Eating well

It was the captain's turn to cook dinner tonight. I started early and did the Quijote shuffle around Kay as we both vied for galley space. While Kay whipped up four loaves of fresh french bread (OMG was that bread good, warm out of the oven and slathered in butter!), I fried onions, green peppers and ground sausage, then stirred in a jar of marinera sauce and served it over penne pasta.

We erected the cockpit table and enjoyed the meal under clear skies and the setting sun, then shared brownies still warm out of the oven when it was too dark to see. The brownies were rich and chewy. Kay likes to make the most out of a warm oven given our limited propane resource. You won't hear any complaints from the rest of us.

We talked a bit about propane while we gorged on brownies. Ideally it would be nice to enjoy fresh baked bread or brownies occasionally while crossing the Pacific, but we wonder if its too extravagant, given that opportunities to refill our propane tanks will be scarce.

It is certain that we won't eat as well while crossing the ocean as we do where fresh produce and propane are plentiful. But there is value in eating well and we should do what we can. We decided that if we have the comfort of knowing we will not go hungry, even if we run out of propane, we should be able to give priority to eating well. To that end, we'll stock canned foods that can be eaten cold if necessary: stew, beans, chili, veggies, meats, soups, fruit, etc. Then we'll eat hot meals while we can, fresh food while it lasts, mix in baked foods once in a while, and eat cold canned food if we have to.

That's the strategies anyway. Meals from canned food have the added benefit of being simple to to prepare when conditions get rough. And while it may not be what we would normally choose to eat, it won't last forever. Soon enough we'll find ourselves sitting in a restaurant in Papeete eating fresh fish and vegetables.

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