Thursday, March 31, 2011

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

I remember when a pound had sixteen ounces...

Doing our monthly provisions has become sort of an ongoing WTF experience as prices fof basics keeps getting more and more expensive...

Even more frustrating is the stealth downsizing of packaging so that when you think you are buying a pound of pasta in fact you are actually only getting 13.25 ounces.

Got to start reading those labels again...

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Can you say z-o-m-b-i-e?

The Miami Rum Renaissance Festival begins with the Zombie Jamboree...


They had me with the word zombie!

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Friday, March 25, 2011

Bagels...

Bagels... Serious Eats has what you need to know when you don't have a place to buy bagels.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Beer...

Deborah Bach over at Three Sheets tells us a little about brewing...

Saturday, March 19, 2011

A good book...

Living on a boat, it is easy to get a sense of the fish you put on your table and not so long ago the same could be said for commercial fishermen...

Not so much these days though... Most fishing decisions in the commercial sector are made in board rooms and is the thing of short term profits and balance sheets.

Bummer...

There is a small country where the fishermen fished sustainably and made a life for themselves. Well, until the waters of that country became a place for other more wealthy nations to deposit their toxic wastes while other nations' fishing vessels in factory ships stole what catch remained...

Welcome to Somalia in 2011! A country where people earn a couple of dollars a day if they have work and if they don't are simply out of luck. The fish are no longer there or stolen by industrial fishing concerns where short term profit is the only law. Hardly surprising that some of those local fishermen are angry and just might consider a different line of work... The real story is always a lot more complicated than you might think.

Big business fishing has never been about sustainability or caring about the environment and it never will be... But, it does not have to be that way.

All over the world there are still fishermen and women fishing in a way that is sustainable and a very good primer on the subject is "Fish Tales: Stories & Recipes from Sustainable Fisheries Around the World" by Bart van Olphen and Tom Kime. Whether you get it as a cookbook with a back story or a study of sustainable fishing with some recipes, it most certainly belongs on your bookshelf...

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

A few thoughts on keeping the beer cold...

Back when we first set out cruising, if you wanted a cold beer the accepted practice was to have a box with ice in it... While sailing in the Med where ice was not readily available we just adapted and went without, which as it happens was actually a whole lot easier than one would expect.

We had considered refrigeration but in those days we noticed that our fellow cruisers with refrigeration seemed to sail from one port to another not in search of cool Mediterranean sights and experiences, but in the unending quest to find a refrigeration mechanic who could top up or repair their system...

Recently we had some issues with our onboard charging system and the first casualty of our power triage was the fridge. As it happens, we have a small power frugal fridge but it still winds up being a considerable drain on the system, so it was needful to cut back and relive our old "no cold beer" regime for a couple of weeks.

So how did we fare without the fridge? Just fine...

The thing is, that being without the ability to keep stuff cold for a couple of weeks reminded us just how little we actually need a fridge. Which is not to say we have any plans of doing without, as cold drinks are better than room temperatur, and it is nice to be able to load up on pork chops when they are on sale, but it is not a crucial system in the grand scheme of things...

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Some good stuff...

Sailing With Totem has been writing on the subject of long range provisions and they are making a whole lot of sense...

Long-term Provisioning

Provisioning Look-back: Over buying

Provisions worth their weight in gold

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Might be time to stock up...

I've been noticing  a rather steep price hike in coffee prices at the local shops...

The Seattle Times tells us why.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

A must read...

It's a complicated world...
The new school of fish