About halfway from Vanuatu to Australia, I ran out of fresh food. Oh, I have some onions and half a pumpkin, but the bread, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, bananas, most of the dairy, and all the meals I prepared in advance are gone, not because I didn’t plan ahead, but because these things just don’t last more than a week at sea for me. I’ve tried all kinds of things to make bread last longer, but come day four I can taste the mold. My choices when I run out of fresh food is to eat out of my non-perishable stock, but most of these things (besides some canned soups) require cooking, and cooking while single-handed sailing can be a challenge, particularly in weather. When I run out of fresh protein, I usually fish. Generally, after a couple of hours, I have fresh fish. This morning it took less than an hour to catch a yellowfin tuna. Finding food, whether from my stores or the ocean, is not the problem. Cooking it can be. My go-to is a pressure cooker. I made wonderful squash last night in under six minutes. The great thing about the pressure cooker is there’s zero chance of spilling anything. Even on a gimbaled stove, liquid splashes out of a regular pan. But for something that needs to be fried, my other go-to are skillet meals. Here is an example. The sashimi rice was soaked for 15 minutes with pieces of a juiced tangerine rind and dried tarragon, then partially cooked in the non-stick skillet with a lid, the rice was scooped into a cup, some butter and the rest of the tangerine was added to the pan with the fish. When halfway done, a little dark soy sauce was poured onto the fish, the partially cooked rice was returned, and the skillet was covered until the fish and rice were finished cooking. The reason I am holding the pan tight in this photo is all of this was done during a squall with the boat rolling 8 degrees. I usually eat in the cockpit because when the food spills (or it’s blown off the plate), the sea water will clean up the mess. It may not look great, but trust me when I say it was better than canned chili. When it comes to cleanup, I just let the sea rinse the pan.
