Croatian cuisine like the country itself was a complete mystery. It has a macho history and so I expected large slabs of meat with little concession to nouvelle cuisine.  In the north there is a strong Austrian and German influence and this is reflected in the restaurant menus. In the south the Mediterranean influence is stronger.  All the restaurants offered a varied menu and the food was well cooked and rarely was the bill more than £7 a head including drinks.

All the wine is Croatian.  No New World, no French, no Italian just Croatian.  As in the rest of the world you get what you pay for, the cheap wine is cheap but for 30 kunar it is possible to find palatable wine. Especially in the hot weather Liz and I drink cold white wine and we found a particular Croatian chardonnay that we bought whenever possible.

Large towns and cities such as Murter, Zadar and Split had large well stocked supermarkets but if you are trying to visit the islands and small anchorages then you have to shop where you can.  It is only 15 years ago that bread was sold by the slice and they swept up the crumbs and wrapped them up with your slice. Even today they will sell quarter or half loaves.

A basic range of fruit and vegetables were available although we occasionally came across well stocked boats full of the stuff. Frozen chicken and seafood were in every freezer cabinet and therefore figured in many recipes. How many ways can you cook a mixture of octopus tentacles, squid, small prawns and crab sticks?

Butchers’ shops were well stocked and the meat was top quality so we bought as much as we could preserve in our small freezer and the fridge.

Dinner menus were discussed throughout the day with everybody keen to cook or at least have their say. Four have been included so far and there are more to come.

In the Marina Betina on the island of Murter, the wind blew and I cooked risotto and liver for Liz and me.

Seafood pasta followed by fried chicken and salami made good use of the commonest stores available.

Tinned salmon makes exceptionally good fish cakes which go well with salad.

There was a good butcher on Murter so Ian got his steak dinner for his birthday.

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