Come Saturday morning we cast off early and headed for the Stone circle at Avebury. Arriving before the Sun was over the yardarm we went for a wander round the stones keeping a wary eye out for sheep poo which had been distributed in great quantity by the residents of some of the fields.

Lunch was taken in the Red Lion the town's pub. A fairly traditional boozer with a restaurant. Not too noisy with a selection of Greene King ales - Cook's type of pub.

I had a Stilton Ploughman's which came with a slab of home made bread, chutney, a salad of luttuce, shredded red and green peppers, red onion and tomato, a nice crunchy green apple and some evil celery which I hurled to Mrs F. No complaints, aside from the butter being too cold to spread (so many places do this) and the malevolent celery of course. This was washed down with a pint of Abbot and then a pint of Greene King IPA. Lovely stuff and good value too the five of us ate for around £21 with another £17 for drinks. Highly recommended boozer. Being close to Beltane the pub was full of colourful pagans too!

On to Glastonbury where we spent a pleasant afternoon in the tranquil surroundings of the Chalice Well Gardens, I enjoyed some of the water from the Red Spring (red because it contains iron and leaves a red deposit where it flows) found my favorite spot to settle down and watched the birds playing in the trees, then outside the Chalice Well and on to the White Spring (known as the White Spring as the water is clear and contains calcium carbonate) for some more water and then up to the Tor, I sat out the climb to the top (done that before and it was hot) and enjoyed the rest of a pleasant afternoon watching the wildlife.

Then on to Bath, the long way thanks to the local police diverting us all around the countryside still it was all very pretty. In Bath we headed to Rajpoot in Argyle Street, a really smashing Indian restaurant where you dine below street level in a series of small booths, its all very atmospheric. Still stuffed from lunch I went for the Chicken Shoshila, a very fragrant dish of chicken cooked with mustard seed and herbs, with some potato cooked with red cabbage, motor panir (Indian cheesy peas) and pilau rice all expertly cooked. With wine and more drinks we left Rajpoot each about £25 poorer than when we went in, which ain't bad at all Arrr. We then took a wander down by the Avon where the powder monkey ran off some of the sugar from her chocolate ice cream in a maze before heading back to our berths at the Beckington Travelodge for the night.

In the morning the crew headed back to Bath for breakfast in the Regency surrounds of the Pump Room, where the powder monkey gamely agreed to try the spa water. I declined the opportunity and instead enjoyed a Roman Breakfast which consisted of a slice of grilled Wiltshire bacon in a bap with a slice of tomato and a pot of English Breakfast Tea, a bit pricy, but then you are paying for the wonderful Georgian surroundings. Mental note to the cook - dressing completely in black is not a good idea when you eat a floured bap.

Then while the crew went around the Roman Baths (again I have already had the pleasure) I wandered round the local bookshops and just for a change bought nothing, then met up again with the crew for ice cream and more beer before we pillaged the Pasty shop for a tasty snack afore setting sail back east.

All in all a very pleasant weekend with lovely weather and good company

There is nothing quite like a drop of onion soup to start a meal and onions are also a good source of the vitamins that prevent scurvy.

This should serve a crew of four

Melt a lump of butter in a pan and chuck in three or four large chopped onions, six chopped cloves of garlic, a chopped chili pepper (to give it a bit of warmth) some dried mixed herbs (or fresh herbs if you have them) and some freshly ground black pepper.

Let this all cook away until the onions go all soft and slippery then add two teaspoons of Dijon mustard and a glass of madeira (or port or sherry will do, but madeira is best yum, yum, yum). Have a glass for yourself,heaven, then turn up the heat to boil off the alchohol, then top up the pan with some boiled water from the kettle (about a litre) add a beef stock cube and bring to the boil.

Once this has started bubbling away turn down to a simmer, stick a lid on the pot and let it cook away for as long as you like, an hour is good. you can get on with other food preparation, have a bath or just tuck yourself up in your Hammock.

Serve in a dish with some grated cheese (I used a nice Davidstow chedder) sprinkled over the top and a hunk of crusty bread. Good as a starter or a nice comforting snack when the breeze gets a bit stiff arouind the mizzen mast.

