We’re about to leave the beautiful wilderness behind along with the underwater critters, eagles, whales, dolphins, and even a few other similarly wilderness-addicted fellow sailors who shared some spaces with us.
Luckily this time my re-entry into Civilization will be much easier than usual. That's because I'm looking forward to Shopping ... Not for clothes ... but getting into Full-on Grocery shopping. In central Victoria I'll be able to search for some hard-to-find ingredients not available in Northern BC. Our friend the beautiful Amanda Swan Neal has tested all of the recipes in her new book over the course of her 345,000+ offshore miles with family and later on with the International Mahina Expeditions. I estimate that there are over 1000 recipes in this collection. To it she has brought her incredible intelligence, her savvy and her well-researched knowledge to tickle and delight every palate. With this book, Amanda will keep us all healthy and vibrantly alive … even while we might be encountering less-than-optimal conditions at sea. To that issue she’s included an excellent chapter on sea-sickness.
She has numerous tips for stretching or diminishing the recipes to feed from 2 people to a crowd, she tells us how to keep provisions fresh, how to arrange a large or a small galley, how to shop in Foreign lands (she has visited 80 countries) and she tells us how to cook some fabulous standard Authentic cuisine, or local food bought cheaply at a market in a distant land. You can cook a real Provencal Beef Stew or a delicious Canadian Maple and Ginger glazed Salmon. In Polynesia you can find out how to make Coconut Creamed Taro Leaf. Further along, you might even try making the Fijian Curried Octopus.
For the more practical cook, she includes less expensive tips for making your own peanut and tartar sauce, dressings: such as Miso or Thai and she includes 10 different spice mixes. Do get the paperback version of this book (all 390 packed pages for only $31 CDN on Amazon). Paging through a Kindle version would be quite tiresome, and she has left space at the end for you to attach some of your other favourites.
A favourite aspect of this book are the personal accounts she includes ... her youthful experiences sailing with her family, her stories on passage as a Competitive sailor in an all-woman Team and on the Whitbred and Sydney-Hobart Races. She generously includes recipes from some of the many boats she and Mahina have ‘broken bread’ with.
This book and its priceless knowledge should really be devoured BEFORE you set out. Displaying even more wisdom, you should internalize Amanda’s precepts BEFORE you even BUY a boat.
However, if you’re like me and you love your good old boat – and after all Traversay’s been our home for 23 years - this book will make you look forward to introducing some new ‘licks’ to that old repertoire you have already been playing for too many years!
