YOU SEE: What are you, Popeye? Is that canned SPINACH?? GROSS.

I SEE: Saag paneer!

***

Once upon a time, I stocked what felt like a cross-section of the grocery store’s canned food section in the lockers. Canned potatoes, canned asparagus. Peas, beans. After all, isn’t that what real cruising sailors without a freezer are supposed to live on? Canned food? Canned food and fish you catch yourself, or (as someone on a recent WhatsApp group just posted) coconuts and canned green beans?

Apologies to those for whom such things are delicacies, but I am not among you. I wound up throwing away a depressing amount of those originally stocked cans; we just do not eat that stuff. Calypso’s canned provisions are far simpler these days, focused on items we actually use on a regular basis. Tomatoes, mostly. In places where it’s available, canned pineapple. Corn. The beans that form the basis of a lot of our meals are dried, since they take up a lot less space and weight; using a pressure cooker means I can take beans from dried-in-the-bag to “ready for the recipe” in just an hour, including time to let the pressure release naturally.

Sometimes though, it’s good to try new ingredients. And for us, canned spinach was a surprising discovery.

I’ve long said that if I had a freezer aboard, it would be stocked with mostly boneless cuts of meat and vegetables. (Okay, and a few boxes of Trader Joe’s pain au chocolat . . .) Spinach and peas specifically; after hanging out with our friends Ann and Greg on Halekai and being served the most delicious Indian food, heavy on the spinach, that spinach took a higher point on the wish list. After a few months in the Tuamotus and longing for that saag paneer (paneer is easily made from readily-available powdered milk), I sent Ann a text. Do you think canned spinach would work? Worth a try, came her response.

Not only does it work gorgeously in saag paneer, canned spinach is a revelation on the “how it looks” front. Given the fact that processing vegetables usually turns them into sad mushy versions of themselves, drowning in overly salty cloudy liquid, I was fully expecting to see spinach come out of the can as a brown sludge. The first can I bought, in fact, was a 2-lb version, since I reasoned that fully half would likely be plain liquid.

Hah! Imagine my surprise when I opened the can to find green greens, with less liquid to press out than if I’d thawed a box of chopped spinach. And while I am not sure I’d just serve heated canned spinach as a side vegetable, I would not think twice before using it in lasagna, or, as in the recipe that started this whole discovery, saag paneer.

Canned spinach, like its frozen counterpart, is available in whole leaf and chopped varieties. I have not tried the whole leaf one and don’t plan to. Open the can, drain it (there’s not a lot of liquid to drain!), and rinse it to remove any lingering “canned” flavor. I can’t say I notice any difference at all in flavor from canned or frozen spinach, and with saag paneer one of our favorite meals, canned spinach has definitely earned a spot in those food lockers aboard.

***

SAAG PANEER (or really, the saag part - if I’m not motivated to make paneer, I have been known to throw a can-equivalent or two of chick peas into the sauce)

Makes enough for 4-6

• 1 onion (or half, depending on how big it is), chopped fine

• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced

• Good inch of finely chopped fresh ginger

• 1-2 tsp cumin

• 1-2 tsp coriander (not the leafy herb, the dusty kind of dried spice)

• 1-2 tsp garam masala

• 1/2 tsp+ turmeric

• 1/2 tsp cayenne (optional)

• 1 1 lb can (not bigger!) chopped spinach - or 1-2 boxes thawed frozen -, rinsed and drained

• 2 14 oz cans diced tomatoes (I use 1 can cherry tomatoes and 1 can diced, if I have them) - no need to drain these!

INSTRUCTIONS

1. In a deep saucepan, sauté onion, garlic, ginger in 1 TBS vegetable oil until it starts to be translucent and smell pretty good.

2. Add in the spices and stir to combine with the vegetables

3. Almost immediately stir in the tomatoes and the spinach

4. Cook for at least 10 minutes, until the flavors have begun to meld (this is great made ahead)

5. OPTIONAL: buzz with an immersion blender until smooth. This will have the unfortunate result of turning it to more brown than bright green - it’s fine to leave it unblended, where the colors are a little more appetizing.

Stir in a can or two of chickpeas, or a good amount of cubed paneer (or a block of tofu or even firm mozzarella cheese) Adjust salt and heat as necessary.

I serve this over rice with fresh naan on the side; a crisp simple green salad goes well but maybe that’s a pipe dream. If I’m not using chick peas in the sauce, I might serve some sautéed chick peas on the side.

***

We’re in Huahine, French Polynesia, lockers stocked with everything necessary for a few months off-grid. It’s going to be fun to see what kind of new ingredients we’ll learn about in Tonga!

Subscribe now

YOU SEE: a pile of paper bags on the stove. Yum yum (sarcasm).

I SEE: Provisioning day!

***

We came to Tahiti this time around for one very specific reason: it’s time to reload the boat before we head off to points west.

First up is we need to figure out how much of whatever it is we’re after we already have, and then we make the shopping list. This means taking everything out of every locker, noting amounts, and comparing it to what we had the last time we did a restock of any size.

Our focus is on the items we use all the time. Bonus is when those items are “red tag”, meaning subsidized by the French government. Things like canned tomatoes, powdered milk, canned butter, rice, and pasta - all red tag. Olive oil too is a red tag item, though some brands are far more expensive than others.

From here, we’re headed to Tonga, and then New Zealand by December 1. And yes, everyone eats in both of these places, and they also eat in the places in between here and there. Cooks, Niue . . . where people live, there is food. So why are we loading up in one of the most expensive places in the world?

It’s pretty easy here to find what we need in one major supermarket. Renting a car is also a simple affair. Access to the dinghy dock that’s also near a place to park the car? Similarly easy. This is not the case in many other places.

We also subscribe to the Lin Pardey philosophy that filling the boat to the brim makes life a lot easier as you travel around. We can take advantage of local specialties happily when I’m not worried about running out of xxx that might be only available in one store, on one island.

Today was that major restock day. Armed with a detailed list broken down into likely sections of the grocery store, reusable bags and a bottle of water, we picked up the rental car (a walk from the marina) and headed off.

Three hours later, we were back at the boat with the first load. A quick lunch and unload said bags onto the cabin sole later, we loaded the dinghy with empty cases of beer to return. A different store this time was the first stop, then back to the first to fill the holes.

By 4 pm we were back on Calypso and starting the stowing portion of this exercise. Step 1 of that? Mark all the cans with the date of purchase. Follow that by emptying each locker (so any existing items get put back on top of the new ones) before refilling.

We got through about half of the stowing before we hit a wall. I couldn’t face the daunting task of accessing the deep pantry, which involves taking a lot of stuff out of the regular pantry. Instead, that will happen tomorrow. For now all that stuff is on the port side settee.

***

You might think that cooking dinner after a day of shopping for all kinds of delicious foods would be a snap and much-looked-forward to. Not so much. It’s exhausting to spend all day shopping, with 2 trips out to the boat (about a mile dinghy ride in rough waves) included. If you can’t go out or call for takeout, having some “cheater meals” ready to go will save your sanity. You can also plan one of those meals in the provisioning process - tonight for us was burgers (the patties were in the freezer section), french fries (similarly in the freezer section), on bought buns. Yes, we had to cook and clean up, but there was nothing arduous or creative about it.

Saving the fresh chicken for tomorrow night, where it will become I have no idea. Because I’m too tired to think about it.

***

Cheater meals

Some of my favorite cheater meals!

• chicken curry using a jarred curry sauce

• spaghetti with jarred sauce

• rotisserie chicken from the store, served with salad and baguette

• Any leftovers from the night or day before (you could make an extra batch of xxx if you know you’re heading to provisioning day!)

• cheese and crackers

  

Subscribe now

You see: waffles (ON A BOAT???)

I see: sometimes rules are meant to be broken.

***

When you start cruising, and you read all the everything you can get your hands on, you’ll come across some “rules” when it comes to galley stuff. No glass, says one expert. No bananas, counters another. “Take all the labels off the cans before you store them.” I can go on and on. It’s enough to make your head spin.

There is one rule, though, that many people (me included) think maybe ought to be a rule. “Everything in the galley should serve more than one purpose.”

***

Glass in the galley. My guess is this is based on a few things, weight and breakage amongst them, and while I think there’s a lot of well-meaning in this “rule”, from a purely practical standpoint it’s almost impossible. (Try finding certain condiments (olives, tahini) in something other than glass, for starters.) Add to the fact that if you’re not getting things in glass, they’re in something arguably less recyclable (think of a liter of olive oil in glass vs plastic, as an example). We prefer beer in bottles to beer in cans (and those cans are remarkably susceptible to pinholes). I have also become a convert (thank you, Sailing Totem!) to home canning goodies from meats to vegetables to spaghetti sauce, meaning I carry about 40 pint jars (and associated tops) on board at all times. Those glass jars have been an incredible boon as a way to store leftovers!

Plus? Wine in a real glass glass is one of the joys in life. To date, the only glass we have ever broken aboard is when a bottle of rum slipped and hit the bottom of the bilge a bit hard, separating the bottle with a crack. No slivers of glass, just the sadness of a lost bottle of rum. We’ve lost far more plastic bottles and aluminum cans than I can count, with associated harder clean up.

***

No bananas? This is a superstition. Worth a rabbit hole of digging to see all the reasons/thoughts as to why this is. So far, though, so good for us. Banana muffins are a favorite for passages!

***

Labels and cans? There are those who swear up and down that they won’t sail with labels on cans, because of the glue that keeps that label on can be food for cockroaches. I remember reading Lin Pardey’s excellent Care and Feeding of the Offshore Crew (now it’s called Care and Feeding of the Sailing Crew) and she gave me permission, as it were, to leave the labels on the cans. Her points? Removing labels adds a lot to an already stressful time, and then you’re left with cans you can’t decipher at a glance. Yes, you have labeled them all with what the contents are, but it’s a lot harder to grab a can of tomatoes in a second in a pitching sea if every can is matte aluminum and the labels have somehow - because they always do - shifted to be buried. I mark each can with when I bought it (to help with inventory management) yes, but removing the labels? Nope.

The other reason people advocate for removing labels is that they’ll come off anyway and then clog the bilge pump. If you’ve got lockers that are so wet the labels will come off of cans, I’d argue you have a different problem that needs prompt addressing.

***

And now for the big one. “Everything in the galley should serve more than one purpose.” At first glance, this makes perfect sense. You’re dealing with a small space (yes, even you on larger boats. The space is small.) and carrying specialty tools is maybe ill-advised. (This might have come about with the proliferation of single-use “tools” for a home kitchen. Oooh a hard-boiled egg cutter! A pineapple corer! A special hook for hanging bananas! An avocado-shaped plastic thingy for storing avocados in the fridge!) But in general, I think it’s a reminder of the practicality of life on a boat. Think through the things you choose to bring, because for anything you bring you’re likely leaving something else behind.

And then I look closely at all the “single use” items I’ve got aboard.

A garlic press. Yes, I can in a pinch use it for ginger, but really? I use it for garlic. Could I use a knife? Yes. Are there those who will say I’m not a cook because I use that tool? Also yes. (Do I care? That’s a hard no.)

A can opener. Also a separate wine bottle opener, and still a 3rd beer bottle opener. That’s 3 things that could feasibly be one tool. Here we are, happily using all 3.

A pizza wheel. For cutting pizza. I guess I could use it for making pastry, but I don’t do that. It gets used to cut pizza and that is all. Could I use a knife, or even scissors? Yes. Still.

And then there is the waffle iron.

When we went cruising with the kids, when they were 8 and 10, one of the things they were distraught about was missing out on weekend waffles. To my absolute delight, my favorite kitchen store in the world had one of these stove-top waffle irons in stock, and we were in Belgian waffle heaven. This time around, with no kids on the boat, I debated whether this was worth the space it takes up. But it lies flat, fits fine in the locker where I keep other baking items, and gets pulled out probably half a dozen times a year. Rave reviews each time.