Soundtrack well as this is a variation on a great French cafe standard and a good slow lazy cook you have plenty of cooking time, I'd recommend listening to, perhaps George Gershwin's An American in Paris to get you started and then some Charlotte Gainsbourg

OK shipmates this is how its done

Take the biggest jug you can find and pour a glass of spanish brandy into it(sorry to labour the point but I like Spanish brandy as it is finished in sherry casks and this gives it a lovely finish that works very well with Spanish cuisine). Then have a look at whatever fruit you have knocking around the shop and chop it up and sling it in the jug. Apple, orange, lemon, lime, kiwi, peach, banana, whatever you like, sling in, add some ice, then fill to about half way with red wine. I used the Spanish table wine from Sainsburys as its only £2.10 a bottle and lets face it you ain't going to stick a good Rioja in Sangria (in Spain I use the stuff that comes in litre cartons for about 70 cents, God I love Europe) top up with diet lemonade or 7 Up. Then you can refill the jug each time it gets a bit low with the wine and lemonade and it should see you through the afternoon or one of those balmy evenings with sterncastle windows open and a lightening breeze.

Cheers (hic)

Its been a bit of a rough old day, what with Leading wench Mrs F having got herself sorted out with the surgeon after her tumble and things. So I thought what can we do for lunch.

Taking the bumboat down down to Mr Sainsburys emporium I spied some chicken pieces and I thought back to our time off the Canary Isles with Old Nick. Arr what about Spanish chicken with Canarian spuds!

This is for three people.

Right first off pour a glass of Manzanilla sherry and stick a few saffron strands in it to soak for a bit. Open a bottle of Badger Golden Glory and enjoy its peachy fragrance (nice) then take your spuds (I recommend small potatoes, new are fine, for this) cut out any horrible black bits and soak for a while in a bucket of sea water (OK we live in Essex so a pan of salted water will have to do) for about half an hour. Then hoik them out and put them on a grill pan, sprinkle with sea salt and bake for about an hour or so. Then serve up with some Mojo sauce (OK Mrs F and I are frequent visitors to the Canary Isles so we have always got plenty of this around the house, but you might be able to pick this up from a Spanish grocer and as soon as I plumb its secrets I will post a recipe)

For the main dish bung some olive oil in a pan and add about a teaspoon of powdered Spanish pimenton (essentially this is sun dried red pepper ground into a dust, you should be able to get this from big supermarkets or a Spanish grocer, but Mrs F and I always stock up with some whenever we go to Spain.)Watch the oil go a lovely red colour and enjoy the smell.

Finish off the Golden Glory which is apparently made with extracts of peach flowers.

Then add some chopped garlic (say six large cloves) two chopped onions, about six chopped baby leeks, some freshly ground black pepper, one chopped chili pepper and whatever herbs are knocking around the kitchen (I used some fresh coriander and some dried mixed herbs). Chop up a chorizo sausage and stick it in the pot and watch all the lovely fat and spices from the sausage colour the pan. When the stuff in the pan gets really sexy with all the red and green colours add some chopped chicken pieces and fry until they are done. Then add the saffroned Sherry and cook this off till most of the liquid evaporates. I reckon the cooking time at about thirty minutes.

Serve up with the spuds with a couple of teaspoons of mojo sauce and a salad of lettuce and baby tomatoes and perhaps some sangria (watch out for my sangria recipe later) eat and enjoy the lovely sunshine with the Small Faces, Ghostdance, Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochrane, Johnny Kidd and the Pirates (whay hey!), Gene Vincent, Motorhead, Roger McGuinn, Little Richard, Elvis, the Stranglers, Danielle Dax, the Rammones, March Violets, Alice Cooper, Robert Plant, Eddie Floyd, Smokey Robinson, Slayer, Dio, Curtis Mayfield (Yo superfly!)and perhaps a smidge of Dolly Parton (early stuff yee haw!) and Emmylou Harris (Red Dirt Girl.... classic)

A word of warning when using pimenton or frying up chorizo, if the oil gets on your clothes its a devil to get the red oily stains out of them

That's yer lot for now

Arr it be Friday and for many of us the horrors of the working week be a thing of the all to recent past.

