Ann Vanderhoof S/V Receta - Coastal Cruiser and Island Hopper

Ann Vanderhoof with the fritters she made from lambi (conch) Grenadian fishermen  friends gave them one day. The recipe is in her new book, The Spice Necklace.   About Ann Vanderhoof

What advice would you give women in setting up their galleys, in preparing to cook aboard?

Think about what you use – and what you like – in your daily cooking/eating routine at home, and make sure you transfer as much of that as possible onboard (given the limited storage space, of course).

Live aboard cruising isn't like a 2-week holiday: your galley is now your home kitchen, and you don't want to feel you're roughing it every time you prepare a meal.

For instance: When we first moved aboard and started cruising, I had no china or glass in the galley, fearing breakage. But I like drinking wine out of a stemmed glass, and I like my morning coffee in a ceramic mug. And when we have guests for happy hour, I'm convinced my snacks look more appetizing on my favorite “from home” china serving plates and bowls.

Plastic made me feel like we were camping – so gradually we introduced some glassware and china into the galley. Much to my surprise, we've lost only one glass in the last two years – which is better than our record living on land.

High-quality pots and pans (and a pressure cooker: see #4, below) are essential boat equipment – perhaps even more so than on land. They tend to cook more efficiently – a real bonus in a small space that heats up quickly. And take it from me: You will curse a cheesy frying pan or pot every time you have to scrub off burned food in a small boat sink with limited – or no – hot water. Pots and pans that nest help conserve storage space.

A well-lit galley makes meal prep easier and more pleasant, too. (In the Caribbean, where we're cruising, sunset is around 6 pm year-round, so I am usually prepping/cooking dinner after dark.) Adding an energy-efficient light (or two) can make a big difference in how you feel about time spent in the galley.

Make sure the galley equipment you use frequently is easily accessible. Having to lift out a bunch of stuff to get at the pot you need grows tiresome very quickly.

Dinner that I reeled in between Carriacou and Grenada. Barracuda. Delicious.

Almost every night we're home, we set the table (see below) and sit down to dinner, usually in the main salon but sometimes in the cockpit. On Receta , dinner is the one meal that is definitely NOT catch-as-catch-can. I mostly cook from scratch (with the help of the odd can or jar), focusing on what's available fresh locally.

If I've been to the Saturday market in Port of Spain, Trinidad, say, dinner might be curried shrimp with rice and a salad. If we're in Grenada and fishermen friends have stopped by with fresh lambi (conch), we might cook it in foil on the barbecue (using my recipe in An Embarrassment of Mangoes) or stew it in the pressure cooker and serve it with rice and “creamed” callaloo (using the method a Grenadian friend taught me, which is included in The Spice Necklace .)

And, of course, we cook fish whenever we can buy it, catch it, or are given it as a gift – pan-fried, grilled, curried, you name it. (We eat red meat onboard very infrequently.)

We set the table with place mats and use cloth napkins (from Art Fabrik in Grenada), except when we're eating a dish that requires our fingers, like lobster or crab. (Then we revert to paper towels.)

I do most of the cooking on Receta , because I enjoy it -- though Steve is in charge when dinner is on the grill. (He also has a few stove specialties, including a fabulous Creole octopus.) The tradition on Receta is that I wash, Steve dries, and both of us put away – usually with some lively soca, calypso, or steel-pan accompaniment.

Breakfast and lunch are more casual. We usually have fruit and cereal for breakfast (with either yogurt – sometimes homemade – or UHT milk), and, occasionally, fresh-baked muffins (such as the papaya-banana muffins in An Embarrassment of Mangoes (see recipe here). Lunch if we're onboard is usually a quick sandwich.