When Captains Jon & Annie took over stewardship of the Schooner J&E Riggin in winter of 1997/1998, as part of the package of boat and business, they inherited a one page website; that winter they upgraded to a multi-page site. A lot had changed on the web since 1989. Even 10 years later changes were still happening as travelers researched their vacations more online and less in traditional print – and it hasn’t slowed down since.

It was 7 years before the website would be worked on again. With the launch of a new and updated website in 2005 they were looking good on the web.

It’s now 6 years later. Looking back at the first website we laugh at how outdated it looks. Websites have come a long way since they first started appearing in the early ’90′s. As we went into this project we took years of notes, comments and recommendations into consideration. We wanted to make something functional, easy to navigate – a website that showcased the historic schooner, delectable food, breathtaking scenery and the camaraderie that is a huge part of our windjammer vacations. We hope you find this new site both helpful and easy to use.

What we love most about this site, it’s not just one thing. We love that every photo on the site was taken by one of our passengers; we love reading all the letters and emails you send us with comments and compliments about your sailing vacation and that now line the right side of every web page; we love the new colors reflect the warm feeling we get when you step aboard; and we love that we’re able to keep doing what we’re doing because you come back to sail with us time and again and recommend us to your friends and family (over 65% of you every year)!

So go have a look at the new Maine Windjammer website and let us know what you think.

Starting this week we will be playing ‘Boat BINGO’. We started out doing this with just our Facebook fans but then realized there are so many more of you that are not on Facebook but might love playing along. So here it is. The game is very simple. Listed below are 50 nautical terms. You pick 15, any 15 and email them to me (elizabeth@MaineWindjammer.com) be sure to keep a note of your 15 words to mark off as they come up. And please put Boat BINGO in the subject line of your email. All emails must be received by midnight Tuesday April 26th.

Starting on Wednesday April 27th Annie will pick 2 words from the list of 50 every work day (M-F). Annie will not know who has chosen which words so bribes are useless We will post the 2 words on our Facebook wall and mark them on the list below for those of you not on Facebook.

The first person to mark all 15 of their words AND post the phrase “Riggin Rocks” on our Facebook wall and/or in the blog comment section will win baked goods from Annie. You’ll be able to choose 2 items from a list Annie is compiling (items that can be easily transported by mail).

Have fun! We’re excited and hope you are too!

Aloft
Anchor
Ballast
Belaying Pin
Captain
Coachwhipping
Crosstrees
Davy Jones
Ditty Box
EPIRB

Even Keel
Fiddler’s Green
Fo’c’sle
Galley
Gellywatte
Gunkholing
Hawse Pipe
Headway
Inboard
Irish Hurricane

Jacobs Ladder
Junction Buoy
Killick
King Post
Let Fly
Luff Up
Marlinspike
Monkey Fist
Neptune
North Wind

Oakum
On the Wind
Poseidon
Prow
Ratlines
Rogue Knot
Scuttlebutt
Shiver My Timbers!
Transom
Turk’s Head

Under Bare Poles
Unfurl
Vessel
Voyage
Water Breaker
Winch
Yarn
Yawl Boat
Zephyr
Zincs

We are very sorry to report that we missed National Peanut Butter & Jelly Day on April 2nd.

Why did we get on the topic of all this? Well it turns out that today, April 11th,  is National Cheese Fondue Day, as we discovered when checking into with our Twitter community this morning. I guess we were a little ahead of the curve with our March e-newsletter when Annie wrote about how she used to have Fondue as a birthday dinner. So in “honor” of this “special” holiday we would like to share with you Annie’s recipe for Beer & Cheese Fondue.

Beer and Cheddar Fondue

1 1/4 cups beer (the rest of the bottle is for the cook!)
2 cloves garlic
4 cups grated cheddar cheese
2 dashes white pepper
4 dashes paprika
1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Serve with:
1 pound grilled or broiled Italian Sausage
Crusty French bread or focaccia
1 to 2 pounds steamed carrots, broccoli and cauliflower combined
1 1/2 pounds steamed red potatoes
Baby dill pickles
1 or 2 pears or apples, sliced

Prepare the bread, vegetables and potatoes first.  Once they are ready, in a medium fondue pot, bring the beer and garlic cloves to a simmer.  Meanwhile toss the grated cheese with the pepper, paprika and flour.  Slowly add to the simmering beer and stir with a wooden spoon.  When all of the cheese is incorporated, add the Dijon mustard.  Remove the garlic cloves and serve.

