Serious Eats has everything you need to know about making great pizza on your stove top... Check it out!
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Did someone say pizza?
Serious Eats has everything you need to know about making great pizza on your stove top... Check it out!
Sunday, March 11, 2012
What stuff costs...
Most of the eateries here cater to tourists (and those who don't still price like they do) but I find it amazing how many cruisers seem to think nothing about $4 beers...
As for me, the idea of a $4 beer is simply nuts (and by the way we're not talking some exotic micro brewery awesomeness we're talking Coors/Heineken/Presidente/Caribe) but it makes you wonder about what folks are willing to pay for stuff.
Of course, places that sell $4 bottles of beer don't put food on the table for the frugal cruiser either. Pretty soon those $15 hamburgers start to really deplete the cruising funds...
That said, when a six pack of just drinkable beer from the local store goes for $7.99 it's (if beer happens to be something you think important) time to point the boat to less expensive places, cut way back on the beer consumption, or get up close and personal with home brewing!
Anyone actually brewing beer on their boats out there?
As for me, the idea of a $4 beer is simply nuts (and by the way we're not talking some exotic micro brewery awesomeness we're talking Coors/Heineken/Presidente/Caribe) but it makes you wonder about what folks are willing to pay for stuff.
Of course, places that sell $4 bottles of beer don't put food on the table for the frugal cruiser either. Pretty soon those $15 hamburgers start to really deplete the cruising funds...
That said, when a six pack of just drinkable beer from the local store goes for $7.99 it's (if beer happens to be something you think important) time to point the boat to less expensive places, cut way back on the beer consumption, or get up close and personal with home brewing!
Anyone actually brewing beer on their boats out there?
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
On being frugal...
I'm a sucker for articles about how to save money on the food front, they always suck me in and most of the time I feel suckered when the article does not provide the answers I was looking for.
Of course, part of this is because most of those writing about saving money are not actually on budgets and it usually winds up being a short list of things to cut out or use cheaper ingredients... DUH! My favorite, a couple of years back, included the advice to economize by trying a California Champagne instead of French...
Over at Boing Boing today they actually had a pretty good one and you should give it a read. Where it does not work for boat folk is gardening is not really an option but otherwise it makes a whole lot of sense.
Of course, part of this is because most of those writing about saving money are not actually on budgets and it usually winds up being a short list of things to cut out or use cheaper ingredients... DUH! My favorite, a couple of years back, included the advice to economize by trying a California Champagne instead of French...
Over at Boing Boing today they actually had a pretty good one and you should give it a read. Where it does not work for boat folk is gardening is not really an option but otherwise it makes a whole lot of sense.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Has the world gone crazy?
I went shopping a couple of days ago and noticed that Spam was more expensive than chicken and it got me curious!
As it happens, Spam was also more expensive than pork chops, beef roast, and most cuts of steak... Fact is, Spam was nearly the most expensive meat in the store... I also noticed that the other cheap meat in a can, corned beef, was also priced higher than stuff from the butcher counter.
Does this make any kind of sense at all?
Not that I'm knocking the whole Spam thing and in fact you can get quite creative with the stuff but still, Spam and corned beef have always been the cheap seats in the protein world so when did these become expensive?
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Stuff I can't imagine cruising without...
I don't know about you, but there are a few items I simply cannot imagine sailing off into the sunset without...
The first thing that jumps to mind is sun dried tomatoes. A few years back,, I discovered Bella Sun Luci tomatoes in olive oil and the only word that comes to mind to describe them is awesome.
The thing is, down here in the Caribbean, finding a proper fresh tomato is a somewhat problematic affair. What is available is, usually, pretty awful quality wise and at a price that is just plain silly... I mean, who wants to pay a dollar for a bruised, battered, and mostly tasteless tomato?
Luckily both in St Martin and the USVI you can find Bella Sun Luci tomatoes (made by Mooney farms) for a very reasonable price (around $10 for the two pound jar) but you should be warned that once you start using them they become a staple...
Even better is that each jar of tomatoes is packed in eleven ounces of olive oil which can by itself be used any number of ways. You can use the oil to flavor things, fry with, or in our case we find the remaining oil and jars are perfect for storing cheese à la the oil method.
Of course, some folks on boats don't like the idea of glass jars or olive oil but luckily the people who make the Bella Sun Luci Tomatoes have also added a variety of pouched alternatives in 3.5 ounce sizing (Lisa Mooney tells me that six pouches have about the same amount of tomatoes as the two pound jar)...
Me, I'm sticking with the jars...
The real attraction of the sun dried tomatoes is they are just so flavorful that they really make whatever you put them in just that little bit better. Which is, after all the whole point of the exercise!
The first thing that jumps to mind is sun dried tomatoes. A few years back,, I discovered Bella Sun Luci tomatoes in olive oil and the only word that comes to mind to describe them is awesome.
The thing is, down here in the Caribbean, finding a proper fresh tomato is a somewhat problematic affair. What is available is, usually, pretty awful quality wise and at a price that is just plain silly... I mean, who wants to pay a dollar for a bruised, battered, and mostly tasteless tomato?
Luckily both in St Martin and the USVI you can find Bella Sun Luci tomatoes (made by Mooney farms) for a very reasonable price (around $10 for the two pound jar) but you should be warned that once you start using them they become a staple...
Even better is that each jar of tomatoes is packed in eleven ounces of olive oil which can by itself be used any number of ways. You can use the oil to flavor things, fry with, or in our case we find the remaining oil and jars are perfect for storing cheese à la the oil method.
Of course, some folks on boats don't like the idea of glass jars or olive oil but luckily the people who make the Bella Sun Luci Tomatoes have also added a variety of pouched alternatives in 3.5 ounce sizing (Lisa Mooney tells me that six pouches have about the same amount of tomatoes as the two pound jar)...
Me, I'm sticking with the jars...
The real attraction of the sun dried tomatoes is they are just so flavorful that they really make whatever you put them in just that little bit better. Which is, after all the whole point of the exercise!
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
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