Well the cook spent his lunchtime well, pillaging the local Waitrose for fresh veg and pirate gold, found sod all of the latter, but back in the galley I have had a Martini (see earlier recipe) and some salted cashews, a pint of Marstons Empire (nice India Pale Ale) and some Sicilian olives to get the juices flowing.

Strike up the ship's band (fuck me its Led Zeppelin!)and lets cook.

First chop up one red onion, a white onion, a leek, half a head of garlic, a chili pepper (with seeds I'm too lazy to take em out) and chuck them all in a pan with some olive oil. Add some spices - I used black onion seeds, freshly ground black pepper and some saffron to make it go a lovely yellow. fry until the onions go translucent. Chuck in a punnet of cherry tomatoes and cook these until they go squishy to release their juice. While thy are cooking down peel and chop up two carrots, two parsnips and three small spuds into large chunks, chuck in the pot, with some chopped fresh dill and coriander or parsley.

Let the juices seep a bit from the veg then top up with cheap white wine, I used Sainsburys Sicilian at £2.99 (they say its worth spending money on wine to cook with as you should never cook with wine that you wouldn't drink, but outside of Blue Nun I have yet to find that vintage.)Nice crisp wine, better drink some to make sure its up to scratch... yeah that's fine.

So lets bring it to the boil, turn down to a simmer and put in the fish, you can use whatever you like as this kind of stew traditionally used the fish that the fisherman had left over after market. I used three frozen haddock fillets tonight as they weere in the freezer, but cod, salmon, tuna or virtually any fish will do even out of a tin (a tip: if its tinned in oil use the oil to fry the veg for extra flavour) If you use frozen fish as I have there ain't no shame its frozen so soon after its caught so its often fresher than the stuff from the fishmonger.

Let that cook away for about 20 minutes then go back to it and take the fish fillets out, remove the skin, bin the skin and any bones, put the fish back in and throw in some invertebrates like prawns or crabmeat, cook for about another ten minutes, then serve up with some cous cous (Sainsbury do a good citrus one that complements the fish well) and another bottle of Sicilian white. Fantastic.

Aside from Zeppelin this was cooked to the sounds of Johnny Cash, Motorhead, Lynryd Skynryd, Rush, Rod Stewart, New Model Army, Roger Daltrey, Nirvana, the Mission, Santana, John Sebastian, the Small Faces, Free, Jimi Hendrix, Warren Zevon, the selector and Mick Ronson

.

Just finished reading this the other day.What a great book. I was initially put off by the sheer size of this tome which clocks in at over 1000 pages, but once you get into it it its a smashing read. Set during the Napoleonic wars it tells the story of two magicians who attempt to return English magic to its rightful place in society and also aid the British war effort against the French before they fall out with each other. Won't give any more of the plot away, but its a delightful read full of great characters (especially Norrell's servant Childermass and a realy nasty Faery), dialogue as crisp as Jane Austin, magic worthy of Moorcock and action as good as Bernard Cornwell. Take it on holiday.

And while the Sun is out take a long glass and slosh in equal measures of vodka, triple sec and peach schnaps, top it up with the juice of two freshly squeezed oranges and you have an Orange Blossum. If you want it to be really girly stick some fruit on cocktail stick too

To add a little variety to this you could use the juice of a tangerine or a mandarin instead of an orange or add a dash of lime juice.

Very good for combatting outbreaks of scurvy it is too

What do you do with a veggie student when the scurvy shops are shut over a bank holiday?

Best to start with some inspirational music: the sun is shining how about a bit of 60/70s drug induced mayhem yeah Kevin Ayers, the Byrds, Van der Graaf Generator, Small Faces, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane that sort of vibe is good with a bit of metal for good measure.

Anyway this recipe comes in two parts the sauce and the main dish.