Serves 4-6

Variations on Fondue:
It may seem that the streams begin to get completely crossed here, as fondue was originally a French/European dish.  On the other hand, it’s basically melted cheese and we’ve already messed with tradition by using beer and cheddar cheese rather than the traditional wine, kirsch and Gruyere or Emmenthaler.

Onions and caraway:
Sauté 1/2 cup diced onions in 1 tablespoon butter.  When they are translucent, add 1-2 tablespoons of caraway seeds.  Toast the caraway seeds in the onions and butter for 1 or 2 minutes or until they become fragrant.  Follow the rest of the fondue instructions as is.

Serve with rye bread instead of white bread and serve with cornichons instead of baby dill pickles.

Ancho chili:
Soften an Ancho chili in 1/2 cup hot water for 30 minutes.  Remove seeds and stem.  Chop finely with a knife and add to the simmering beer.  Follow the rest of the fondue instructions.

Use linguisa for the sausage.  Add to the vegetables cut red and yellow bell peppers.

Italian:
Substitute Gorgonzola and Fontina for the cheddar cheese and white wine for the beer.  Use grilled vegetables such as bell peppers and mushrooms in place of one or two of the steamed ones.

Leftover Mix:
If you have several different little bits of cheese hanging out in your refrigerator, fondue is the perfect use for them.  Make sure they are cheeses that go together such as blue cheese, Fontina, Parmesan and Asiago OR Gruyere, Emmenthaler and Swiss.

From Windjammer News /It’s All About the Food™: March 2011
Copyright © 2008 Baggywrinkle Publishing, Anne Mahle
For more recipes from Chef Annie visit her food blog at www.AtHomeAtSea.com

While I’m not going to spend time talking about how to use store bought dressing or packaged products in your meals, I also think it’s fine if your refrigerator door sports a few bottles of store bought dressing.  It’s just that for the purposes of this post, I don’t want to teach you how to use them.  I’d rather teach you how to do it right and then have you decide whether to take a shortcut or not.  I’d rather you use fresh vegetables from a farm stand, but if you happen to use frozen green beans instead, they are still green and good for you.

We want dinner to be easy and healthy and yet, as a culture, our buying choices show that we are willing to sacrifice healthy for the easy and the quick – the large frozen food sections in the grocery store and the fast food joints that pop up all over our communities are a testament to that.  I’m here to say that it doesn’t have to be hard and it doesn’t have to cost a lot to feed your family healthy, easy food.  You do, however, need to be willing to give it some attention before 5:30 or 6:00 rolls around and your family (and you) are tired and hungry.  You do need to plan just the tiniest bit so you have the ingredients on hand to make your healthy dinner.  As far as budget choices go, I’d bet that it doesn’t cost any more to buy fresh vegetables, dairy and protein as it does to buy Lean Cuisine, Stouffers or fast food burgers.

I also hear often enough that buying fresh vegetables and proteins (I call this shopping the perimeter of the grocery store) is more expensive than fast food, but I’m not convinced that this is actually true.  If a family of four spends $150 per week on groceries from the perimeter of the store, we’ve got healthy and not too expensive.  Compare that to, just for sake of argument, seven nights of $20 pizza or McDonald’s.  That’s $140 without eating breakfast, lunch or a snack.  I’ll grant you that getting out of the grocery store for less than $200 per week takes planning and focus, but I know it’s possible as it happens every week in my house.

This meal is one that you should be able to get on the table in less than 45 minutes.  Start with the risotto and once that’s going, move on to the shrimp.  Toss a salad and you are good to go.  If it seems to rich for your family’s taste, you can omit the butter at the end of the shrimp recipe.

Maine Shrimp with Lemon and Capers

1 pound Maine shrimp
4 tablespoons minced garlic (half for marinade and half for saute)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup capers
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup white wine
2 tablespoons butter

In a medium-sized bowl, combine gently with your hands the shrimp, 2 teaspoons minced garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and add the marinated shrimp.  Sauté for 4 minutes or until one side of the shrimp turns pink.  Toss or stir with a wooden spoon and add the capers, white wine and lemon juice.  Bring to a boil and cook until the shrimp is almost all pink.  Remove from heat and add the butter.  Swirling the pan to incorporate or using a wooden spoon.

Serve immediately with risotto.

