First things first, it’s someone’s birthday today, and while I’m sad to not be with him, I’m looking forward to celebrating when I move aboard next week.

In a recent email, a friend asked me what cooking on the boat was going to be like, and I realized I had never given any real picture of the set up. I mean to fix that today, by stealing parts of a guest post I did on Scott’s blog while I was there over Spring Break:

As the Cap’n mentioned, this week’s trip is a trial visit for me to test my boat-living skills. I am considering spending a good part of the summer living aboard. One of the few reservations I have left about this is the cooking-and-eating situation.

Here’s the challenge. Without refrigeration, most of our food is coming from cans and boxes. Add the humidity, and even onions don’t last long. And our cooking appliances are one propane grill and two propane burners, and it’s tough to get the heat very high on them. No working oven. A very limited amount of space = limited supply of staples also.

These have been our top meals this week:

Spaghetti with sauce from a jar, with roasted red peppers (also from a jar).
Cheddar sausages with onions and peppers
Steamed clams (picked up from a seafood shack within kayaking distance from our anchorage today)
Scott’s famous egg sandwich
Grilled brats with a side salad of black beans, canned tomatoes and avocado.

It hasn’t been too bad and I think it will be better this summer. We’re going to try to get Scott a 12-volt fridge (an early birthday present) while I have the rental car tomorrow, which will help somewhat. I think I also need to do a little more research on stove top meals, good recipes using non-perishable ingredients, and figuring out a stretch of menus that use the same (short) list of ingredients. If anyone has a reference for a good “sailboat” cookbook, let me know.

Post Spring Break Update: I did get Scott an early birthday present of a thermoelectric cooler which plugs into the 12-volt outlet.