We have Chicken in Vermouth when our family calendar is marked with two letters and a laughing smiley. There are also days marked with a crying one. The letters are the initials of my dearest, obvious what the emojis stand for: Signing off and on, that’s how it is called in shipping terms. It means to come home and to go aboard a ship. Today the emoji is beaming in our calendar! Time for Chicken in Vermouth!

My beloved captain comes home! Finally! Some months of service lie behind us. We could shorten this time a bit with my ten day’s visit on board. At least. Now he is sitting in the airplane and I am heading off to meet him at the airport. Always the same excitement before I leave: What clothes to take on, hopefully there will not be any traffic jam, the brown handbag or the black one, is everything tidy and prepared? Our children always are amused about my excitement. I am much too early at the airport as often before and it takes endless moments until the sliding doors open and release him into his vacations. A little bit like in those dating show called Herzblatt [sweetheart], if anybody recalls it.

Driving back home from the airport I have always to concentrate on driving to avoid red traffic lights and not to make a wrong turn. Although we talk to each other almost daily via telephone, it is always exciting to be together again and to talk face to face. High potential for being distracted…

In culinary terms intense weeks lie ahead now. To be honest, my cooking is more costly and experimental when our family is complete. And, of course, we have much more guests during vacations than the other time. That’s exactly the difficulty in living with a seafarer, long separations followed by a few weeks fully packed with everything possible. Our agenda always is a tight time schedule.

And what does the Captain’s wife cook the day of his coming home from sea? Of course! The same dish she prepared the day he was invited fort he very first time for dinner, what else? Chicken in vermouth-cream!