Turns out, having a way to make waffles aboard is still special.

***

Cruising is all about figuring out what works for you on the boat you’re cruising on. Look hard at any “rule” you come across, understand the background, and make your own decision as to whether it’s a rule you’re going to break or not.

***

Waffles (riffed, lightly, from NYT cooking, with help from the comment section)

Makes 6 4-section Belgian waffles in that stovetop iron, or closer to 8-10 in a regular waffle iron

• 6 tablespoons melted butter, more for waffle iron

• 2 c all-purpose flour (I use 1/2 c ww flour)

• 1 TBS sugar

• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1 tsp fine sea salt

• ½ tsp baking soda

• 1 c plain yogurt or buttermilk

• 1 c milk

• 3 large eggs

1. Whisk dry ingredients in a large bowl, then the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and whisk until smooth. (This can be done ahead of time, even up to a day - store in the fridge if you’re going to do that though.)

2. Preheat waffle iron until it’s hot. Brush with melted butter.

3. Pour batter in - about 3/4 a cup per 4-section waffle in the Belgian waffle iron

4. Cook 3 minutes on one side, then flip the iron and cook another 2 minutes on the other side, or until the waffle stops steaming and releases easily from the iron.

5. Serve with butter and warmed maple syrup, or fruit and yogurt, or whatever you like!

Subscribe now

You see: an empty stove top?

I see: Just got in from passage. Not motivated to do more than a nibble dinner, I think.

***

We dropped the anchor in Tahanea at 3:15 this afternoon after 76 hours of sailing from Hao. The 240 mile passage was done in very light air - I bet a good portion of the time was in winds of less than 7 knots - and while we did have to turn on the engine for a few hours that first day, when the sea state was such that we were making no progress and the sails were slatting badly, we decided we just were going to sail, even when it got light. For much of the day on Wednesday, we were sailing in flat water just off the south coast of Makemo, making anywhere from 1.5-3 knots in water calmer than some anchorages we’ve been in.

Hao is the third or fourth largest atoll in the Tuamotus, both geographically and in terms of population. The provisioning is about as good as it gets in this archipelago (cheapest beer prices until Tahiti too . . .) especially since we timed the supply ship just right. We decided to get a box of chicken as a treat, and that 5 lbs of frozen chicken legs turned into 2 main meals with a lot of leftovers.

***

So what did we eat this past week, Thursday to Thursday?

April 9: bbq chicken with mashed potatoes. Not one of my better meals; we’d been toying with the idea of grilling the chicken ashore (we have no grill on the boat) but the day got away from us, and it became chicken in the pressure cooker since the other chicken dinner was oven-based, and someone turned up the environmental furnace to 95 and the idea of turning the oven on for an hour or more was completely unappealing. Anyway. I’m very familiar with how long beans take in the pressure cooker. Chicken, not so much. It was a little overdone, and a little burned on the bottom. Sigh.

April 10: Thai veggie curry with rice. Pressure cooker far more successfully used to cook up a pound of chick peas, most of which got stored in jars (in the fridge) to be used later. Same pot used to make the curry.

April 11: DINNER OUT for the first time since September . . . Jeremy’s tuna was perfectly grilled. Not having to cook or do dishes was a really lovely treat.

April 12: PIZZA. Cooler temps, some leftover goodies to use up (like the last piece of that chicken from the 9th), and a fresh bag of pizza cheese made pizza a welcome dinner, even though I got started a little later than I should have. I have no idea why.

April 13: at sea - bean soup. Saute some lardons (from that grocery run), add in onions and carrots and garlic, a can of tomatoes, and a pound of dried bean soup mix. Pressure cook for 18 minutes, release pressure naturally. Serve with fresh bread and a dollop of yogurt on top. Eaten out of coffee mugs in the cockpit in a little bit of a funk since we had to turn on the engine.

April 14: at sea - bean soup and bread (yes, again). Less of a funk since we’re sailing, though it isn’t very fast.

April 15: at sea - veggie curry with chick peas, rice, and fresh naan. Here’s what I wrote about this dinner in the “Calypso Chronicles” for this passage, a daily missive I send out any time we undertake a longer-than-one-overnight passage. (let me know if you want to be on the mail list!)

“There are a lot of jars and bags of things to use up in the fridge, one of the reasons curry was on the menu tonight. Chick peas from the other day, about 5 pieces of pickled ginger (like for sushi). A quarter of a zucchini and a half a potato. A strange banana variety that isn’t a regular banana and isn’t a plantain but some other version of cooking banana. Saute up some onion, garlic, toss in a bunch of curry powder, a can of cherry tomatoes, a little box of coconut milk. All those veggies and odds and ends. Cook a pot of rice (easier said than done when the wind is coming down the companionway, attempting to blow out the flame every couple of minutes) and serve with the naan I made this afternoon. Voila. Dinner.”

And that brings us to tonight, which will be I have no idea what. There is some leftover naan, and I also have a thing of merguez sausage that can be cooked up. Maybe I’ll make a batch of hummus, cut up a carrot, have that merguez and some olives and the naan. Nibble dinner with a cold drink sounds pretty good.

***

Update: that’s exactly what we did. Used up - jar of chickpeas, the remains of a jar of tahini. A couple of limes, a clove of garlic. We’ve got plenty of olive oil - and I’ll make sure we’re well-stocked before leaving Tahiti for Tonga - and there’s always cold water in the fridge.

***

Homemade hummus

• 1 can chickpeas, rinsed (or a pint mason jar of cooked dried beans)

• 1 clove garlic, minced or pressed

• ½ tsp salt

• Pinch cayenne, or a couple of dashes of Tabasco or other innocuous hot sauce

• Juice from 1 juicy lemon (or a couple of limes) - you’re looking for about ¼ cup

• ¼ c tahini

• ¼ c olive oil

• (¼ c cold water)

This recipe really requires a food processor of some kind - I use my Braun Multiquick on board. You can use a blender but it will likely take more water.

1. Drop the garlic clove in the processor and whizz until it’s pretty blitzed.

2. Add the rinsed/drained chick peas, the salt and cayenne. Process until well chopped up.

3. Drizzle in citrus, tahini, olive oil. Process until smooth.

4. Add in water to make it as smooth and loose as you like.

This hummus will solidify as it sits. It will likely be a little runny at first. It’s best made ahead with time for the flavors to meld in the fridge; ideally you’ll tweak the flavors (primarily as regards the citrus and salt) right before serving.

Subscribe now

YOU SEE: an empty container and some trash

I SEE: It’s granola-making time!

***

Breakfast is one of those meals many of us prepare almost on autopilot. Toast and a cup of coffee, maybe, or scrambled eggs and bacon. Yogurt and fresh fruit. There’s there’s the occasional shift - waffle Sunday, maybe, or even a full on brunch extravaganza of some kind. Point being, other than making sure you always have that stuff on hand, there’s not a lot of thinking that’s involved with the morning meal.

For us, this standard is granola and yogurt. I’ve got a huge airtight container (I think it once housed peanut butter pretzels from Costco - repurposing for the win!) that holds a little over a month’s supply of our breakfast of choice. So it’s a “make it once and you’re good for a while” kind of recipe.

This does mean making sure I’ve got the ingredients aboard. I was caught short when rolled oats proved almost impossible to find (or outrageously expensive) here in French Polynesia, so when family flew in at Christmastime you can bet there was some luggage space devoted to rolled oats as well as the nuts. Let’s not forget that maple syrup either . . .

I have since learned of a rolled oats source in Papeete. They’re on the list so we stay in granola until New Zealand!

***

This morning, I needed to resupply the walnuts as my on-the-go bag was almost out. This meant going into the area we call the deep pantry, the below-the-flat space (accessed through a clever cut out) where a lot of our daily use things live. The coffee setup, the baking supplies, the hand mixer and the crackers and the container of rice. You get the idea. But underneath that depth-optimized layer is the deep pantry. This is where the longer term supplies go. Excess coffee, or canning lids. The chocolate chips. A lot of the nuts.

Getting access to this space is not all that difficult, but it does mean removing a few items so I can get at the locker lid. Which means making sure there’s floor space to put all the stuff that normally lives there. It’s also worth thinking ahead about what else I might need to get out of there, or any reorganization that is required.

As an example. When everyone came at Christmas, the goodies they brought in moved into overflow status, so I shoved stuff into any locker where there was space, not doing a good job of using that deep pantry. In the past 3 months, there has been some eating down, so there’s room in the deep pantry plus I’ve got a little more head space to think about how to organize it.

Of course, this morning Jeremy got into a project that was all in the galley - he was rewiring electronics and moving things around - so my timing was off a bit. This meant that my initial plan for lunch (chickpea salad, kind of like tuna salad except with chickpeas) got morphed into the second plan for lunch (lentil salad) and then, as time went on and cooking the beans from scratch and giving them time to cool off became less and less appealing as lunchtime approached and Jeremy was still working in the galley - well, it became lunch option 3. Cheese and crackers with carrot sticks! The challenges when there are no leftovers to serve . . .

***

The nuts we carry come in plastic bags. Once one is emptied, there’s a trash management issue. Out here garbage facilities are few and far between, and even if there is a place to get rid of the trash it’s not like there are good ways for communities to deal with it. One way we do our best to help is to minimize the garbage, especially plastics - and this means stuffing it into a plastic container that would otherwise be taking up space.

Take this empty ketchup bottle. Left to its own devices, it would be taking up that space in the garbage can. But when seen as a trash receptacle, that space suddenly grows. Those bags from this afternoon’s granola batch have joined the ham packaging, the chicken bag, the I-forget-what-else already in the bottle - and there is room for a lot more. It’s astounding how much plastic waste, cut up or squished or twisted and then packed down, can fit in a plastic bottle.

Give it a try.

***

Granola (adapted from a recipe from a friend in Charlottesville)

• ½ cup pure maple syrup

• 1/2 cup coconut oil

• ⅓ cup packed brown sugar

• (optional) 1 tsp vanilla

• 7 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

• 1 cup raw pumpkin seeds

• 1 cup chopped walnuts

• 1 cup raw almonds, chopped coarsely or left whole

• 1 1/4 cups raw pecans, left whole or coarsely chopped

• 1 scant tsp salt

• 1 tsp cinnamon

• 1 cup dried cranberries

• 1 cup unsweetened large flake coconut chips (optional)

1. Dissolve the sugar in the coconut oil and maple syrup (and vanilla, if using) over low heat

2. Heat oven to 300°F.

3. Mix dry ingredients (minus cranberries and coconut) together in a large bowl or pot

4. Stir in wet ingredients well, until oatmeal looks shiny

5. Pour into a deep pan (or 2 baking sheets) and bake, stirring every 20 minutes, for an hour. Turn off oven.

6. Stir in the coconut chips and cranberries, then put pan back in turned-off oven.

7. Let cool completely.

8. Store in an airtight container for up to 6 weeks, or until all eaten!

Subscribe now

YOU SEE: a tipped over cup? Is that dishwashing detergent?

I SEE: it’s passage time!

***

We’re currently on passage between the Gambiers and the Tuamotus, about 500 miles of open sea time. We left from Taravai on Tuesday around 10 am, and rough guess (we’re still more than 24 hours out, so no ETA showing yet on the chart plotter) is that we’ll arrive early Saturday morning. Bring on the cheap (it’s all relative) beer! Sometime later today we’ll spend some time with the tide tables to see if we need to adjust the boat speed; the pass we need to enter is wide and well-marked, but the current can totally RIP and we need to time it correctly.

Our freezer-less existence coupled with the bonus of my generally iron-clad stomach means normally I don’t do a lot of passage prep, food-wise. Okay, I usually make sure we’ve got fresh bread (or banana muffins) ready for easy food if the weather gets rough, but normally I just plan on cooking as usual.