For the main dish I had a pack of that mushroom protein stuff called Quorn, (but you could use chicken or shredded beef if you have to eat animals)

First thing to do is make a marinade so after opening a nice bottle of Abbot Ale, full of malty goodness (I've often wondered what is the nature of goodness with regard to food, but then life is really too short for all that), I sloshed a load of soy sauce in a dish with some chopped chilis (I think I used three) an inch of chopped ginger root, half a head of chopped garlic before I realised that I had no sherry in the house to finish it off, you could use sugar and water if you need to but I think that is really too desperate, fortunatly I had some Spanish brandy (which is matured in Sherry casks after all) so I sloshed about a glass of it into the marinade and then the same into me (had to be sure it tasted right), then bunged the Quorn in it to soak for about an hour.

Next the satay sauce dead easy this, half a jar of crunchy Peanut butter, juice of a lime, a tiny bit of Chili oil (I used some from a jar of Mr Naga's chili paste I got at our local farmers market) and enough water to make it into a loose paste, just stir it over a low heat, ready in just minutes

For the main dish fry one or two onions and some garlic with some Chinese five spice seasoning till the onions soften, add a punnet of chopped mushrooms with a dash of soy to help the juice come out then tip in the quorn with the marinade and wallop up the heat to boil most of the liquid away.

This was served on a bed of basmati rice with the peanut sauce on the side of the plate to dip the quorn chunks in.

We had this for lunch with a bottle of Cava in the garden lovely.

Now Saturday morning we were running short on supplies so Mrs F cast me ashore from the jolly boat and I went to see what was sale on the keyside.

Mr Sainsbury the local grocer sold me some shelled king prawns, bean shoots, fresh coriander, manzanilla sherry, onions, some limes, mushrooms and garlic so I stashed them away in my ditty bag with the essentials, (Kentucky bourbon £10 a bottle um nice, Peach Schnaps and a litre and a half of Soave)

Back aboard I opened a bottle of Fullers Honeydew to get me in the mood, lovely light golden bitter, and knocked up a marinade of a glass of the sherry about the same amount of soy sauce, juice of one lime (a good scorbutic don't want any shipmates getting scurvy!) a teaspoon of honey (I used a thick Greek honey that we have for breakfasts), two teaspoons of chopped ginger (I'd normally chop up a bit of fresh ginger but Mr Sainsbury is moving all his veg around to prevent shoppers from finding his treasure too easy, so I had to use the stuff from a jar) a teaspoon of Mr Naga's excellent hot chilli sauce (couldn't find the fresh chillis either, but I'd suggest two chopped fresh ones)and four chopped garlic cloves. Chucked the pack of shelled prawns into the pot and left them for about half an hour or so.

So on to the cooking, I fried one chopped onion with some garlic and Chinese five spice seasoning in some olive oil added a punnet of Cherry tomatoes that I found in the fridge, fried them until they went squishy and then squashed them nice and easy to extract the juice, then threw in the chopped mushrooms and let them cook down a bit too, adding their juice to the liquor, adding the coriander leaves as I stripped them from the stalks, then chucked in the prawns,marinade and the bean sprouts and cooked on a high heat for a few minutes to concentrate the flavour. I think the total cooking time end to end was about 15-20 minutes

I served this on basmati rice to soak up the rich tomatoey sauce with the chilled Soave

Soundtrack: Rob Zombie, the Ruts, Rod Stewart, the Misfits, Pop will Eat Itself, Muddy Waters, Cream, Daniele Dax, Motorhead, Sisters of Mercy and Roky Erikson

By the time you thirsty pirates read this it will be nearly Friday night and its time to splice the mainbrace once again after putting up with almost a weeks worth of crap at work.

Try this Long Island Iced Tea

First put on some nice relaxing Friday sounds, I recommend Patti Smith, The Cramps, Blue Oyster Cult, Sabbath, Motorhead or the Rammones just to mellow things out.

