Cooking While Underway

Cooking while underway can vary from easy to difficult and overall the current passage has been a challenge. The first few days were calm and Curare was a stable platform but as soon as the wind started it has been like a circus ride. If I was less of a perfectionist I might be satisfied with a can of stew and a spoon, but I have a lovely stove and I am going to use it.

Most of this passage has been hard on the wind, which means the boat is heeled (tipped) over so that one side of the boat deck is at water level. In addition the seas are very confused so Curare is also rolling from side to side and rocking back and forth. Luckily my stove is gimballed, a fancy sailing word which means the stove is hanging free and as the boat moves around the stove stays perfectly level. I can leave a boiling pot on the stove top without (too many) worries and baked goods come out of the oven with a level top, not slanted. The challenge is in the preparation because the counter tops are NOT gimballed, they are slanted and move in all directions. Nothing on a counter stays in one spot; vegetables roll around, bags of flour and sugar end up on the floor, spice bottles fly from one side of the galley to the other and bowls do not stay in place. I have stopped some of this movement by placing non-skid mats on all counter surfaces and I use low bowls with wide bases but accidents still happen. Yesterday, during a particularly violent roll, the bits of stew meat that I had just finished cutting ended up on the other side of the galley, under the oven. How they found their way to that spot is a mystery because the gap under the oven is only 6 cm in width and if I tried to throw something in there I would miss.

The constant motion and tippiness means I cannot haul out all of my ingredients at once, each item has to be taken from it's storage place to be prepped or measured and then has to be stowed again before the next item is bought out. For example when baking bread I cannot take out the milk, oil, flour, sugar and yeast all at once or I would be using the floor as a mixing bowl. Instead I place real mixing bowls on the stove top (remember the stove top stays level) and then take the flour out, measure that, put it back, take the sugar out, measure that, put it back........ It is a little time consuming but nothing gets spilled and on a passage I have lots of time. Making lunches and dinners I use much the same method except vegetables and pasta or rice take the place of the flour and milk, and I generally do not measure any of the ingredients, I just estimate.

Curare's motion also means I have a lot of bruises. Walking from one end of the boat to the other requires two hands to hang on and as soon as I only use one hand, or tempt fate by using no hands, I end up with a bruise from bashing into a fixed hard object. Unfortunately cooking quite often requires the state of "no hands to hang on" so to compensate I wedge myself into a corner leaning against an unforgiving counter top and there is another bruise. The bruised area hurts so I adjust position and get another one in a different spot. At this stage in the passage I have no unbruised spots to lean on so they just get larger. Getting stowed food out of lockers also contributes to bruising. If I have both hands inside of the locker sorting through bags, boxes or cans and the boat drops sideways I am flung to the other side of the boat, usually landing against a hard object, although a few times I have ended up on top of the snoozing Jessie.

The one good thing about being on passage is the time I can devote to making tasty meals and bakery items. When I am at anchor or in a port there is so much to do and to see that I tend to ignore any cooking task beyond the "ready in 30 minute or less" meal. Out here, where there is little to do except keep watch, I can spend the entire afternoon cooking. This means we will arrive in port fatter than when we left, not a good thing but at least we're staying healthy.

Comments

[kathi]

I just checked you blog - lots of changes. I sent you a note this morning with my new email address - ktoot40@yahoo.com

how did jessie do in the galapagos and what about the quarantine issues for the south pacific? I have a webpage and in the process of doing a blog - will send you the address soon.