Chapter 139: Will We Run Out of Food?!?

For those of you who know us well, you know that Bob and I love to cook and we love to eat great food.  In our former land life, we loved planning and hosting meals.  We might have had every kitchen gadget known to man 😁 We lived approximately 5 minutes from our H-E-B grocery store so it was very convenient.  Because we both worked full time,  I would create a weekly meal plan and we would usually go to the store once a week (unless we forgot something!!)

Flash forward to now onboard Meraviglia,  we have a very small galley and the least amount of kitchen gadgets we can get by with (though Nick and Kat did get us the Dash mini waffle maker and egg cooker for Christmas – thanks kids!!) We also have limited storage space for provisioning.  When we initially left the US, we stocked as much as we could both non perishables as well as a full freezer.  Honestly, we did pretty well considering we didn’t have any experience.  We have not done a big reprovision since we left and we are just now getting to the end of what we initially stocked, almost one year later! Throughout our travels, we typically shopped in each port for fresh produce and fruit and then created meals based on what was available.  But now we are faced with a voyage of at least 30 days without stopping so provisioning for crossing the Pacific has felt a little daunting! 

Some of the specific challenges to provisioning for this type of passage is not knowing what our conditions will be like.  If we have heavy weather, it is very difficult to cook down below so we need to have a variety of healthy options that require little prep. Another challenge is how to keep produce and perishables onboard to last for a lengthy period of time. So to begin the process came research, my favorite! I watched webinars by two of my favorite people, Behan Gifford and Nica Waters, who shared their experience and gave some great tips.  I also reviewed some of the written resources on Boat Galley created by Nica and Carolyn Shearlock. I also need to give a shout out to our friends on Blue Buddha who shared a great spreadsheet to help us organize our lists of meals and items needed.  Armed with all of that info, I created a planning calendar for four weeks of meals that are a mix of already prepped and frozen meals alongside some easily prepped meals and snacks.  The calendar is really just a guide, the day to day menu will likely change depending on weather or if we have a craving for a certain thing but at least we know we have a solid four weeks of meals planned.  Plus we will have all of our normal provisions so many other options beyond that.  We eat mainly vegetarian so including enough protein was part of the menu selection.  Planning easy but nutritious food is critically important to help us maintain the energy needed for this long passage. 

This week in addition to creating the calendar and the shopping list,  I began with prepping some food to freeze.  This is a multistep process – first cooking the food, cooling it, and then packaging and vacuum sealing it.  The vacuum sealer is definitely an essential part of our kit!  I also used it to cut up and freeze fresh produce to use in recipes through our passage – this helps reduce the use of a knife in potentially bumpy seas as well as ensures our produce stays usable! Next, we will need to rent a car to visit Price Smart (Panama’s Sam’s Club equivalent)  to load up on the majority of our supplies.  This will be a big trip and the challenge will come upon our return and storing it onboard.  Because our spaces are small and we do not want any bug infestations,  we remove everything that is packaged in cardboard boxes so we can dispose of the boxes on shore (which also helps with trash management onboard!). This also involves labeling and vacuum sealing for items like flour, sugar, cornmeal, and dried pasta.  We store drinks in plastic containers in the bilge so that is another process as well as finding storage for toilet paper, tissues, and other household/toiletry items.  Every space imaginable on Meraviglia is definitely utilized!! Hopefully with the preparation we are doing now,  we will happily eat our way across the Pacific with plenty of food to share!!