Get a pint pot and pour in a slug of Gin, a slug of Tequila, a slug of White Rum, a slug of Vodka and a slug of Triple Sec (if you can't get this Grand Mariner or Cointreau will do just as well, it ain't exactly civilised). As far as how big a slug it should be, its up to you, I guess it depends on how soon you are likely to pass out, but it is important that all the slugs are about the same size as each other. Chuck in some ice and top up with diet Coke Well the Walrus has to watch his waistline you know.

This makes a good welcome drink for social occasions with some of those nice red chile crisps, feta cheese or some deli olives.

After that you should be mellow enough to watch the sunset and wait for the foxes to start barking, noisy bastards! So why not slip on some Roky Erikson, Edgar Broughton or if your feeling freaky how about the good Captain, Beefheart that is, he liked a woman who liked long necked bottles and a big head on her beer!

Roll on

Ar with those days getting longer there's nothing better than sitting on the poop deck with a cocktail so here is Petty Officer Walrus's margherita

First put on Gloria Estefan's Mi Tiera or some Ruben Gonzales or maybe some Astor Piazzolla to get you in the mood.

Sprinkle some salt on a plate, then take a fresh lime, cut it in half and rub the lime round the rim of a nice big Martini glass. Then coat the rim with a frosting of salt, easiest way to do this is to turn the glass upside down and roll the rim in the salt.

Then add a good slug of Tequila or Mezcal, (It does not matter if its white or gold either is good) add about as much Triple Sec. My favoured brand is Kalper from Spain, we always used to buy it in the Canary Islands, before you were banned from taking liquids through airport security it was about 6 Euros for a litre, difficult to get in the UK though and the Dutch stuff is a bit too cloyingly sweet for my liking, but you can also use Grand Mariner or Cointreau if you like.

Then squeeze the rest of the juice of the lime on the top and drink. Good with salty nibbles like nuts, anchovy croutons or little chunks of chorizo

Enjoy

OK Shipmates this is how you make them.

Pour yourself a pint of Batemans Spring Breeze, um lovely.

This is for four people so you will need four beef tomatoes, four red peppers and an aubergine. Chop off the stalk of the aubergine and throw it away (the stalk that is)slice it along the top, scoop out the flesh and soak in some salt water to remove the bitterness.

While the aubergine is soaking slice the top off and core the peppers, then do the same with the tomatoes, only save the flesh and liquid in a bowl and leave the tomatoes upended on a plate.

Then roast the contents of a small bag of pine nuts in a skillet and set aside for the filling. Turn on the oven so it gets nice and hot.

To make the filling fry about six cloves of garlic and two onions until they are soft. Chop up some fresh dill and mint. bung it in the pan with the onions add the chopped up aubergine flesh, the tomato guts and liquid and the pine nuts and half a pack of arboreo rice (the kind you use for a risotto or paella)give it a stir and leave for a bit while you arrange the tomatoes, peppers and the augergine on the grill pan and fill any spaceswith sliced potato, fill up the veg with the mixture. Mix up a can of tomato puree with about a pint of water and ladel over the top of the veg until it covers the layer of spuds, them place the tops of the veg back on their heads and bung in the oven for about 40 minutes, occsionally basting with some of the tomato water so the spuds don't carbonise.

This is good with beer or white wine, especially retsina for that authentic Greek flavour and maybe some ouzo and water as an aperitif.

Music well aside from the Damned, Motorhead, Hawkwind, Vanessa Mae, Cliff Richard (Move It, none of the recent rubbish)REM, Wishbone Ash, Yes, the Saints (G'Day boys), Jesus and Mary Chain, White Stripes, Kaiser Chiefs, ZZ Top and Siouxsie we had a bit of gay disco boogie with the weather girls and Gloria Gaynor....It could have been Mykonos

Music is an essential part of Petty Officer Walrus's galley drill, for the pasta thanks to Siouxsie and the Banshees, Lynryrd Skynrd, Albert King, Nina Simmone, Joy Division, Bob Marley, Howlin Wolf, Black Sabbath, the Zombies (sublime voice Mr Blunstone) Jimi Hendrix, Chelsea, Bad Company, Atomic Rooster, Detroit Cobras, Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, Thea Gilmore, ZZ Top, the Kinks, the Who and Gary Moore.

