Today we are five weeks into my ten-week cruise. I asked Silver Moon officers our maximum latitude south, and was informed that after Ushuaia, on our way to the Falkland Islands, we got a far south as 55deg. I was impressed, but then compared my southern hemisphere travels to my northern. I lived in northern England for a time and traveled as far north as Edinburgh, which is almost at 56deg north. Sometimes I forget:

• How much of Earth’s landmass is in the northern hemisphere
• How much the Gulf Stream keeps northern Europe habitable

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Today in cooking class we make mushroom empanadas and shrimp chowder. The menu is for crab, but the ship didn’t have enough to share with S.A.L.T., so shrimp it is.

This time we made the dough, but used oil rather than butter or lard as it is a local recipe. While waiting for the dough to rest/rise, we diced the onions, thinly sliced the mushrooms and seasoned them with merken and thyme. We only have one burner, so we set aside the empanada filling and worked on the shrimp dish.

I sliced the shrimp into bite-size pieces and sautéed the onions and oregano, then added the shrimp and milk. After a few minutes added heavy cream and removed from heat. Since we are cooking single-serve amounts, we spooned all this into a bowl and topped with gruyere cheese and placed in the small S.A.L.T. kitchen oven – our chef calls it the “Easy Bake Oven”.

Rather than baking the empanadas (since we are already baking the chowder), we fried them in oil. I’m not normally a lots-of-mushrooms fan but combined with the spices the empanada was pretty good. I’d rather have sausage in there, but it was still edible.