of the day and following days revealed many dead fish. Not sure why. Maybe it was just the holiday weekend and the throwbacks from everyone out fishing, but it gave me the willies. Nevertheless, happy to be sailing, even slowly.

More of the same on Monday, with the exception of running aground in the Bohemia River. Not hard aground and we were able to mush our way out, only to head back to the mouth of the river to anchor for the night. A definate increase in herons in the north of the Bay.


















Up and at 'em before the crack of dawn on Tuesday brought us through the C & D Canal in good time. Rick had it all studied out to maximize the current and there was even a sailing breeze when High Country nosed into the Delaware Bay. Notable sights along the way were numerous large ships, the Salem nuclear plant, and dead fish floes (this time, the fish were so numerous, they must've been the by-catch of a larger fishing vessel).

Thursday brought us out into the ocean to head north along the Jersey coast from Cape May. It's a mystery to me why, when out at sea, miles from land, the boat is inundated with flies. No matter how fast we kill them, it doesn't seem to decrease their numbers. Between the 2 of us, we probably killed a couple hundred flies, which are then littered all over the deck. Can anyone explain this phenomenon? It doesn't make any sense to have more flies on board when at sea than when in port. I would think it would be a poor strategy for flies to fly out to sea.