We have a vegetarian friend of mini pirate wench Moff coming to stay so watch out for my Greek style stuffed vegetables I'm about to cook later today.

We had Captain Nick and his crew round today I had to rustle up some lunch for 5 and a half hungry pirates.

I don't do weights and measures in the galley so all quantities are approximate

First drink a pint of rough cider this isn't crucial to the recipe it was just part of our booty from the west country Arrgh.

Bung some olive oil in the pan and soften up three chopped onions, three chopped chile peppers and half a head of chopped garlic, grind in some black pepper, then rip the leaves off a pack of fresh basil chuck in, chop up six chicken breasts into say inch cubes and chuck them in as you go giving it all a good stir. When they have sealed chuck in some sliced mushrooms, I find a big punnet from the supermarket will do for this many people, chuck in some soy sauce and let this lot cook down until there is plenty of liquid out of the mushrooms sloshing around in the pan, then add a jar of pesto, I used red but green is OK. Any brand of pesto will do, but supermarket pesto is as good as any branded product.

Now open a pint botttle of Adnams Broadside lovely bitter with nice toffee nose and not too hoppy finish, then open a bottle of wine drink some of it to make sure its nice Arrrgh and then chuck it the pan, the wine that is not the bottle (health and safety notice). I used a bottle of Sainsbury's cheapo white wine from European sources, not exactly vintage, but only £2.10 for a bottle, quite fruity and a bit sweet for drinking but it complemented the chile and other flavours well enough in the sauce.

Let it simmer away for a bit say long enough to finish the Broadside off then chuck in about a third of a kilogram pack of spiral pasta and let it bubble away until it becomes al dente. bung on a plate with some shaved Parmesan cheese, its worth buying some real cheese not that Italian style cheese rubbish they have in tubs in the supermarket that smells like feet that someone has ralphed over.

I served this up with some brocoli spears that had just been dunked briefly in boiling water so they were still nice and crisp and a bottle of chilled Sainsbury's Soave, the one and half litre kind as they crew were very thirsty.

This was folowed by a box of Brewsters Irish chocolate, coffee and some Spanish Brandy and then the washing up and a kip, as the scurvy crew went out for a quick pillage in Epping Forest

Ingredients

(serves 2 as main meal or 4 if starter)

I large potato peeled and cubed
1 large onion peeled and sliced
Half a head of garlic cloves peeled and sliced
1 large chopped green chili
Paprika to taste
Olive oil
A pint and a half of Stock
4 bay leaves
15 oz can of canelini, fageoli, black eyed peas or mixed beans drained
hand full of conchligliette (tiny shell shaped pasta)
Good couple of twists of black pepper.

Method:

Fry the potato onion and garlic in the olive oil with the chili and paprika till onion and potato are going transparent add the stock and bay leaves and boil for a bit 20 mins or so, till potato is thrououghly cooked and soup begins to look thick. Then add the beans and the handful of conchigliette and boil for another 10 mins or so. Prior to serving top with a few good twists of black pepper and serve with crusty bread.

NB
If you are not vegetarian you can add bacon or chorizo bits to the frying stage this makes a nice addition to the soup.

Alternatively you can omit the paprika and add tuna fish instead also very tasty.

Evening shipmates

This is the real Ships Cook, not his ghost (oooweeooo!) writer so pin back those lugholes.

after a busy day discovering how everyone had missed me so much at work and an evening spent writing a feature on Britain's wonderful birdlife (tweet tweet) I'm ready to splice the mainbrace so here we go

Take a nice big cocktail glass and put a drop of angoustura bitters in it, swirl it around then add a massive slug of gin, none of that Gordons rubbish use Bombay Saphire, Tanquray or my favourite Plymouth Navy Gin, then add a spalsh of Noily Pratt Vermouth, not too much mind and bung in an olive, perfect Martini yum yum. Try it with a silver skin pickled onion and its a Gibson well thats enough for now folks tune in for more recipes, rants and recomendations from the galley in a couple of days when I get back from the West Country Oh Ar, Oh Ar