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Cruising the Great Loop Taught Us How to Cook BY KATE RAULIN CARNEY
B EFORE EMBARKING on the Great Loop, my husband Tim and I lived in New York City, which helped prepare us somewhat for life on the water. We took our clothes to a laundromat, hand washed our dishes, and understood the challenges of living in a small space. But given it’s one of the culinary capitals of the world, living in Manhattan didn’t teach us how to cook. Since living on our boat, a 31-foot 1996 Camano Troll named Sweet Day, we had to change our relationship with the kitchen, which means we actually had to use it. Here’s what we learned. Be creative with what we have While cruising the Great Loop, we imagined tiki bars and restaurants dotting
the shorelines everywhere we stopped. This is definitely true in some parts. But more times than expected, we found ourselves nowhere near a place to grab a meal, much less a grocery store. This means we’ve learned how to build meals with what we have onboard. We also realized that as long as we have flour and a little butter, homemade tortillas can easily transform a couple sides into tasty tacos and easily impress neighbors at the next docktail party. Rarely waste food In the daily hustle of our lives in the city, we ended up wasting a lot more food than we’d like to admit.The opposite has been true while cruising.We typically buy enough fresh food for three to four meals, because that’s all we can fit in our fridge. A home- cooked dinner is easily stretched to lunch the
next day. And since we travel with our fridge, leftovers never get left behind. No need for fancy kitchen gadgets We have a small propane oven and a three-burner stove. We can use these with barely any electricity, making cooking underway and at anchor seamless. When we’re plugged into a marina or if we run our generator, we can also use our microwave (when it’s not being used as a food pantry). Some cruisers have Instapots and other gadgets, but our boat isn’t set up to handle that amount of electricity. Plus, we don’t have the space. So, we’ve had to learn (with a lot of practice) how to cook juicy chicken or tender salmon without the benefits of modern cooking technology.
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