Ben said we have been eating too much meat lately…. hmm and I said we are in Italy lets enjoy as much as we could the seafood after all when the family comes, we dont have the luxury to enjoy a decent quite meal let alone seafood or shell fish.
We are kosher well almost when the family around.

When we were in Santo Stefano, I bought 3 big bream which I placed inside the oven covered with tomato, courgettes, spring onions, parsley and garlic then slowly roasted in the oven.
we did not sit down together to eat, let alone take photogragh, the boat was heaving on high meter swells.

Other than the bream I also got some squids. I was thinking of frying it the way Stel did hers.. with almonds, but can’t find almonds, then I thought of saffron but we got no saffron. (Speaking of saffron my kitchen full of saffron brought by a friend from Baku, Azerbaijan)
Was thinking of adding curry on the flour, no curry either.


Naples… fisherman’s hut

We were in Naples that night when I chatted with Celia another blogger I actually have met in UK. She gave me the idea of garlic chilli squids.
No photos again we were so hungry and exhausted, no sooner the squids were cooked we sat down to eat.


Somewhere between our conversation on wind , ports, how many miles to venice etc we all thought of vongole.
I have been so lucky with these two as they both love food as much as I do.


Vongole.. clams who does not love spaghetti vongole?

The next day, I was out by 8am to look for clams,
Ben said if I could do my shopping early as he plan to leave the port by 9am.I Italians who love the word , dopo (later) piano piano (slowly) much worse domani (tomorrow) delayed our refuelling. Piano piano indeed!!!


Napolitans enjoying a piano piano life …rather the art of conversation over espresso.

We had plan to have spaghetti vongole for lunch but after approaching Capri we all gave up the idea having to ride the swells again!!!!
We resigned to hot toasties with the 3 of us dreaming of our much waited vongole.


Mick at Santo Stefano clearing the deck.

Ben was the cook last night. I helped him prepare so I don’t really have a standard recipe to share.

    1kilo clams
    1 packet of spaghetti
    garlic crushed and chopped
    cherry tomatoes
    chopped onions
    chopped parsley

    But here is what we did.

    1) Wash the clams in cold water do it in several wash, discard any damaged or open ones.
    2) Put water to boil for the spaghetti ( we used almost a packet of )
    3) Cook the spaghetti
    4) Heat the olive oil in a pan add garlic, onions
    5) Add a splash of white wine
    6) Add the clams salt, pepper bring to boil
    7) Cover and cook till the clams open
    8) Drain the pasta serve with vongole with chopped parsley.

We were surely in clam heaven that night. Ben if not driving our boat takes time to enjoy cooking for us.
Thank you Captain Ben!!!


Captain Ben if not cooking for us is actually driving the boat!

PS It was the year 2002 I met Ben in Monaco when were both based there. And to add some twist of the story, his captain that time is from Seychelles. I met D when the yacht I was working on, was cruising the Indian Ocean in the year 2000.

And it was that yacht that brought D to France.