It’s rare that the galley is closed aboard. If the seas are so rolly or rough that the stove bottoms out, though, cooking is not possible. Something about a filled pot on a swinging stove where the swinging comes to a loud and abrupt end . . . I think there’s a physics term for this? Happily this is a very very rare occurrence. And most of our passages are just a few hours long anyway, so if food isn’t possible while we’re sailing it’ll be easily dealt with at anchor.

The photo above, if you look carefully, might give you some clues about the realities of cooking underway. Life is on a tilt - in this case, a changing one, which is why the stovetop is being used as a storage surface. Those things usually live on the counter, but the roll made that inadvisable, and my other choice (the sink) set up a constant crash and bang as stuff slid around against the stainless steel. So . . . just put it on the stove. Which gimbals (swings), a reality you might see if you look closely at the angle the stove is in the cabinet. And then there’s the little issue of those pot clamps around the pot. Flimsy and not quite the right height or size for often-used cookware (skillet, I am looking at you), the pot restraints are at least slightly better than nothing. I have friends who refuse to have a pot on the stove without them.

This passage we figured might be rolly, so I did make some extra food just in case. Pizza our last night in Taravai, a batch of pasta with garlic and beans. We’ve been eating that for 2 days now and I’m both sad and relieved there are no more leftovers to reach for in the fridge. Doing dishes when it’s rolly entails washing a plate, drying it, putting it away, or else employing the quarter berth as a secondary resting spot, and I generally appreciate the free labor of air drying that can’t be used in these conditions. Not having to cook has made dish detail a once-a-day breeze, but that is over. Ah well.

Our at sea meals look a lot like our in port meals. I might work a bit harder to think of one-pot dinners because it makes clean up easier, but I make almost anything regardless of whether the boat is moving or at anchor. The one exception to this is pasta: it’s rare to make pasta on passage for me. Dealing with a heavy pot of boiling water, then trying to drain it without spilling, when the seas are boisterous feels too risky from a burn perspective. Pasta is an in port meal for us. I’m not even sure I made pasta when we did the passage from Panama, though we might have had a calm enough day to pull it off. Most passages we deal with are at longest an overnight - this part of the world is a little different - so putting off making pasta if I have a craving isn’t that big a deal.

Back to “there are no leftovers”. It’ll be a busy day in the galley. Fried rice for lunch (make rice this morning so it has time to cool) which will use some tired-looking cabbage, a couple of eggs (they’re old enough that they need to be tested one by one), carrots and onions and celery. Then tacos for dinner - lentils as the “ground beef” - and here’s that “work to make it use fewer dishes” part because we adore black bean sweet potato tacos, but the sweet potatoes add another dish to the mix and I’m not doing that. Plus the lentil mixture takes a smaller pot than the pressure cooker (lentils don’t need a pressure cooker since they cook so fast anyway), which is a bonus in terms of stovetop real estate. And there’s an avocado ready to eat, plus some salsa open in the fridge. Maybe I’ll crumble feta cheese on top instead of the cheddar, since I can use my fingers for the feta, no grater (or washing said grater) required.

The work flow will happen throughout the day, and I’ll likely try to chop the toppings for tacos at the same time that I chop the veggies for fried rice (before I chop the ginger for lunch), stashing them in ziplock bags in the fridge. I’ll do dishes in a couple of batches and make the tortillas (and the lentil filling) right after lunch. It doesn’t lessen the amount of work to be done, but somehow getting things done earlier in the day rather than last minute in the evening makes dinner feel less of a scramble.

***

Taco seasoning, riffed from NYT cooking

Makes approx 1/4 c dried mix, enough for 1-2 lbs ground beef or 3-4 c cooked lentils

(all my measurements are done in a heaping variety, just as an FYI)

• 2 TBS chili powder

• 1.5 tsp dried cumin

• 1 tsp dried oregano

• 1 tsp smoked paprika

• 1/2 tsp onion powder

• 1/2 tsp garlic powder

• 1/4 tsp salt (optional)

Mix it all together and store in an airtight container. Can easily be doubled or tripled.

Subscribe now

YOU SEE: 2 jars of peanut butter (or PB adjacent anyway)

I SEE: a clean refrigerator, gifts from friends and family, and a day of treat-making

***

Our fridge is essentially a 40 quart electric cooler, more accurate in what it looks like than what it actually is. It’ll dial down to freezer cold if we wanted it to. It’s efficient, easily swapped out when it (inevitably) breaks, and mostly big enough for our needs. Sure, every now and then when we’ve just done a big restock there’s a massive reshuffle every time I need to retrieve something from the fridge, but after a few days of eating it’s back to normal stock levels.

Top-opening boat fridges (maybe the same is true with front-loaders, but I’ve never had one so can’t speak to that with any authority) accumulate condensation at the bottom and occasionally need to be cleaned out. The oh-so-yummy (sarcasm is dripping, people) liquid we refer to as “charter juice” because that was our first experience with the stuff, while working for Sail Caribbean in the early 1990s. Every now and then, it’s time to evacuate that charter juice.

Step 1: take everything out of the fridge. Then open the drain and let the gross stuff drain into a bowl that’s been poised to (mostly) catch it all. Clean the fridge well, replace the drain plug, and start restocking the fridge. I reorganize (the 5 pounds of cheddar cheese, for example, make a lovely level at the bottom) doing my best to keep things that we use frequently more accessible.

This is a great opportunity to see all the small things you might have forgotten you have. Case in point, that jar of “everything butter” you see on the stove top. It’s been there since our family left in late December, and I wanted the fridge space back.

In the storage area behind the sink is a jar of Chunky Jif that was a gift from friends on Vision back in Raroia in June. They’d given us 3 jars and all that was left was a half a jar. Between that and the jar of everything butter, it felt like the perfect time to make peanut butter cookies.

And since I was going to have the oven on, and we had bananas to use up, and the mixer and the bowls could be used for both projects without washing . . . time for some work.

***

Baking projects on a small boat like ours is a bit of a dance. Think ahead to what you’ll need that lives under the counter (flour, sugar, measuring cups . .. you get the idea) because once you start the project, you’ll be using all of that counter space for the work and take it from me, you do NOT want to get halfway through, the counters littered with everything, and realize you forgot to get out the vanilla. Spend some time thinking through what you need, which isn’t a bad life reminder anyway.

While the last batch of cookies was in the oven, I started the banana muffins, using the same bowls without so much of a rinse (water optimization!). By the time those muffins was in the oven, the galley looked like a mad chemist had been busy.

As much as I wanted to chill out, I knew I’d feel better if the galley was clean. Muffins take 20-30 minutes, and that was almost exactly how long it took to wash all the detritus.

Whew. And also delicious!

***

Peanut butter cookies (riffed from Mark Bittman)

(I adore Mark Bittman’s food philosophy, but the man is prone to serious dramatic overstatement. He’s got a version of this that is flourless that he refers to as “irresistibly convenient” and while it’s convenient, it’s also largely inedible, at least to my taste. Carry on. )

• 1 c flour

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 1 stick butter, softened (you could sub in a good cup of finely chopped coconut)

• 1/2 c brown sugar

• 1/4 c white sugar

• 1.5+ cups chunky peanut butter, sweet commercial kind is just fine

• 2 eggs (you could likely sub in banana . . . )

• 1 tsp vanilla extract or a slug of English rum

• Heat oven to 350 (boat oven? Almost all the way up)

INSTRUCTIONS!

1. Whisk flour, soda, salt in a small bowl

2. Using an electric mixer or a good wooden spoon, cream the butter, the sugars, and the peanut butter together.

3. Add in the eggs one at a time, and the vanilla or rum

4. Mix in the flour mixture

5. Drop by teaspoons onto an uncreased cookie sheet and make pretty cross-hatches with the tines of a fork (dip it in water if it gets sticky)

6. Bake for 10-15 (maybe more, depending on the oven) minutes until the cookies are just starting to brown. Let cool on the sheet for a couple of minutes before removing them to a cooling rack.

Subscribe now

You see: a pancake? What is that anyway? A tortilla?

I see: trial and error, and some self-sufficiency to boot

***

That’s a corn tortilla in the pan, and while I didn’t start by taking dried corn and adding lime and all of that, I did start with masa harina, which is the “flour” used for making corn tortillas. We’ve seen corn tortillas for sale in a couple of places in French Polynesia - I think you can even buy them in Hao - but for a reliable source it’s best to plan on making your own.

This means planning ahead on the provisioning front. A truism for most things. I had a couple of bags of masa harina, one of which had been open for at least a year. No need to buy extras, right?

The instructions on the bag are simple. Add water and mix, let it sit, roll into balls, press out, and cook on an ungreased skillet.

I am here to tell you there is more of a technique to it than that.

My first attempts, back in the Eastern Caribbean, were . . . interesting. We do have a tortilla press on board, and in the past I’ve given up on using it because I couldn’t get the tortillas thin enough. They’d sit on the skillet getting dryer and dryer, cracking like a crater on the moon, and then I’d flip them and the same would happen on the other side. I resorted to rolling them thinner, but the end result wasn’t a whole lot better.

There was a lot of swearing going on. More than a few tortillas scraped off the press and pitched in a fit of annoyance. And each batch took what felt like hours.

(Flour tortillas are far less finicky, in my experience, and I think I was expecting the corn ones to be even easier. Maybe my mental approach was flawed.)

Jeremy admitted that he much prefers the texture of corn tortillas to flour ones, so it was time to up my game. Watching YouTube videos didn’t help a whole lot. “It’s simple,” gushed Rick Bayliss as he showed a time-lapse video of the tortilla cooking on the hot side of the griddle, being flipped onto the less hot side of the griddle, then flipped again and puffing up. Was it the masa harina he used, or more precisely the workers in his restaurant used? (Do they really use it, or was the whole thing a promotional video? Follow the money, right?)

I reached out to friends who have spent time cruising in Mexico, figuring they might have some tips. “I never make my own,” one friend confessed. “Way easier to buy them.” Other friends had more experience, with some tips, but they too suggested that it’s just a lot more reliable to have store bought ones on hand.

Stubbornness rules.

Weekly practice slowly led to improved outcomes. And now, my batches are good enough to eat, share with friends, and even turn extras into tortilla chips. I still love my flour tortillas, but corn tortillas now are a solid part of my galley repertoire.

***

There’s a taco place in Charlottesville called Brazos Tacos. One of my favorite tacos is their black bean sweet potato taco, which they top with queso fresco, pickled red onions, and a smattering of roasted pumpkin seeds. You can opt for local tortillas for your tacos, yellow or blue (bring on the blue). We haven’t graduated to blue masa harina yet, and I can’t say that my tacos quite meet the Brazos standards, but our Calypso version is pretty darn good.

***

Homemade corn tortilla tricks, starting with dried masa harina

*using Maseca brand masa. Each will be slightly different. Maseca calls for 1.5 c water to 2 c flour; I find it needs 2- 3 TBS more water than that but maybe I’m overfilling my cup measure.

1. Make the water as HOT as you can stand it.

2. Dump the water into the flour all at once, stirring with a fork to incorporate most of it. Only add more water if there are pockets of dry flour. Too much water will make the dough stick to your hands, and will make the tortilla stick to the ziplock (see step 5)

3. Knead the dough for at least a minute

4. Let it sit for at least an hour

5. Use a press lined with silicone mats (kind of thick), parchment paper (prone to wrinkles), or a ziplock bag cut in half

6. Put each pressed ball of dough onto a preheated, ungreased skillet. Nonstick (or cast iron) is ideal IMO

7. First side maybe 45 seconds. Flip it. 30 seconds, max. Flip it again. You might be flipping it 5 or 6 or 7 times. It will puff up beautifully eventually, I promise

8. After you flip it the first time, PRESS DOWN on the tortilla with a spatula or the bottom of a pan. Somehow this helps it puff up. I press down on it each time I flip it.

9. Using 2 skillets helps the process go faster.

Practice makes better.

***

The ultimate secret ingredient to homemade tacos, especially bean tacos of any kind? Roasted pumpkin seeds.