Serves 4-6

Parsley Risotto

4 tablespoons butter, 1/2 stick
1/2 cup diced onion
2 cups Arborio rice
4 to 5 cups low-salt chicken stock
1/8 teaspoon salt
pinch of white pepper
1/4 cup minced flat leaf parsley
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.  Add the onions and sauté until the onions are translucent, about 10 minutes.  If the onions begin to brown, reduce heat.  When the onions are done, add the rice and stir for one minute.  Add the salt, pepper and 1 cup of the stock and stir.  Continue to add the stock, one cup at a time until it is all incorporated, stirring frequently.  The rice is done when the liquid is completely incorporated and the grains are just the tiniest bit al dente in the center.  Add all of the parsley and 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, reserving the second 1/2 cup for garnishing at the table.  Serve immediately.

Serves 4-6

From Windjammer News /It’s All About the Food™: February 2011
Copyright © 2008 Baggywrinkle Publishing, Anne Mahle
For more recipes from Chef Annie visit her food blog at www.AtHomeAtSea.com

It wasn’t a surprise to see that it was a tie for favorite character between Abby and Gibbs (42% each), while no one likes Vance.

As far as a supporting character you enjoy – Mike Franks (Gibbs’ former boss), Caitlin Todd (Kate – killed off at the end of Season 2), Jenny Shepard (former, now deceased, NCIS director), and Jackson Gibbs (Jethro’s father). I was surprised to see no one mentioned Agent Tobias Fornell (now a friend of Gibbs and always a source of fun and awkwardness when he appears). It was fun to read everyone responses. Two actually stuck out to us….one is that one of our reader’s daughters is in the Navy and has been an extra on the show!! The other is that someone took the time to write in “I hope they all die”- the office got quite a chuckle out of that one!

Eighty-three percent of you who took part in the poll said you’d be interested in participating in other random polls. With that said – here is the next one!

What is in your freezer?

Want to help out? You can sign up to knit your own squares and gather pledges for them or you could sponsor our squares. At the conclusion of the fundraiser one special blanket will be auctioned off, and a trip for two aboard your choice of the J&E Riggin’s knitting cruises (3 days in June or 6 days in September) will be raffled off. All knitters and sponsors will be eligible for entry in the raffle! You will have until March 26th to knit and collect pledges.

As an added bonus Hope Spinnery (a wind powered spinnery making yarn from local sheep) has offered up to 50% off their yarn selection to anyone knitting for Ashwood. (Just mention you are knitting for the Ashwood Knit-A-Thon).

If you’d like to sign up to knit or sponsor us in knitting squares, please send us an email or give us a call.

Here’s how to participate:

To pledge Annie, Chloe & Ella’s squares email us at info@mainewindjammer.com. If you’d like to knit and gather pledges print out the pledge form and start gathering pledges for your knitted squares. Then start knitting.

If you are knitting here’s what you need to know. 

Knitting Instructions:

8-inch square
#9 US needles
Cast on 30 stitches
Knit each row until you have a square*
Bind off
**weave in ends**
* to see if you have a square, lay your knitting on a flat surface with the needle holding the working yarn at the top. Take the bottom, left corner and fold it diagonally up to the top, right of the knitting. This will form a triangle. If you have two, even triangles on top of each other – or if the top and right edges line up with no extra peeking out – then you have a square.

8-inch square
Larger needles and/or larger yarn
Use the same pattern but cast on fewer stitches
Smaller needles or smaller yarn
Use the same pattern but cast on more stitches

- Use only natural fiber yarn
- you are welcome to knit patterns into your squares
- your squares do not have to match each other
- worsted weight to bulky weight is better than really thin or really thick yarn 

We hope that you help make this a successful fundraiser for the school.

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How many of you are NCIS fans? We know, completely random and having nothing to do with the boat, but all of us here in the Riggin office are huge fans. So just for fun we’ve set up this poll to see how many of you are NCIS fans, like we are are.

The short poll will record the first 100 answers and well let you know the results in an upcoming blog post. If we find that there are a lot of you out there, we may have to start a group in the Riggin Online community so we can all discuss!

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Now we need your help. For the first time the National Park Service will name a Fan Favorite based on popular vote. We are asking, pretty please, that you follow this link to vote for Rockland! 

Can we count on you?

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The photo here is of Captains Jon and Noah in costume and full make-up ready to go. The series starts with the first part “After the Mayflower” on Monday so be sure to check your local listings for the time. 

Annie
Smiling at a familiar face

© 2009 Maine Adventure Sails