Aug 2

Aug 2 Day 6: At Sea

Today, Silver Moon is at sea en route to the island of Cyprus. I start my morning at my new favorite office away from home. There is a beautiful little desk in Arts Cafe (Deck 8) that is the perfect spot for blogging and photo/video editing. The waiters here keep the hot coffee coming while I get my work done!

This morning, Rickee and I attended a lecture/cooking demonstration by Yasmin Kahn, the guest S.A.L.T. lecturer on board. Yasmin is an author, travel writer and broadcaster from London. The topic of today’s lecture is “Beyond Borders, the Food and Flavors of Cyprus”. It is a timely subject since we will be visiting Cyprus tomorrow.

Ms. Khan is enthusiastic about the food from this region and has traveled through Greece and Cyprus extensively. Her passion is obvious and infectious. We were given samples of dolma and a potato salad to taste during the lecture.

Yasmin Khan talks about the food of Cyprus

After the lecture, Rickee and I decided to have a light lunch at Kaiseki, the resident Japanese restaurant. Dinner at Kaiseki carries a $40/pp cover charge, but lunch here is complimentary. The menu offers a variety of sashimi and sushi rolls.

My Spicy Tuna Roll (below) was fresh and delicious. What you see below is a double order as there are only three pieces on a lunch order.

After lunch, we walked right across the hall to the S.A.L.T. Lab. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, S.A.L.T. stands for Sea And Land Taste and it is a new initiative by Silversea to introduce guests to the culinary diversity of the destinations to which they travel.

The S.A.L.T. Lab is a space with cooking and food prep stations where guests can get a hands-on experience at how to prepare a variety of dishes. The theme of today’s lab is “How to Mezze” where we learned how to prepare Cypriot small dishes, or “mezze”,

Today’s lab did not involve any cooking, just a little chopping and mixing of ingredients to make some delicious mezze dishes. Everyone in the class was given printed recipes so that we can make these dishes when we return home, which we definitely will.

Today’s lab only required a little chopping and mixing

At the conclusion of the lab/class we get to enjoy the fruits of our labor by tasting the mezze we made. If you are sailing on Silver Moon, attending a S.A.L.T. lab is a MUST, especially if you are interested in food.

Mezze platter with eggplant dip, sausage, hummus, et al

We were fortunate to be sailing with Yasmin Kahn and hope our paths will cross again in the future. She will be leaving Silver Moon after this sailing. But, not to worry, there will be another S.A.L.T. lecturer on board for future sailings.

We had a great time at the S.A.L.T. Lab and look forward to the next one in a couple of days. This afternoon, every guest on board had to undergo a second mandatory Covid-19 Antigen test. The test only took a few minutes and we got the news later in the evening that everyone on board tested negative!

This evening, we enjoyed an amazing dinner at La Dame, Silversea’s upscale restaurant located on Deck 8 aft. We had a table with a perfect view of the sunset. Dinner at La Dame is $60/pp and other options with wine pairings are available for an additional cost. This La Dame is much larger than on other Silversea ships and can accommodate more than 60 guests.

After dinner, we enjoyed an amazing Opera performance, “Grande Amore”, by the Voices of Silversea. We have enjoyed every show so far, but this show was at another level. And, while all of the singers in the group are excellent talents, Rhiannon Herridge, Classical Soprano, and Giovanni Palmintari, Lyric Baritone, were able to demonstrate their incredible operatic voices this evening. This show is not to be missed.