A very casual seersucker slacks and white OCBD, web canvas belt, white bucks… just another option for the polo shirt/khakis crowd…. (forgive the wrinkles, I was in too much of a rush today…)

(Passport Holder from Amazon.com)

We just got our passports; what a gift. A great way to feel more sophisticated, ready to travel at the drop of a hat, and in our cases, more American. Travel does that to us. As wonderful as we find visiting other countries, we return that much more in awe of our system of government.

A case in point. Just after graduating from College, I took a trip to visit a friend who was with the Peace Corps in West Africa. Three weeks in the bush, while no picnic, was something that most tourists don’t get to do and which I will never forget.

A couple of moments do stand out, I “shook the hand of the mango man as he met me at the border…” for a true Jimmy Buffet moment. Then there was the incident at the Côte d’Ivoire airport (this was back in the late 1980’s) and the kindness of a Canadian gentleman who got me onto an Air France plane when more diplomatic means failed. Oh, and the time our bush taxi was stopped at a checkpoint in-country and the boy with a machine gun demanded my passport. I feigned to not understand French, took off my sunglasses, held my passport through the window and didn’t let go. We were eventually waved through when an older guard misidentified me as a diplomat.

You see, my passport was wrapped in a leather passport cover like the one above.

Highly recommended and very elegant if traveling this summer.

I think that the problem with owning a yacht would be avoiding the hordes of old “friends” who suddenly decide to look you up while you’re docked in the harbour at St-Tropez or off Cap d’Antibes. No, that’s just not for me. I’d have to turn over the deck to the party and slip off with Mrs. E. for a quiet evening overlooking the water, somewhere like the place pictured above in Nice.

And what would we order? Summer, sand, sea…. makes me want to have shrimp.

Here is a particularly good recipe from dinner last Saturday night (thanks S&K!). Of course, I monkeyed around with it a little, but I don’t think it suffered from my interference.

A Summer Seafood Cocktail For 6

24 extra large shrimp or Prawns. Steamed.

1 lb of jumbo lump crabmeat.

Combine in a food processor or blender:
1 cup of mayonnaise.
1 teaspoon of grated onion
Juice of 1 lemon (use half for the remoulade, save half for later)
1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
Sea salt and cracked pepper
1 red pepper, roasted, seeded, peeled and puréed
1 clove garlic, puréed into the red pepper
1 green onion, minced
2 tablespoons of prepared horseradish
1 tablespoon of drained, minced capers
1/4 cup of minced parsley
2 teaspoons of chopped dill or sweet pickles.
1 tablespoon of olive oil
dash of Worcestershire sauce
dash of cayenne or a hot sauce.

Chill for an hour or two to blend.

1/2 dozen fresh, ripe, Roma tomatoes (or others, seeded and diced)
sprinkled with salt and pepper.

3 avocados, peeled, chopped and doused with the rest of the lemon juice.

Assemble in martini glasses beginning with:

The chopped avocado
Top with the lump crabmeat (you may make it into a crabmeat salad as you would with tuna salad)
Add the remoulade
Sprinkle with fresh parsley
Top with the diced tomatoes
Arrange 4 prawns (shrimp) around the lip of the glass.

And open the champagne, or a White Burgundy, or a dry Riesling. This would also make a perfect light lunch.