You’re welcome.

Subscribe now

YOU SEE: a bowl of mangoes

I SEE: an afternoon walk that turned into a generous reminder of joy

****

I had 2 different photos for the Calypso’s Culinary Corner snap this week. The other one was a shot of dinner in progress. Both of the associated stories capture a bit about cruising.

We’re still in the Gambiers, poking our bow into places where tide and light allow. Sometimes, as in this more recent spot, it’s a place where not many boats are comfortable, especially the larger boats that are prevalent in the cruising fleet these days. We need 4.5’ of water (just about 1.4 meters) to float, and this anchorage we dropped the hook in 9 feet at mid-tide. Boats that draw 7 feet or more might have balked. Our 2 neighbors are both aluminum boats with lifting keels; 1 draws just under a meter and the other one just over. There’s some fun to be had with shallower draft boats!

A series of events had us, the smallest boat, inviting both of the other boats to come for dinner. First hurdle? A dietary restriction had me departing from my planned saag paneer with chickpea shawarma, with sides of rice and naan. What’s fun, delicious, easy to serve, and uses only what I have on board, no milk anything? Doubles!

(An added bonus - neither Metani nor Odine has been to Trinidad, so we got to introduce them to a favorite dish (modified for available ingredients) from an earlier cruise.)

Break out the pressure cooker and the dried chick peas, the spices. Mix up a batch of dough, and then have a mild panic about a couple of things.

1. We don’t have enough big plates for everyone.

2. The dough is fried, and I really didn’t want to be down in the galley while everyone was in the cockpit socializing. How do I make this meal without a lot of last-minute prep?

Breathe. These are not hard problems. So I sent a message asking that everyone bring their own plates, cups, and silverware. Not a big deal. As for the second issue? I fried the dough ahead of time and kept it warm in the oven, wrapped in foil so it didn’t dry out.

We ate off of our laps in the cockpit, sitting on throw cushions and cockpit chairs, our knees touching because yes, the space is that tight. Amanda from Metani supplied mango chutney she’d made that afternoon, and Kerstin from Odine brought dessert. When we clinked glasses to start the evening off, we offered “cheers” in English, French, German, and Mangarevan.

****

Late in the afternoon (not the same day, people), we decided to head ashore for a quick walk to check out the church whose spire we could see through the trees from where we were anchored. “It’ll just be a quick one,” said Jeremy.

We investigated the church with its elaborate altar, then followed the manicured grass “boulevard”, exclaiming over the beautiful flowers and lush scenery. Activity caught our eyes - 2 men were painting metal poles set up around a precision project of some kind, multiple stands of coconut husk fiber-filled bases and towers filled with the same material. Turns out this is the 3rd expansion of a vanilla farm, and they were getting everything set for the April 1 planting date. Diana, one of the proprietors, proudly showed us around, answering our questions. I could not resist buying a package of vanilla beans, but she needed to head to the house to get change. “Help yourself to fruit,” she called over her shoulder as she walked away, gesturing at the pamplemousse tree.

Not content with giving us these sweet grapefruit-adjacent fruits, she took us on a wander further down the boulevard, pointing out lychee trees (not in season - that’s December), picking star fruit and handing them to Jeremy. We went past a lime tree - “take lots!” she said - on our way to the avocado area. She handed Jeremy a long stick topped with a repurposed basketball hoop, net fastened closed, then pointed up. Up. Up. These trees must be decades old, reaching for the sky and dangling their fruit way up there.

Avocados. Mangoes. Star fruit. Limes. Pamplemousse. And vanilla beans.

That’s a heck of an afternoon walk.

Bounty indeed.

****

Trinidadian Doubles (adapted from NYT cooking)

Yield:4 to 6 servings (two dough pieces each)

• For the dough

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour

  • 1 tsp baking powder

  • 1 tsp granulated sugar

  • 1 tsp active dry yeast

  • ½ tsp ground turmeric

  • ½ tsp ground cumin

  • ½ teaspoon salt

• For the chickpeas

  • 3+ cups cooked chickpeas (2 cans, or cooked from dried) Save 2 c liquid if cooking from dried

  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

  • 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped

  • 2 scallions, greens and whites finely chopped (optional)

  • 2 large garlic cloves, minced

  • 1 TBS curry powder, preferably Madras

  • 1 tsp ground cumin

  • 1 tsp ground coriander

  • 1 tsp ground turmeric

  • ½ tsp garam masala

  • 1/2 tsp dried thyme

  • 1 scotch bonnet pepper, other hot pepper, or 1/2 tsp hot sauce (optional)

• For Serving (as much or as many of these as you have)

  • kuchela

  • mango chutney

  • cilantro chutney

  • Pepper sauce or hot sauce of choice

Preparation

Step 1

• Prepare the dough: Combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, yeast, turmeric, cumin and salt in a large bowl and mix with a fork until fully incorporated. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, then slowly pour in ¾ cup lukewarm water, mixing with a fork until the dough starts to get shaggy. Knead the dough with your hands just until it’s soft and pliable. (Dough will be a little sticky.) Let rest, uncovered for at least 30 minutes.

Step 2

• Heat 2 tablespoons vegetable oil in a large, deep skillet over medium. Add onion and scallions and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 7 minutes, until just golden.

• Stir in the garlic, then add the spices and fry until they smell good. Pour in the cooked chickpeas and 1 cup reserved chickpea broth or water. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes until flavors meld.

• Separate about ¼ of the chickpeas and purée them until smooth, returning to the skillet to thicken the sauce. (You can also just use an immersion blender right in the pot). If you want brothier channa, add more chickpea broth or water. Season to taste with salt. Cover and set aside while you prepare the dough.

Step 3

• With oiled fingers, divide the dough into 12 equal balls and transfer to a lightly oiled working surface. Form each ball between two hands, then set it on your work surface and press it out with your fingers, gently spreading from the middle to the edges, as if smoothing a sheet, until it forms a superthin, 5-inch round. (Holes are OK.) Pretend you’re smoothing out a bedsheet.

Step 4

• Line a large baking sheet with paper towels, then heat 2 cups of vegetable oil in a large frying pan over medium to high heat until it reaches 375 degrees. Working with one round of dough at a time, gently place the uncooked dough on the surface of the oil. It’ll puff up and rise to the surface. Flip after a few seconds, when the bara starts to turn golden in spots, then fry for a few seconds more, until golden and starting to show some stiffness when lifted out of the oil. Transfer to the prepared baking sheet.

• If you want to do this ahead of time (like an hour ahead, not a day ahead), wrap the drained dough on their paper towels in aluminum foil and warm it in a low oven.

TO SERVE

• To serve, overlap two dough pieces on a plate and top with a generous spoonful of chickpeas. Drizzle with an array of sauces of your choice: mint-cilantro chutney, tamarind sauce and pepper or hot sauce. Don’t be alarmed by moans of appreciation.

• I often make a light coleslaw and serve a few pieces of the cabbage on top for crunch

Share

YOU SEE: A complete mess

I SEE: pressure canned chicken, the cleanup from a tipped over cayenne pepper container (still sneezing, BTW), and the joys of a well-stocked pantry that includes refills of the spices we use all the time.

****

The supply ship came in on Monday, bringing with it our SIPAC order. SIPAC is kind of like an online grocery store of sorts, and they’ll put your order on the ship. I keep describing it like InstaCart (but there’s only one store) or a COSTCO online store (but the prices are . . . not Costco). In any case, this was the very first time we’ve placed an order and there were some glitches on the front end that had us thinking we had a 50-50 chance of actually getting anything at all. Happily our worries were for nothing.

While usually we’re content with buying supplies from the local stores, fresh vegetables that are long lasting can be problematic. The last time the supply ship came in, I managed to get a cabbage but missed out on carrots by about 5 minutes. Given that we’ll go from here through the Tuamotus before getting back to easy provisioning in Tahiti, I wanted to ensure we had those staples without worrying about jostling locals for the slim supply. (We supplement with local tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, and fruits if at all possible!) We’d ordered hardy vegetables (cabbage, carrots, sweet potatoes, and limes), a couple of bottles of wine, some feta cheese, and 3 kilos of frozen chicken breasts.

One of our easy lunches is curried chicken salad, served on crackers. We’ve been out of chicken for a while and chick peas work pretty well as a substitute, but sometimes it’s nice to just be able to mix up the proteins. A good portion of that 3 kilos of chicken is destined to be turned into canned chicken, a task I’d meant to do when we were in an airbnb in Tahiti for Christmas. Funny how family time took priority . . .

****

My friend Rebecca last week asked about my storage situation aboard. Our boat is small but loaded with storage. It’s not an exaggeration to say we can easily carry food for 3-4 months, especially when supplemented by fresh stuff every now and then.

Our water tanks are in the bilge. This frees up every bit of under-settee storage for food (tools and spares are in the forepeak and in the lazarette); in addition, there’s a fairly large two-tiered space right in the galley we call the pantry - and the amount of stuff that fits in there is extensive. The vast majority of the 85 pounds (not a typo) of nuts and coffee, oats and masa harina that our family brought in at Christmas, for example, is stored in the lower level of that two-tiered pantry, each package double bagged into a ziplock bag and squished into space.

I consider the “deep pantry” to be overflow storage, where there’s excess of whatever - and the “every day” use is in an easier-to-access space either on the top level in the pantry or in one of the under settee lockers. As an example, we’re just about through a bag of masa harina (corn tortilla “flour”), so I dug out a new one from the deep pantry. While I was in there, I grabbed a pint of maple syrup since we just opened the last one in the baking locker (port side, middle) and the remaining 2 bags of coffee from Panama (starboard side, forward). At least I think they’re the last 2 bags. We’ll see the next time I totally empty out that space for a reinventory, probably right before we clear into Tonga. Don’t worry, though. There are I think 10 bags of the Panama coffee in that easier-to-get-at space, and then we’re onto the supply that came in from the US in December.

****

You might have noticed the lockers are loosely organized by the kinds of food that they hold. This means there’s no thinking required when we buy something (flour, pasta, rice, canned spinach) as to where it will go. It’s also very easy to reach in and grab what I need, since I don’t have to think about where it might be.

Side note: there are times when the “where does it go” question is answered by “wherever you can shove it fast because we need to get moving” or “I don’t care just get it off the floor”. Then later I unpack it all and put it where it “belongs”, a task I tackled a bit today.

Our boat is small enough that this organization tactic works gorgeously. I do have a diagram of what goes where, and a spreadsheet of how much of any given thing I have, but I’ll confess that spreadsheet is usually only updated right after a big provisioning run and checked right before said run. This is one way I figure out how much of a given thing I use.

On a larger boat with more varied storage areas, a diagram and meticulously updated spreadsheet will help a lot.

****

Dinner last night was chicken marinated in fig jam, garlic, lime juice, ginger, finely chopped lemongrass, and a splash of soy sauce. Served this with rice and an asian-inspired slaw. If I’d found lettuce and tomatoes at the store, we’d have had salad with a vinaigrette and the marinade might have leaned less on the asian flavors and more towards a tarragon or herbes de provence, perhaps with a splash of cream and some sautéed onions. As it was, I had a stalk of lemongrass and a few leaves of mint to use up, and we love the combination of sweet and salty that fig jam (or lime marmalade) with soy sauce brings. It’s ideal when done on a grill - you get that caramelized sticky crunchy edge thing going - but alas no grill here. Marine grills are overpriced for lackluster performance; we keep threatening to get a Weber BabyQ but the reality is we rarely have meat to grill. Maybe when we’re in New Zealand with easier access to regular stores this equation will shift. Meanwhile, though? Make do with what we have.

We are not starving here.

****

Favorite marinade for chicken or pork, especially when grilling!

