S.A.L.T. Lab

Yet another sea day today, so we signed up for a cooking class in the S.A.L.T. Lab -- those letters stand for Sea And Land Taste, and there is a wonderful kitchen set up for classes on board where you can learn how to prepare various dishes germane to the geographical areas we are sailing through. 

As we are currently cruising in Sri Lankan waters, we made two local dishes -- Maalu Paan (Triangular Fish-stuffed Bread), which is a triangle-shaped bread stuffed with fish and seeni sambol, a type of onion chutney.  It is eaten at breakfast or as a snack.  The other dish was Mithivedi (Egg Roll), crispy egg rolls, filled with mashed potatoes and a boiled egg.  Usually eaten as an evening snack.

There were only eight of us in the class, so it was very pleasant and lots of fun, although I have to admit that I'm not sure I'd make these particular recipes again -- they were tasty, but I found them quite heavy.  The egg rolls are made using a pancake batter rather than the more usual wonton wrappers.

We shared one cooking station, so Mr. W tackled the Maalu Paan, and I took over for the Mithivedi.  We made a good team!

Later on, as we were sitting out on our balcony reading, my eye was caught by movement in the water close to the ship, and there was a pod of dolphins swimming alongside!  I managed to grab one shot of a pair of them jumping (see extra).