Saturday, May 25, 2013

Day 19 to FP - Food on Irie

:lat=-20.97:lon=-130.09:
Time: 0030UTC, COG 245T, SOG 4.5kts, Distance Remaining: 316nm

Food is usually very important for the (female) crew on Irie. It still is,
but because of our "weird" hours, snacking and napping throughout the day,
we are just not that hungry. This, the fact that we don't seem to catch any
more fish, and that our abundance of vegetables started to turn all at once,
changed a few things about our eating behavior on board. Temporarily, of
course. Having an all-vegetable main meal, for example (like zucchini as a
starter, followed by vegetable soup, and fried sweet plantains with hot
sauce for dessert), has been quite common.

Provisioning for a long passage is quite tricky. The problem is not what to
get - you buy whatever choice they have - but how much. You want to have
enough fresh produce to last the whole voyage, but you don't want (too many)
things go bad. It has happened enough times in the past that we really look
forward to eating a certain vegetable from the fridge, even plan a dish
around it, only to find it too rotten to eat.

Despite the rough weather half of the time, we have had a few food
revelations and treats. Our banana bread was tasty and everlasting. The
limes we obtained for fish ceviche were turned into a dessert of lime
squares and limeade. Mark made an unbelievably yummy and over-sized pumpkin
soup, with three pounds of fresh pumpkin needing to be eaten quickly and
some carrots thrown in. We prepared some favorite and enjoyable dishes, like
falafel on home-made spinach flat bread, spaghetti carbonara, shrimp curry
and an exquisite salad with eggs, cheese, ham and beets.

The highlight, however, were the American-Belgian chocolate chip cookies
Mark produced. The - new to us - recipe was American (we won't use any other
recipe ever again!), the dark chocolate chips were from Belgium (thanks
again, Griet and Wim). They were truly "the best chocolate chip cookies in
the world", crunchy on the outside, soft with melting chocolate in the
middle. Straight out of the oven, they are to die for. I am still licking my
fingers.

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