Makes enough for 2-3 lbs meat

• 1/4 c olive oil

• 2 TBS lime juice

• 2 TBS soy sauce

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• 1 inch piece of ginger, minced

• 1/4 c fig jam or lime marmalade (or orange. Or apricot. Not raspberry or strawberry and god no, please not grape jelly)

Mix marinade ingredients together well (a whisk is ideal) in a bowl. Add in meat and toss to coat. Alternatively, mix marinade ingredients in a large Ziploc bag to which you can add the meat – squish the mix together well instead of whisking it!

Marinade for 2-6 hours, in the fridge please, then grill or cook as required. Yum.

Subscribe now

Share

YOU SEE: a can of what is that? Powdered milk?? and a container of . . . flour?

I SEE: paneer, yogurt, ricotta, coffee creamer, buttermilk. Pizza, naan, tortillas, bread, burger rolls . . .

When I saw the sign on the table “Tomate Local, 1000/kilo” (about $5/lb) I approached with tamped down optimism. Would there actually be any left in that cardboard box? Score! The last tomatoes I bought, fresh off the ship, lasted exactly a day before they all rotted into puddles of goo. Expensive goo too. Ugh. Why, when I know how long before sailing that ship is packed, and also that the ship takes 10 days to get here, do I even think the tomatoes will be any good? I know enough not to order them in my own order. Where was my sense when I saw them on the table last week? But local tomatoes have never seen the inside of a refrigerator. I bought only enough to be able to eat them with joy and not panic.

The avocados have been ripening well. I love the color addition of tomatoes to my guac, which these days runs to chunky; I’m especially pleased because we scored limes, a LOT of limes, so I’m not having to ration them at all. Tomatoes in guacamole - which has served as a gorgeously simple cool lunch, on the water crackers that are subsidized here and cost about $1.50 per sleeve.

Hervé threw in some mint with the limes. I’ve got half a cucumber (which is almost like having 3 cucumbers, it’s so big) left, and yogurt. Along with those tomatoes? Sounds like falafel is in order! Last night I soaked some chick peas; there’s a batch of naan dough almost ready for shaping and cooking. I’ll make a version of raita, we’ll have some cabbage salad on the side, and eat like royalty.

****

More than one person lately has asked how I make meals on board, day after day, when we have a fridge the size of a picnic cooler and no freezer. Cooking on board is often a matter of seeing what needs to be eaten, or being inspired by what bounty has made itself available. It’s usually weather-dependent, though sometimes I just want a bowl of spaghetti and I put up with the sweat running down my face and back while boiling that water.

In order to do this, you need a couple of things. First of all, you need to have a well-stocked pantry of some kind, filled with ingredients you actually eat. I made the mistake 30 years ago of following someone else’s provisioning list, figuring because she liked to eat corned beef and make it work on a boat very similar to ours that that would somehow translate into us liking corned beef.

Spoiler. We do not like corned beef.

Secondly, and this goes hand-in-hand with step 1, you need to know how to pull things together. Sometimes this means reading recipes (but following them, generally, can be difficult when you don’t have easy access to the well-stocked grocery stores we take for granted in the US; learning what substitutes for what is a good skill to develop), and sometimes it just means having a few key meals you can pull together without too much thought.

If you’ve never really cooked for yourself, my suggestion is to start by figuring out what it is you like to eat. It’s a treasure hunt, inviting attention. Even if you eat out every single meal and just want to learn to do even one meal at home. It starts by noticing. Notice the kinds of flavors you enjoy. What’s a simple recipe you can make using those flavors? Another one? What’s another flavor (and by flavor I mean “spices”) you like? Are there any ways you can branch out?

****

What’s in our fridge? Always there is cheese of some kind - usually bags of shredded pizza cheese (which here is emmental, not mozzarella, a taste we’ve gotten very used to) and if we’re lucky blocks of sharp cheddar. Yogurt too is always present. There’s a big bottle of water, a bottle of wine, a bottle of beer. A jar of yeast, a couple of open jars of jams, a can of excellent New Zealand butter. A silicone storage bag with about a dozen foil-wrapped limed and a smaller bag with the lime on the go. There’s a small section further away from the cold coils where I keep condiments.

A rotating cast of characters fills out the contents. Right now there are a couple of carrots and half a cucumber, a container of hummus I made earlier with the rest of the cooked chick peas. Some brie cheese. The purple cabbage that was starting to go off. An avocado and a bag with half an onion. We’ve finished the leftovers from last night so there’s a little more room than usual; I’ll probably throw in a couple more bottles of beer just because I can. When I cook up dried beans for a recipe, I do a whole pound and save the extras in jars in the fridge, making a point to use them up within the week.

Despite its small size, the fridge needs constant reorganization. I try hard to keep less-used items lower down (extra pound blocks of Vermont cheddar brought in by family at Christmas line the bottom, for example) but somehow I invariably need something that’s buried. Every couple of weeks, I empty it out and drain the accumulated liquid.

When we have meat, it gets placed in the coldest part of the fridge and is used up almost immediately. Unless there’s enough to can, in which case I pull out the bigger pressure cooker and new tops and do up a batch.

Note: You might notice there are not a lot of veggies mentioned. Most vegetables and fruits, the ones we buy anyway, are happy outside of the fridge, in a cool-ish, dark-ish, well-ventilated spot. We ALWAYS have onions and garlic, and strive to keep cabbage and carrots as well. Peppers (not that we’ve had those in a while) get hung up by their stems, lettuce lasts a reasonable amount of time if you wrap it in newspaper or the ubiquitous paper produce bags. And it’s feast feast feast to use it up before it goes off.

Note 2: Eggs live on the counter. I buy them as never-been-refrigerated ones, though (ssshhh) I did this with regular supermarket eggs when we were cruising in the US. Trick with that is to leave them out of a carton, on a towel, until the condensation has evaporated and the eggs are dry. Also, the USDA does not approve of this. Proceed at your own risk.

****

Pantry ingredients? Always flour and powdered milk. Canned tomatoes. Dried chick peas, black beans, lentils of a few different kinds. Rice and pasta and masa harina (for making corn tortillas). We have some freeze dried sweet potatoes that were part of the Christmas delivery. Salsa, kalamata olives, coconut milk, boxed cream. Instant mashed potatoes, rolled oats, a good collection of nuts and dried cranberries. There’s usually a dried sausage or two (you can buy snack packs of saucission sec here!). Olive oil and sunflower oil, a few kinds of vinegar, mustard, worcestershire sauce. Spices.

****

The falafel was groan-worthy. I can’t figure out why it makes SO. MANY. DISHES (I even wrote this on the top of the recipe) but it is SO. WORTH. IT. It’s got to be the combination of crunchy chick peas, cool chunky raita, sloppy gloppy flavorful tomatoes, fresh naan, bitter-ish tahini sauce. It fed us dinner two nights in a row. Mmmmm.

****

And today? Breakfast: banana chocolate chip muffins I made using the leftover fried bananas that didn’t get eaten yesterday. Lunch was leftover Thai veggie curry with chick peas (I had mint and Thai basil from Hervé; veggies were a carrot, a past-its-prime orange pepper, some chopped up cabbage we hadn’t quite eaten all of on the falafel, the quarter onion that was in a bag in the fridge, and the last 3 little red potatoes. Dinner basically was a “clean out the fridge” kind of exercise.

• Carrot sticks and cucumber half-moons (veggies that needed to be eaten)

• fresh naan

• hummus with the rest of the chickpeas I’d cooked to use in the curry

• some kalamata olives

• a handful of those little sausage bites

• chunky guacamole made with one of the ripe avocados

It’s been a gusty, rain-on-and-off couple of days. It was great to eat deliciously without heating up the boat very much.

*****

Falafel (serve on homemade pita . . . or naan)

*note: this is delicious. It also requires an absurd amount of cleanup. Don’t know why.

• 1 c dried chickpeas, soaked overnight

• 1 tsp baking soda

• 1 tsp salt

• ½ c finely minced onion

• 2 TBS finely minced parsley (if you have it)

• 1 tsp cumin

• 1 tsp coriander

• ⅛ tsp cayenne

• 2 cloves garlic, minced/pressed

• Pepper

• 1 TBS lemon juice (or lime, as the case may be)

• Oil for deep frying (I shallow fry these. It works fine.)

1. Process onion and garlic with parsley

2. Drain chickpeas and process them in a food processor until like bulgar wheat (not a paste)

3. Put in a bowl and toss with soda, salt, onion, parsley, spices, garlic, and lemon juice

4. Don’t pat down. Mixture should be loose.

5. Just before cooking, you might need to add in ¼+ cup of flour to help it hold together. When you press 2 spoonfuls together, it should hold its shape.

6. Heat oil in shallow pan

7. Form patties about 2.5” in diameter

8. Fry about 3 minutes on each side, or until reddish brown in color

OR: in oven: coat the bottom of a baking tray with ¼ c olive oil. Preheat oven to 375. Form patties and carefully place in pan. Bake for 30 minutes, turning carefully halfway through.

Serve with tahini dipping sauce, tzatziki sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, and onion. YUM.

Tahini dipping sauce: tahini thinned with lemon juice, salt, and water

• ⅓ c tahini

• 4 TBS lemon juice (more to taste)

• 2 TBS water

• ¼ tsp salt

Tzatziki: (this probably needs to be called tzatziki-adjacent)

• 1 c yogurt, strained to thicken (or not)

• 1 clove garlic, minced

• ¼ tsp salt

• 1 cucumber, seeded and peeled and finely diced

• 1 bunch mint or parsley or even cilantro (mint is best!) (if you have it, that is)

  

Share

You see: sheets of some kind of bread thing

I see: oooh HAMBURGERS FOR DINNER!

***

First, a quick round up of the week. Last week I mentioned the glut of abundance of bananas, of which a few were turned into those banana muffins, others were rebelcanned into pint jars, and still more fried to a deeply satisfying caramelized state. I might have decided that that’s my favorite way to use up a lot of bananas very quickly, because doing a panful of 8 bananas is pretty simple and the stuff disappears like magic.

Someone on a WhatsApp group asked about recipes using bananas. More than one person shared something that called for (not joking) a HALF OF A BANANA. People, when I have 100 bananas ripening all at once on the stalk that is the way the things are sold this time of year? A recipe that calls for half a banana is an insult. Give me recipes for 10 bananas and we’re talking.

I digress.

We also had to start eating the dozen avocados that, you guessed it, also ripened all at once. And the 8 eggplant. And the baseball bat sized cucumber.

There have been a few guacamole-on-everything meals, and yes I found room for a few of them in the fridge, catching the ones that were still rock hard for that duty. So we still have avocados to eat and feel like we can breathe a little.

The eggplant got turned into my version of eggplant parmesan, which involves neither salting nor frying in oil, nor breading and frying some more. Okay, fine, it doesn’t involve parmesan either, since that was on the list for the didn’t-happen-last-run-to-Carrefour and has not been seen in a form other than the green can since.

What did that eggplant parm look like? Peel and cube the eggplant. Saute a sliced onion in a generous amount of olive oil, then toss in the cubes. Add in some basil and oregano (dried), then a few cloves of garlic that I minced. When the eggplant is starting to break down, take it all out of the pan and add in a slug more olive oil, then a can of cherry tomatoes and a can of whole tomatoes, breaking up the bigger chunks with a spoon. Couple of dashes of worcestershire sauce, then in goes the eggplant stuff. Cover it with a generous amount of shredded cheese, in this case emmentaler because that’s what there is here, a sprinkling of bread crumbs. Put the whole thing into the oven and bake it until you’re happy with what the top looks like. Let it cool for a few minutes and then serve, preferably with some kind of crusty bread of some sort.

Which leads me to the photo above.

***

Calypso has no freezer. Our meals tend toward the bean-based for a lot of reasons, though neither of us is a vegetarian and we’re happy to eat meat when given the choice. Every now and then we get a good hankering for an actual ground meat hamburger.

