Call Me Ish-Meal

Call me Ish-meal. Some meals ago--never mind how many precisely--having little or no choices for supper, out came the leftovers.

The same fish after 4 days and 4 ways to fix it, ‘ISH’ was the part sigh, part sound I made when it was time to eat. I love fish. Fresh fish. Leftovers? Maybe. 4 days same fish? Ish. After 4 days of the same fish and stranded at the same anchorage, I began searching through the boxed and canned goods we had stored.

Nassau, in the Bahamas, is southeast about 30 miles from where we were stuck. To the fish-only fed stomach Nassau is a make believe land. A land flowing with burgers and landlubbers menus. It’s a land you’ll never see, offering a meal you’ll never eat. This little island is a beautiful getaway-escape type place. However, supper after supper morphing into Ish-meals, this little island was becoming, in the mind of our stomach, a stay-away type place.

"Let's take inventory. I gotta get a break from that fish. We stocked a lot of goods before we left."

"We left four weeks ago." The Kid replied.

Inventory reveals: Rice. Spam. Beans. Rice. Spam. Spam. Spam. Rice. Rice. Beans. Red sauce. Red sauce? (Red labels on cans marked sauce). These items made sense when we were shopping. Would it make sense when we were hungry? This Captain knows about being stranded. However, it had been some time we had found ourselves in this kind of a fix. Planning for this getaway we let experience slip-away and now it was time to pay.

“No need to worry there will be plenty of fish,” was the assurance we argued to ourselves when goods were being purchased.

The meaning was fish plural. The 4 day reality was fish singular. Fish fillets. Fish nuggets. Fish bites. Fish chowder. Same fish. Not same kind. Same one. A singular/plural food item should be more clearly defined for the purpose of meal planning. Set grammar aside when putting a menu together. If fish means fish (singular) and not fishes (plural) bring more creativity, spices, sides, and alternate non-singular food items.

The weather still bad, and maybe the fish was following in the same direction as the weather we decided to switch to some rice.

We ate rice with red sauce. Rice without sauce. Rice with butter. Rice with rice. I love rice. Rice, however, is another one of those singular/plural kinds of food. Ask once, receive once, twice, thrice rice.

This Captain, now uncustomary desperate, thought, "Rummage for something. Rig up a line? Not yet."

The Kid, more clever, and thus less desperate came up with another substitute. This, along with the recipe for next time.

The Captain and The Kid