April is always an action packed month and this year is no exception. The weather has been really crazy with hot days, cold days, sun, rain, fog, hail and tornadoes. Through it all there have been beautiful flowering trees and plants and a whole bunch of sporting events.
This year the Master's golf tournament and the Family Circle Women's Professional Tennis Tournament happened to be the same week. Today is the final day of play for both tournaments and we'll be going back and forth this afternoon to see what happens. We'll see if Rory McIllroy can win his first Master's at the tender age of 21 and if #1 ranked Caroline Wozniacki can beat unseeded Elena Vesnina.
I made my annual pilgrimage with Susan to watch tennis during Wednesday's rounds of the Family Circle Cup. We saw several top seeds playing singles and decided that Wozniacki was our favorite to win the tournament. Wozniacki is from Denmark but lives in Monaco. She is always smiling and cute but has a powerful tennis game. Her serve, like many of the other women, is often over 100 mph. And she seldom double faults. The sound of the tennis balls moving back and forth with the power and speed of these professional players is like fireworks.
We watched seeded American player Bethanie Mattek-Sands upset by unseeded Elena Vesnina. We were pulling for Bethanie since she was one of the few Americans in the tournament. It was powerful tennis, but there were some other interesting aspects to the match. Bethanie had the match won several times but just couldn't make it happen. It was like she couldn't stay focused. She was decked out in Under Armour and blacked under her eyes like a football or baseball player. She had on knee socks like a soccer player. No wonder she couldn't stay focused on tennis. We were having trouble ourselves. Susan worried about knee sock tan lines. I am a big Under Armour fan but they might want to go back to the drawing board on tennis gear.
Vesnina is from Russia and we learned a new word from her. After working hard for a winning point, tennis players sometimes yell, "Come ON!" This is a cheer and an affirmation. But, when Vesnina won a hard fought point she yelled, "VishNYE!" This may or may not be the proper spelling. In fact it may or may not be an actual word. But we all enjoyed watching Vesnina win an incredible point and then yell "VishNYE!"
The Family Circle Trip always includes lots of fun in the low country. This year we took a carriage ride in Charleston. There were 15 of us in a carriage with a very knowledgable guide named Matt and a very well trained horse named Bill. Bill took us through the Battery Area while Matt took us through about 350 years of history - Pre-Revolutionary War through Post Civil War. A Charleston carriage ride was on my bucket list of things to do and I couldn't have enjoyed it more.
At Isle of Palms we took a sunrise walk on the beach and saw all kinds of birds, shells and jellyfish. But the most amazing thing we saw were hundreds of starfish. I have never seen so many starfish at one time. They were all shapes, sizes, and colors. I googled them later and learned that there are over 2000 types of starfish in the world. And that they aren't really fish. They have an interesting life including being able to regenerate limbs.
We had some great food on the trip, but the recipe we wanted to copy was at Ali Baba. We had been there before and it was just as good the second time. The Mediterranean food tastes so fresh and flavorful. I tried grilled vegetables, greek salad and tuna salad. The tuna salad is really light and we found out it is put together with a tiny bit of olive oil, light lite mayo, and lemon juice. They also minced up a lot of other ingredients like black olives, artichoke hearts and roasted red pepper. Very mediterranean flavors that were tasty and healthy to eat.
To the Ali Baba people and to whoever wins the Masters and the Family Circle Cup "VishNYE!"
Tuna Salad Ali Baba Style
This is a guess at how Ali Baba makes their tuna salad based on what they told us. Adjust portions to your own liking. It's a fair guess that Ali Baba adjusts vegetables and aromatics depending on what is in season. Mainly the salad is not real chunky and is not creamy at all. It is light and is loaded with mediterranean flavor.
Tuna packed in Water or Fresh Tuna
Black Olives, minced
Onion, minced
Roasted Red Pepper, minced
Artichoke Hearts, chopped
Other vegetables if you want but not in big chunks
Season with pepper, garlic, oregano and dill
I asked if they added yogurt which would make sense for mediterranean food, but we were told it was a very tiny touch of Lite mayo.
Drizzle a few drops of olive oil, lemon juice and then add a touch of mayo just to hold the ingredients together. Serve with warmed pita bread.
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