Sadly, in a lot of the atolls, finding the ground beef, either in patty form or otherwise, can be challenging. It’s available most places, mind you. It’s just usually at least 20% soy based, and this is not a ground beef burger. When we see a true angus beef option, it might be enough to send us to the “we need a burger” territory.

And the other day, the grocery store we popped into had local tomatoes (!!!) and a package of 4 burger patties, 100% beef.

Score.

But if we want a burger, and we want it on a bun, we need to make those buns. (this is where the title comes from, when one thing leads to another . . .)

Hence the photo. Not my best version, I will grant you, but darn they tasted great. (and tonight we finished the rest of that eggplant not parmesan using a couple of those rolls toasted up with some butter on it . . . oooh yum.)

Ciabatta rolls (perfect for burger buns or sandwich rolls)

Makes 6 (I usually double this recipe)

Also can make 3 smallish baguettes with this recipe

Total time: 4 hours

• 1.5 tsp yeast

• 1 c water

• 1 c flour

• 1.5 c flour

• 1 tsp salt

1. Mix yeast and water (let proof if you think it’s questionable) and whisk in 1 cup flour. Let sit, covered, for 25 minutes to give the yeast a head start.

2. Stir in salt and the additional 1.5 cups flour. THIS WILL BE VERY STICKY. Cover with tight fitting something and let rest for an hour.

3. Turn the dough (wet hands, pull the dough from underneath and fold over itself, on all sides). Let sit for 30 minutes.

4. Turn dough again. Let sit for 30 minutes.

5. Meanwhile prep a baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat mat dusted with cornmeal .

6. Transfer dough gently to floured surface and pull into a rectangle. Envelope fold the dough (flattened, then pull the bottom third up and the top third down) (or roll it) and press lightly to seal the seams. Cut the dough into 6 pieces. (Shaping is not so simple. Press wide before cutting.)

7. Let the rolls rise, on that prepped baking sheet, for 40 minutes, covered lightly.

8. Bake at 450 for 20 minutes.

I leave you with this photo from today’s BBQ on Teravai, an island in the Gambiers archipelago. They’ve uncovered the earth oven and are pulling out packets of banana-leaf wrapped pumpkin to serve with the wild pig that was caught earlier in the week.

We came home with a pile of limes, some green bananas (happily only a hand of them, not the whole stalk), and a handful of fresh mint. Yum.

Subscribe now

You see: a pile of fresh stuff on a stovetop

I see: The FEAST part of the cruising provisioning cycle

We left the Societies in a rush in early January, racing to catch a weather window to make tracks east against the trades. Through a series of unfortunate events, the veg bin was not remotely full.

Stop 1. Moorea. Big store, closed for inventory. Small store, shelves empty of all except onions. I added a few of those to my stash and crossed fingers for Fakarava.

Stop 2: Fakarava, the day after the weekly supply ship normally called. Stores had not one single vegetable, not even onions or potatoes or garlic. I started to count my goodies.

Stop 3: Hao, 2 days after the ship had been there. Again, not a single vegetable.

(Turns out, everyone, including the ships, take vacation around Christmas. Grocery stores need to take inventory, and regular runs are suspended. In Fakarava, the ship had not yet resumed its route. In Hao, people snatched up every bit of anything fresh after a 2-month no-ship spell.)

Stop 4: Rikitea, Gambiers, where there’s agriculture and we’d been assured there was lettuce every day and fresh veggies all the time. Stores had . . . nothing. I was happy I’d asked friends to snag me some onions and potatoes, but I was starting to despair of ever seeing anything fresh again.

****

Provisioning fresh stuff on board a cruising boat is a matter of feast or famine. You load up on goodies when you have access, and then it’s a race to eat it all before it goes bad. Then you’re facing an empty veg bin and the hunt for more begins. In some ways it’s like the way I used to grocery shop, where once a week I’d go to the store armed with a list of ingredients, come home with it all, eat it during the week, and the cycle would repeat.

Except here a list is aspirational, and might focus on things like color and texture. “Orange” might mean orange, or purple, or deep green. It might be carrots, or yams, or oranges, or peppers. (Or Doritos, if your head goes there.) Crispy might mean “something with texture, anything” - and it might mean you’re figuring out how to pickle onions.

****

The “story of Henri Legume” needs more space than it will get here, and sadly I didn’t get any photos of any part of the scene before the conclusion. Rough outline? Lunch out, where the table next to us, 7 local guys on their lunch break, struck up a conversation about where we were from, and oh, by the way, did we need any fresh stuff? Bananas, avocados, papayas. Pamplemousse. Aubergine. Yes, he did have green beans. And limes too. And here, let’s swap contact information and I’ll meet you on the dock in the morning.

What, exactly, we would be getting was a little unclear. How much it would cost? Also unclear. What was clear was that our veg-less existence was about to end.

In the morning, after a rain delay, Henri Legume (his name is Henri - the Legume part was my way of finding him in the contact list again) pulled up to the dock and opened the trunk, piling my bags to bursting with the aforementioned goodies (except papaya, because I am 100% NOT a papaya fan.) He threw in some passionfruit, too, and told me what to do with it.

For $35, I’ll take it.

****

The monthly supply ship came in on Monday. Which meant that on Tuesday, the stores were stocked.

French Polynesia regular business hours are a shock to the western system. Work starts super early (you know a grocery store caters more to tourists when they don’t open until 7 - the local stores are doing a brisk business by 5 or 5:30 on most days; bakeries routinely are sold out by 7) and often closes for 3-4 hours at lunchtime.

I didn’t get going as quickly as I’d planned on Tuesday morning, so I was semi-prepared for the picked over state of affairs on the produce shelves when I got in at 6:45. I scored a cabbage (and saw the last 3 scooped up 5 minutes later) but missed out on carrots by seconds. Still, the bounty was impressive. Cabbage (1 white and 1 purple), tangerines, tomatoes, peppers, apples. Garlic! I’ll go back for onions and potatoes and hope there are still some in a day or so.

We’re fully on the FEAST part of the cycle.

(Anyone know how to eat a dozen avocados that are all going ripe at the same time?)

****

A stalk of bananas is a LOT of bananas. Three batches of banana muffins, a breakfast of banana pancakes, and at least a dozen “here have a banana” snacks later, we’ve got 24 bananas left from that ONE stalk - after giving away a ton to a boat that just came in from Pitcairn. Sadly, they insisted on trading ripe bananas for some of the green ones they had. We’ll be in bananas for a while. Most are destined to be processed for later use. I’ll mash them, add some lime juice, and steam can them so we can enjoy banana muffins whenever we want.

****

Calypso’s banana muffins - riffed on Silver Palate banana bread

• 8 TBS (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

• ¾ c (5 ¼ oz) white sugar

• 2 eggs

• 1 c all purpose flour

• 1 c ww flour

• 1 tsp baking soda

• ½ tsp salt

• 3 large ripe bananas, smashed

• 1 tsp vanilla extract (or a splash of rum)

• (optional – chocolate chips and chopped walnuts – 1 c in total). If you don’t have them, that’s okay. But if you do? Ahhhh.

1. preheat oven to 350. Heat the oven. Grease (or line) muffin tins for 12 muffins

2. Cream butter and sugar together

3. Mix dry ingredients together (whisk works well) Can also sift if you are that kind of baker

4. Add eggs, one at a time, to butter mixture. Mix well after each addition

5. Add in dry ingredients in 2-3 batches, mixing well

6. Stir in bananas, vanilla

7. Stir in chocolate chips and walnuts

8. Spoon into muffin tin

9. Bake 35 minutes+ (muffins) 50-60 minutes (loaf pan) or until cake tester comes out clean. Bake for 10 minutes, then swap the muffin tins around in the oven. Bake another 15, swap again. Bake another 10 minutes. Might have to leave them in the oven for finish baking after you turn it off.

10. (If you’re doing this in a loaf pan, it will take at least an hour)

11. Decant the muffins onto a cooling rack.

Excellent as gifts for those leaving on passage. Excellent with coffee. Excellent when you need a pick me up in the afternoon.

Just excellent.

Share

You see: a can of milk powder, a thermos, a thermometer, and a bowl.

I see: YOGURT in my future!

One of the ingredients that’s available everywhere in French Polynesia (subsidized to boot!) is excellent powdered milk from New Zealand. Unlike the skim stuff you get in the US, or the additive-enhanced Nido, this is full-fat dehydrated MILK. Nothing extra included.

We’re fans of powdered milk for a few reasons. While in the States we were rarely without half and half for our coffee, that dairy product is not easily found here. A spoonful of milk powder in our morning brew fits the bill perfectly. Powdered milk is shelf-stable, meaning we can carry a good supply easily. It’s easy to use just what we want, with no need to store an open carton; if it were UHT or “fresh” milk there would be leftovers needing fridge space. And our fridge space is in super short supply!

Our normal breakfast is granola served on yogurt. And out here, other than Tahiti, I haven’t seen yogurt to buy in the stores. Much more reliable to make my own, using this lovely powdered milk and 2 specialty pieces of kitchen gear.

• A wide mouth thermos - this one is 3 cups

• a thermometer - this one is for cheesemaking*

In order to make yogurt, you need yogurt starter of some kind. Easiest is to save a little bit of your yogurt to make the next batch, but that initial batch has to start somewhere. You can buy yogurt starter (a powder), buy some plain, non-gelatin, yogurt WITH ACTIVE BACTERIA, or snag a couple of spoonfuls from an accommodating neighbor.

I started my yogurt-making journey by using the Boat Galley’s instructions, and I’ve morphed it into my own over time. The following is for a 3 cup thermos . . .

1. Measure a thermos full of water, pour it into a pot, and bring it to a boil.

2. Meanwhile, measure a heaping cup of milk powder into a bowl and whisk in 1/2 a cup of regular tap water (AS LONG AS YOUR WATER IS NOT CHLORINATED!)

3. Measure 2 cups of the boiling water and whisk that into the bowl with the milk powder. Pour the rest of the hot water into the thermos, to pre-heat it, and cap it to keep the heat in.

4. Let the hot milk cool until it’s between 110 and 120 degrees Fahrenheit. (this usually takes 20-25 minutes; I set a timer. It’ll cool faster if you whisk it occasionally.)

5. Whisk in 1-2 TBS of yogurt.

6. Pour the water out of the thermos (back into a pan you’ll use later!)

7. Pour in the yogurt-infused milk. There might be some foam on top from the whisking; I spoon it off. It should be just the right amount of liquid but there might be a little extra. Sorry.

8. Cap the thermos tightly and let it sit somewhere undisturbed for 6-8 hours or overnight. This makes a thick, tangy yogurt. You can let it go less time, or use less milk, if you like your yogurt less thick.

9. Spoon/pour it into a container that you can keep in the fridge.

POOF! Yogurt!

If you like it thicker, you can also strain it. Couple of hours for a real Greek-style. Little longer for thicker stuff (perfect for dips!). Strain it overnight and you’ll get something approximating a thin cream cheese.

*At first I dismissed the importance of the thermometer. And then I killed my yogurt when I had the temperature too hot, or it turned into ropy, stringy, weird stuff when the temperature was too cold. Since I’ve started using the thermometer, my yogurt has been far more reliable.

Yogurt is a staple aboard. We eat it with granola most mornings. It’s a not-so-secret ingredient in my (groan-inducing) naan. We dollop it on chili, or curries. If we’re lucky enough to have mangoes or passionfruit or bananas - and apparently there are wild raspberries growing on a mountain nearby here!!! - we’ll have those on top of yogurt as dessert. Being able to make it ourselves means this is available always.

And we even get to share with neighbors, an extra bonus

Subscribe now

You see a stovetop with a couple of pans, a jar of beans, a strainer poised over a sink.

I see resource management in full swing.

This photo was taken the day before we left on this 4-5 day sail. I don’t usually do a lot of prepping passage food. Part of this is that we don’t have a freezer or a large fridge, so there’s just not space to store cooked food. Part of it is that I don’t tend to get seasick, so the idea of cooking underway doesn’t faze me.

