Saturday, May 31, 2014

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

a cure for anemic burners?

Anyone who's been around stoves on boats knows that burners on marine or camping stoves lean towards being anemic and it's often hard to get the needful temperature for searing or stir frying...

Serious Eats just had a very interesting post about a possible answer to our problem.

Color me excited...

Monday, May 26, 2014

We're back on track...

I really like food...

I mean I really like food. I'm sure a lot of you understand the emphasis.

The problem is cooking on a boat in a world spiraling towards harder times and keeping the boat stocked with good and healthy ingredients on a budget takes no small amount of work and creativity. That's the downside.

On the other hand, the upside is creativity is an enjoyable pastime from where I sit and, whenever you make a good meal aboard, the gratification is there for the tasting.

When we were cruising in Spain we met a well off American couple who were sailing their boat home to the States to sell it and buy an RV because they could not find Hellman's mayonnaise in Europe. Seriously the lack of "proper" mayonnaise in Europe was the deal breaker...

I'll let that sink in for a moment.

At the time I thought they were nuts... Firstly because mayonnaise is pretty easy to make. Secondly because I'd never actually thought of Hellman's as being real mayonnaise but more a sorta/kinda chemical sludge doing a bad mayonnaise imitation, and lastly, how had they escaped the fact that Europe was brimming with awesome freshly made mayonnaise and not taken advantage?

Over the years I've reflected on this more times than I can count because it tells a story and that story is just how important food is to how happy/unhappy we are... Mayonnaise is a silly example but it so perfectly illustrates just how important food can be.

Food is a lot more than just being a fuel that powers our engine and, as times become harder, it's going to be even more important to fulfil those more esoteric needs in a frugal galley.

So, consider this a restatement of purpose of sorts.