OLAF NORDSTROM is a bartender/writer/fisherman/carpenter/philosopher/sailor/substitute teacher/survivor/raconteur of little repute who hails originally from the shorelines of Cape Cod.
    After forsaking nearly everything which was his (including his own name), he set up life aboard his sailboat, SV Victorious Egret, then took a bearing south by southwest to gunkhole among the Elizabeth Islands. Much of what little time he spends ashore each summer is usually around the docks and bars of Woods Hole on the Cape, as well as those on Nantucket and the Vineyard.
     Not one to drop his anchor for long, though, Nordstrom eventually sets course in the late autumn to head even further south to Crab Key, where he spends the season cooking, eating, drinking, fishing, sailing, reading, writing, playing his saxophone, and spending as little time working as the rest of the world will allow.
     Since sometime in the early 1970s, he has been holder of the Guinness Book of World Records, as well as the writer of The Essential Book of Boat Drinks & Assorted Frozen Concoctions, The Margaritaville Cookbook, and Things You Know by Heart: 1001 Questions from the Songs of Jimmy Buffett. Recently, he completed Jimmy’s Buffet: Food for Feeding Friends & Feeding Frenzies, and now he is working on The Essential Book of Tequila.
     Needless to say, Nordstrom loves the now.

FOR MORE THAN A DECADE, the hardcover edition of this Parrothead favorite has been available only at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville stores, as well as through their website. But now this fifth edition of The Essential Book of Boat Drinks has not only been updated, but also expanded in a softcover format. You don't need to own either a boat or a blender to enjoy the stuff in this book. All you need to know are a few good songs by heart.

JIMMY BUFFETT DIDN’T WRITE THIS BOOK, but he most certainly set out most of the menu in his writings and his lyrics. Accepting the advice of Mark Twain to “write hat you know about,” immy has spent more than forty years telling us quite a bit of what he knows: the places he’s been, the books he’s read, the stuff he’s imbibed, and, yes, even the food that he’s eaten. And believe me, it’s more than just big kosher pickles and sponge cake.
     From peanut butter and popcorn to paté foie de gras, Jimmy has set out quite a buffet for those fans who tend to eat up his every word. And as a literary remora of sorts, feeding off the crumbs of Jimmy’s writings, I decided to tinker with some of Twain’s other thoughts and came up with this corollary: There ain’t anything that is so interesting to eat as a meal that Bubba has written about. So, I’ve gone over all the songs and the books to make a catalogue of all that food.
     When I was done, I read back through my list and tossed out some of the extremes in his taste. For example, the can of sardines in “The Peanut Butter Conspiracy,” as well as the cucumber and tomato sandwiches from his bestselling, A Pirate Looks at Fifty. Then, I avoided most impulses to come up with (m)any Buffettesque names for stuff, so you won’t find any Riddles in the Sandwich or Tiramisu So Badly or Caribbean Sole. For the most part, then, the final buffet consists of tastes you’d be likely to find from a vagabond whose work has kept him comfortably in the tropics. To be sure, there is the occasional foray to New Orleans, Nantucket, and even to France, but much of this diet tends to linger among those little latitudes. So, it’s sort of like swallowing the equator, and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what our friend has recounted for us over the years.
     Now and then, Jimmy says that he’s going to write a cookbook of his own someday, but I really don’t see that anywhere on the horizon. Not that he wouldn’t be able to do it, but when would he ever find the time? So, ’til that day, this collection will just have to do.

O l a f  N o r d s t r o m
Adrift on a full moon tide
1 March 2010