But our most recent passage, a 160 mile slog from Makemo to Hao, included a lot of rougher-than-expected sea state. The gimbaled stove bottomed out (reaching the end of its swing radius with a bang against the cabinet its housed in) with some regularity, meaning cooking would have been extremely ill-advised. Luckily (?) neither of us felt like eating much; a few crackers with cheese and a few forkfuls of leftover pesto pasta were plenty.

This passage isn’t supposed to be as bad. (Neither was that one.) And at 4 days, I’d like to make sure there are some options for easy eating if needed.

Back to that resource management thing.

Today, it’s the combination of water, time, and space.

Water is used for cooking, yes, and also for the washing up. Time factors into the washing up. And on a small boat, space is always a factor to be managed.

Back to that photo:

The pot that’s boiling on the stove?

• It’s one of the 2 pressure cookers I have aboard, the one I use probably 3 times a week if not more. It lives, along with the pots from the nesting set, in the oven, which yes is inconvenient when I need to bake but there’s that space management factor.

• It just finished cooking half a pound of beans - part of which you see in that jar on the counter

• It’s boiling water for the pasta, a good hot-or-cold-or-in-between dish that we call “pasta with garlic and beans”. Such an original name.

• After the pasta, it will be filled with water once again to boil the bagels

That’s 3 uses - and I’ll wash the pot exactly ONCE.

The pot on the left that’s covered?

• Has the bean part of the pasta dish in it, waiting for the pasta, which will be drained and then stirred in.

Strainer?

• Strained the beans, and is waiting to strain the pasta before it gets washed.

Blue cutting board?

• Used for prepping the garlic, yes, and also for kneading the bagel dough which is off-screen resting. Also for kneading the pizza dough, and then cutting the toppings for said pizza

  

  .

There’s another corner I want to show you, because it points to space management. A challenge for sure on a small boat is counter space. Every bit of it has multiple uses. It’s the dish drying rack, and the lid for the pantry. The engine cover, which on both our boats boat looks like it ought to be a great overflow counter space for the galley and instead is just the horizontal version of a junk drawer. The best counter space (where the locker is in this most recent photo) is also under the bridge deck, meaning it’s not easy to use for cutting or chopping or mixing since there’s no head room; the best place for all of that is where the sink is.

Team SINGLE SINK here, by the way. I guess if I had a boat big enough for 2 good-size basins I might be convinced, but . . . nah. Give me a sink big enough to bathe a baby in, please. It’s one of the upgrades to the galley - a big sink, instead of the not-big-enough-to-fit-a-pot-in one that was here originally - that I remark on almost every day. I digress.

That sink is in the BEST PLACE for practical usable counter. Eventually we’ll figure out a cover for the sink; meanwhile, I place a cutting board over the side of it. Voila, instant counter space.

Back to passage food prep. We picked up the hook at about 9 am the next morning, with good easy to eat food stashed in the fridge. I had no issue making tacos that first day - homemade corn tortillas, some cooked pork chunks mixed with that jar of beans and about a cup of leftover rice - and we’ve happily eaten well, making our way through the goodies from the galley.

what did I have pre-prepared?

• granola, yogurt

• pasta with garlic and beans

• bagels

what else did we eat? The weather was fine. I made tacos (homemade corn tortillas) with a pork/rice/beans/salsa filling. Life was excellent.

Recipe: Pasta with Garlic and Beans

PASTA WITH GARLIC AND BEANS

• a handful of cloves of garlic (5 minimum!)

• 3 TBS olive oil

• 1-2 tsp dried oregano

• 1-2 dashes worcestershire sauce (optional)

• 1 can (2 cups) stock

• 2 cans pinto beans

• 1 lb penne pasta

1. Put a large pot of water on to boil

2. Peel garlic and mince/press it

3. Rinse the beans (if desired) and drain them

4. Heat olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant. Don’t let it brown or burn!

5. Stir in oregano, then add the worcestershire sauce and the stock. Stir in the drained beans.

6. Let simmer for 10-15 minutes.

7. When the water comes to a boil, cook pasta according to package directions. Drain.

8. Pour sauce over pasta and stir to combine.

This is good hot, cold, or in between. Yum!

Subscribe now

It’s an unassuming corner. Dirty, maybe. Certainly the stainless steel could use some polishing, and the wood needs varnishing. The sliders need cleaning, and there are some grease stains evident on the stove top.

You see a weird perspective of a corner better overlooked.

I see memories and people.

The speckled Corian counter, a long-longed for upgrade from the old green and white tile - that counter was saved for us by friends when they redid their kitchen in Williamsburg, Virginia, and Jeremy spent lots of time learning how to work with Corian. The handles (those black things) are the handles from a set of nesting pots that was a gift from Tim and Pam Fisher. Tim, a high school friend of my dad’s, and his wife, Pam, cruised the Med on their 39’ sailboat for a handful of years; we met up with Querida Grande in North Carolina that year we took the kids cruising to the Bahamas. They gave us this set of nesting cookware right before Tim passed away. That wood that is in need of varnishing? Was from a collection of teak Jeremy’s dad had amassed for unknown boat projects. When we inherited that teak, some went into one of the hatches on the boat while some of it went into this galley project.

The smoked glass sliders, behind which sit plates and utensils and bowls. No story behind those, other than the shadow of what that space used to look like. When we got Calypso, the outboard storage space was narrow and protected by beautiful mahogany doors that flipped up, meaning that you had to clear anything off of the counter in order to open the lockers. One big part of the galley upgrade meant re-imagining that whole space to make it more usable. I love those sliders (even though they’re impossible to keep clean) because I don’t have to move anything out of the way to be able to get at what’s stored behind them

.The small saucepan on the stove was “borrowed” from the kitchen at the OPO, the long-in-the-family home on a lake in Vermont that we now own with my brother and his wife.

Everything has a story. Everything. And all the emotions, all the love, finds its way into anything created in this galley.

There’s more to the galley, obviously. The stove and the sink, the pantry and the fridge. But that corner is a snapshot of the larger picture no camera can capture.

***

Introducing Tasty Thursday: the Galley series. A glimpse into cooking and food aboard a 28’ sailboat, currently cruising in the South Pacific. Like this corner, there are backstories behind most of what I’ll be sharing here.

Right now, we’re motorsailing east against the trades, heading from Fakarava to either Makemo (120 miles) or Hao (240 miles). There’s a batch of dough rising in the big bowl I’ve got nestled in the sink. When offered the choice of chickpea curry or a pasta dish of some kind for dinner, Jeremy opted for the pasta. So instead of pulling out the pressure cooker and the dried chick peas, I pulled out the bowl and the flour; we like having baguette with our pasta. Nothing like carbs with carbs Plus with the leftover baguette, I’ll do ham and cheese sandwiches tomorrow for lunch - we have an open sleeve of Jambon de Paris to eat up. If he’d chosen the curry, I’d be making naan to go with that.

Galley thinking is usually a few steps ahead. Ingredients, flavors, side dishes. Weather considerations, ease of cooking.

It’s lovely that I have all kinds of friends along for the ride, every time I look in that little corner most people would pay no attention to. (Ruth Reichl calls them kitchen ghosts; if you have not had the pleasure of reading her post about it, you’re in for a treat.)

***

Dinner update. Turns out, the sea state was just a little lumpy to really think about boiling a pot of water and safely navigating the treacherous task of dumping said boiling water into the sink. We also had some leftovers (a shepherd’s pie-inspired lentil thing) that needed to be eaten. Those I heated up in that small saucepan, putting a little water in the bottom first and carefully scooping the dish into the pan so that the mashed potatoes remained on top. Eaten with some of that fresh baguette, it hit the spot with the added bonuses of fewer dishes AND leftovers used. And now I know what we’re having for dinner tomorrow, when we’ll be at anchor in a calm spot.

***

The essentials:

• 3-burner Force 10 propane/butane stove (with oven)

• 2 20-lb propane tanks stored in custom lockers on deck

• 40 liter ARB fridge (kind of like a very robust plug in cooler; it can be set to temperatures that will successfully freeze water and keep ice cream, though we use it as a fridge)

• single basin sink with water delivered by a foot pump

• single induction burner used largely during coffee production

Calypso has no freezer. No hot water (other than by heating it in a pan on the stove). We have a small desalinator that makes 3.5 gallons of water an hour; we run it between 2-3 hours a day and keep up easily with our water usage, including showers. 99.9% of our electricity needs are met by 4 solar panels charging 200 AH of lithium batteries; we carry a small, 1kw generator for stretches of rainy/cloudy days mean solar production is limited. We’ve pulled it out 3 times in the last year of full time cruising.

***

Some of the things we’ve eaten this week:

• bagels

• black bean/sweet potato tacos (homemade corn tortillas)

• pizza

• lentil shepherd’s pie

• granola

• pancakes (with apple chunks)

***

recipe for Ciabatta rolls (or baguettes, depending on how you shape them)

Makes 6 rolls or 3 small-ish baguettes (I usually double this!)

Total time: 4 hours

• 1.5 tsp yeast

• 1 c water

• 1 c flour

• 1.5 c flour

• 1 tsp salt

1. Mix yeast and water (let proof if you think it’s questionable) and whisk in 1 cup flour. Let sit, covered, for 25 minutes to give the yeast a head start.

2. Stir in salt and the additional 1.5 cups flour. THIS WILL BE VERY STICKY. I add flour until the dough is somewhat manageable. Cover with something (a tea towel works great) and let rest for an hour.

3. Turn the dough (wet hands, pull the dough from underneath and fold over itself, on all sides). Let sit for 30 minutes.

4. Turn dough again. Let sit for 30 minutes.

5. Turn dough again. Let sit for 30 minutes.

6. Prep a baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat mat dusted with flour or cornmeal (cornmeal makes a crunchy bottom). You can also skip the parchment or silpat and just use cornmeal.

7. Transfer dough gently to floured surface and pull into a rectangle. Envelope fold the dough (fold bottom third up, then top third down on top) and press lightly to seal the seams. Cut the dough into 6 pieces. (Shaping is not so simple. Press wide before cutting.)

8. Let the rolls rise, on that prepped baking sheet, for 40 minutes, covered lightly.

9. Bake at 450 for 20 minutes. (NOTE: in our galley, any oven temperatures are wild delusions of aspiration. I crank it up as high as it’ll go and hope. Baking times are usually double what a given recipe calls for)

   

   Share

   Thanks for reading Small Sailboat Life! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

A lot of people stress about meal planning. I see this question asked over and over again: what’s your plan for going cruising? How can I feed xxx people for a cruise of xxx days? Tell me what you cook!

Spoiler alert: my grocery list and my go-to meals might not suit you and your tastes. Do NOT take someone else’s list and go from there!

Meal planning on land is stressful enough for most of the families I know. Is it a mental block? A worry about getting it wrong? A lack of confidence in kitchen abilities, imagination, scheduling?

Add in some unfamiliarity with a galley, or thinking about seasickness, and reading endless blogs (maybe even mine) talking about how important the provisioning thing is . . . stress overload.

DO NOT PANIC.

I used to meal plan like a crazy woman. I’d write out every meal for the week and craft the grocery list against it, ticking off ingredients and even marking out what page in what cookbook a given recipe came from. This made me feel accomplished.

And then, week by week, I’d end the week with half the groceries unused. Half the recipes unmade. I’d change my mind about something to make, or a meeting would unexpectedly run late. A family member would have a crappy day and need their favorite comfort food, stat. This was bad enough when I had a huge fridge and a more generous grocery budget, but even back then I hated the idea of wasting food.

In short, my week ashore began to look more like my weeks cruising.

Not that cruising is endless careening from crisis to crisis. Far from it.

Cruising meal planning winds up being more “what do I feel like” and “what ingredients do I have on hand” more than “it’s Monday and I said last week that today was going to be tacos.” I call it “unplanned meal planning”.

This kind of flexiblity can be invaluable in a land-based existence too!

I do follow a loose 4-part process to get myself organized in terms of cruising food stuff, particularly on short cruises (a month or less). Longer than that, the idea of checking the weather becomes a little less important. The other check points, though? Spot on.

1. Think of special events you’ll need to celebrate. Birthdays and anniversaries. Halfway marks or getting past a brutal section of coastline. College applications submitted. What kinds of activities might you be doing - long hikes with lunch schlepped in a pack? Stargazing? Socializing with guests or new friends? You want to pay special attention to what you might need for such celebrations. What specific ingredients, or treats, need to be tucked away. Making sure you have the makings for, say, key lime pie which is your husband’s favorite so you can make it for his birthday.

2. Think of the weather. Is it going to be snowing and icing? Rain and fog? Sunshine? Humid steamy days? I don’t know about you, but I eat differently when it’s sunny and hot than when it’s cold and rainy.

3. Think of what items you need to use up. That ziplock bag filled with cooked pasta, the leftover pizza toppings, the yogurt that’s about to go off. Food waste is money waste, plain and simple. Understanding that you can (and will!) repurpose those little odds and ends is a solid upleveling of your meal planning repertoire.

4. Think about what kinds of grocery stores you’ll be able to visit. Are you enjoying secluded anchorage time with the nearest store 20 miles away? Is the town tiny with only a gas station for emergency rations? Are you at a dock with access to a car and endless superbly stocked stores? Are you in a place (and a time) with an accessible farmers’ market?

Once you answer these questions, you’re well on your way to meal “planning” and provisioning with ease for a cruise of a short duration

Share

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

(Note: this was originally written in October of 2023, when we were still in the boatyard north of Annapolis, MD, AND the idea of an electric blanket was definitely appealing in the fall chill. We’re currently in French Polynesia, where we reach for socks when the temp drops to 77. I hate to think what we’d need in Annapolis right now. I was inspired to resurrect this post now since we’ve had a few days in a row with not much sun.)

“I was thinking of getting one of those space heaters to use on board. What do you think?” A boatyard neighbor asked a couple of weeks ago, right when the weather was turning cold. We pointed out that a space heater uses a LOT of electricity, and if she was talking about using it away from the dock, she first needed to figure out whether they could power it.

Land life doesn’t generally involve any of these kinds of considerations. Electricity is something we take for granted. It’s in the walls, available by plugging into the wall outlet or flipping a switch. On a boat, though, you’re responsible for both the generation and the storage of said electricity; understanding that part of the equation is key to understanding just what you might be able to use in terms of appliances.

There are a couple of ways to look at this whole equation. You could look at your battery bank and your charging options, come up with a daily “electricity availability number”, and tweak your usage and toys to stay under that.

You could also start by figuring out how much power you’d like to have available. Want a fridge and a freezer? Hot water for showers? Starlink? An Instant Pot? All of these (and so much more) all require some electricity. Take those numbers and come up with an “electricity needed number” to decide how big a battery bank you need and how you’ll charge it.

For many of us, the reality is a mix of these two. There are some non-negotiable items that require electricity, a few “would be nice” items, and a limited amount of space/budget for batteries and charging options. You’ve got to find the sweet spot!

On Calypso and Mischief, we refuse to run the diesel engine solely to fill batteries and so rely on alternative sources for routine charging. Therefore, the size of our power plant is largely limited by space available for solar panels. (The length of the boom makes a permanently-installed wind generator a more complicated solution; we don’t like the aesthetics of those on a Bristol Channel Cutter anyway.) Calypso’s 200 AH Lithium house bank offers 180 amp hours of usable power while Mischief’s, 300 AH AGMs, gives us 150 usable AH, both powered by 400 watts of solar. If we want more power than this on a regular basis, we’ll have to figure out more space for batteries as well as how to fill them. (We do carry a small generator for emergency use - it never came out of the locker in the Caribbean nor the Bahamas, but we elected to bring it with us to French Polynesia as the ultimate backup. I think we had to pull it out ONCE in the Marquesas.)

One of the fastest ways to doom a cruise, in my opinion, is to overlook the importance of the balance of power. Having ample power takes cruising firmly out of the “camping” realm. Figure out honestly what your “MUST HAVEs” are, size the power plant to at least meet those, and if there’s additional power available then add some extras.

For us, refrigeration, the water maker, and navigation equipment are critical, plus lights and fans for down below and Starlink at least a couple of times a day. We’ve added a few luxuries that can be used as power is available - things like our induction burner or electric kettle or the bread machine, but if we have a few less sunny days that don’t fully charge the batteries, those are the first things not to be used.

Back to the cold nights and heater considerations. We definitely can’t power a space heater. We can, though, handle an electric blanket - and this has been a huge addition to life on board as the weather cools off! (Note: the electric blanket did NOT meet the cut for heading across the Pacific. I’m sure we’ll regret this when we’re en route to New Zealand.)

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

.

I was 21 when Jeremy said 4 words that would forever change my life.

He waited until the waiter at the pizza place had left the menus, then leaned in.

“I’ve got something to tell you.”

I stared at my hands. At him. At the menu. It’s likely there were tears in my eyes. Was this the break up talk? At College Inn pizza, on a Friday night, surrounded by strangers? My brain raced with the what ifs. Am I the only one whose brain goes immediately to “what did I do wrong” when someone says those words? It feels like being back in the principals office.

The waiter came back. I’m pretty sure I ordered something – that is, after all, what you do when you’re out for dinner. The waiter went away. My mouth went dry and my hands got clammy.

The words came as if from a far distance. “Let’s buy a boat.”

I can still vividly remember the almost levitating feeling of relief. “Is that all?”

“I want to go cruising.”

He’d been sailing and talking about sailing for as long as I’d known him. We met on the sailing team at the University of Virginia (we sailed on a man-made inland lake about 25 miles away), and he’d been teaching sailing on big boats in the Bahamas and the Eastern Caribbean during spring break and summers since his first year at school.

This wasn’t that big of a surprise. How hard could this cruising thing be, anyway? It’s like a fulltime vacation, right?

So we graduated, landed jobs, and moved to Texas (in 1991, there were not many options for a non-US citizen in a really awful job market) with this goal in our heads. The apartment was chosen because it had the all-important second bedroom – not for guests, or for a kid, but for the wooden dinghy he started building even before we unpacked all the boxes. Evenings were spent eating rice and beans (to save money), poring over cruising guides and boat magazines, endlessly discussing the kind of boat we should buy and where we should go. By the following spring we’d found the boat, the 28’ Bristol Channel Cutter we still own, adopted a beagle, and began the cruising prep in earnest.

It was decided. A 2-year cruise was what we could swing, we thought, based on a pulled-from-thin air budget of $1000 a month. Our destination? The Bahamas and the Eastern Caribbean, though the idea of a Caribbean circumnavigation was entertained more than once. Every instant was spent talking about the boat, working on the boat, or discussing the cruise. Was there anything other than the future?

Cruising prep involves a lot of projects, a lot of lists, and a lot of learning. I remember certain moments about those 3 years, but mostly I remember worrying about what was next. A project was finished (putting the head on the boat, building the galley) and immediately the next one started. Enjoy the process? Who has time to do that, when the TO DO list was longer than I am tall. I think I took maybe 3 pictures the whole time, mostly of the mess or of the dog curled up in some corner.

Questions swirled. Would we be able to get the finished dinghy out of the room it was being built in? How would the dog do on the boat? What would life be like in such a small space? How could I cook aboard? Could I get tired of beaches? What actually do you do on a boat all day?

The next three years flew by in a blur of endless boat work and more endless driving (my commute was 70 miles each way, and we carpooled together to save money), and on October 1, 1994, we slipped under the Kemah bridge and into Galveston Bay with enough gear on board to put us down an extra 2 inches on our lines, towing that dinghy (it came out of the room!) and followed by a few friends on their own boats cheering us on as we headed off for our adventure.

I found one of the log books we kept during that first cruise, a map-decorated hardbound journal. Here are some of the entries.

July. We leave in 2 months to go cruising. It’s starting to be real. We’re prepping now – we’ll really be cruising once we leave the dock.

October 10: One week in. We need to find a place to tuck the boat while we head back to Houston for an appointment. When we get back from that, we’ll really be cruising.

November 25: Thanksgiving tied to the dock at Dotty and Waldy’s, finishing up the dinghy seats. They loaned us a car for easy provisioning. Next stop, the Dry Tortugas. When we get there, we’ll really be cruising.

December 25: What a crappy Christmas. It’s dumping rain and howling wind. We’re all alone in the anchorage, with canned ham, canned peas, and canned potatoes for Christmas dinner. We leave for the Bahamas tomorrow. I can’t wait to really be cruising.

May 1: We leave for Rum Cay tomorrow, then on to the Turks and Caicos. I think this is where we really start cruising, when we leave the Bahamas. I wonder who we’ll see there.

When I re-read logs from the first year, the “we’ll really be cruising when . . .” line is repeated over and over again. It almost makes me sad to go back and read it. Not for the adventures and mishaps that are chronicled, and not even for the sense of nostalgia as I read the words written by 24 year old me. But the constant looking ahead, FOMO even then. That was a lifetime ago. Have I learned anything since then?

How much cruising, how much life, did I (do I!) miss wondering when it was going to start?

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

Happy Cruise-aversary!

One year ago today, September 25, 2024, we pulled off the dock in Deltaville, our bow pointed north on the start of this forever cruise. We’d put the boat in the water just 5 days before. The grey still morning gave way to decent wind and we scooted up the Bay at 7 knots.

There’s some arbitrary-ness about choosing this date as THE date this cruise began. After all, we returned to that very dock for an additional 10 days of last minute provisioning, a delightful going-away party, dinners with friends, and more. If the “leaving” is all about not coming back somewhere, then it’s arguable that we didn’t leave until October 26.

I’ll still claim it.

In the past year, we’ve sailed from Deltaville (37.54 N, 76.33 W) north to Pasadena, Maryland (39.17 N, 76.48 W), then south to Colon, Panama (09.37 N, 79.95 W) via North Carolina, Florida, and the Bahamas. We transited the Panama Canal, then sailed from Panama City, Panama (08.91 N, 79.52 W) to Hiva Oa, Marquesas, French Polynesia (09.81 SOUTH, 139.03 W). And now we’re exploring the Tuamotus (16.45 S, 145.36 W).

If the mileage calculator is to be believed, we’ve sailed over 10,000 miles in the past 365 days. At 5 knots . . .

Some stats. (from September 25, 2024)

Obviously I’ve gotten something wrong as this adds up to more than 365. I need to set up a spreadsheet so this doesn’t involve counting on a calendar. You get the rough idea.

At a dock/mooring/boatyard: TOTAL tied to something not our anchor: 70 nights

Sept 2024: (6) 5 PH2, 1 mooring annapolis

October 2024: (25) Mooring annapolis: 14 nights, PH2 9 nights, Beaufort 2 nights

November 2024: (2) mooring Warderick Wells 2 nights

December 2024: (8) dock Shelter Bay: 6 nights, boatyard Shelter Bay: 2 nights

January 2024: (29) boatyard Shelter Bay: 22 nights, dock Shelter Bay: 3 nights, mooring Lake Gatun 1 night, dock La Playita 3 nights

At Sea: 55 nights

Oct: 3 nights

Nov: 3 nights

December: 8 nights

March: 31 nights

April:1 night

May: 4 nights

June: 2 nights

July: 1 night

August: 1 night

September: 1 night

Anchored: 214 nights

Sept 2024: 4 nights

October 2024: 1 night

November 2024: 25 nights

December 2024: 15 nights

January 2025: 1 night

February 2025: 28 nights

April 2025: 29 nights

May 2025: 27 nights

June 2025: 28 nights

July 2025: 30 nights

August 2025: 30 nights

September 2025: 24 nights so far

Leave a comment

Share

Subscribe now