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Cooking Aboard the Tonie O
Cooking Aboard the Tonie O
I've heard other people ask in wonder, "How do you cook in with such a small amount of space?  What do you pack?  Do you follow any special recipes?"

It's amazing what we can do with the two-burner Wallas diesel stove that came with our C-Dory.  Not only does it heat the cabin efficiently, but the ceramic cooktop really cooks!  We used the C-Dory's "icebox" as a pantry for non-perishables, and kept fish, meats and produce in the cooler out on the back deck.  I'm getting good at inventing some pretty tasty dishes with whatever is on hand.  In 2002, while packing the boat, I just cleared the home kitchen cabinets of whatever was there.  Two essentials that I could not really do without:  really good extra virgin olive oil and good quality sea salt. Cracked ground pepper and Old Bay are other essentials to have on hand.  This year (2003), I packed fewer items, since I knew that there were plenty of good supply stops
along the passage.

I do have one "beef" with the Wallas stove.  It usually works well, but when it doesn't, it'a a real pain.  On the 2002 trip, the blower quit working  (we could still use the cooktop, just not the circulating hot air function), so we had to ship the stove back to Scan Marine in Seattle to get it fixed.   When it got shipped back, it took several phone calls for Shawn to reinstall it correctly.  Wallas only has a repair manual available in Finnish.  That just doesn't help us much, when problems arise while under way.

This year (2003), the stove quit working altogether at the tail of the trip, in Shearwater.  Ernie and Joan, from the Grand Banks "Capricorn," generously loaned us their propane backpack stove to tide over until the end of the trip.  

Here are a few things I happened to have on hand, and that were used on the 2002 trip:
-Rice (Koda Farms, the "filet mignon" of rice)
-All kinds of canned goods, including: tomatoes, beans, baby corn, water chestnuts
-Good quality dried pasta
-Dried chilis
-Dried shittakes
-Buckwheat pancake mix (bought the souvenir size maple syrup in Canada)
-Balsamic vinegar
-Italian seasoning
-Wondra flour (comes in a handy shaker)
-Parmegiana-Reggiano (in the cooler).
-Aseptically-packed Mori-nu tofu (for the "Santa Cruz" in me)
-Garlic black bean paste, which went really well with my crab and baby corn stir-fry
-Tabasco (Shawn will only use tabasco, no other pepper sauce)

I kept a lot of the dried goods (like cornstarch and sugar) packed in smaller Ziploc plastic bags.  

I packed a heavy nonstick wok (with a transparent lid), and a saucepan.  I also had some handy nonscratch tongs, chopsticks, and various kitchen utensils that fit in a small bag.  Everything was easily stored in a Rubbermaid box in the cabinet below the stove.  Any boat that goes out for fish already has good knives aboard.  We also had some nice stainless steel nonskid wine glasses and pewter cups.

Of course, there was always an abundance of seafood around, and we had a lot of fun just checking out the local grocery stores...especially the IGA's and the Band stores in smaller ports, such as Bella Bella and Thorne Bay.

Some of our best meals came about while we were under way.  Seems like my creativity comes out once the engines are humming at about 4000 rpms, and conditions are calm enough.
The "all weather chef."
Dungeoness crab cooking with a little water and Old Bay.
Pan-seared halibut with limes and seasonings in Lowe Inlet (2002)
We also ate out a lot.  I thought that we'd miss fresh vegetables during the trip.  But that wasn't the case.  Every restaurant we went to in Canada made simply beautiful salads.

We countered that healthy trend with the occasional deadly dose of Nanaimo Bars.  I can only handle about one of these per week.  They are good and rich. (I avoided these this year).

One highlight of the 2002 trip was the result of waiting out a gale in the Queen Charlotte Sound.  We anchored in Pruth Bay at Calvert Island.  During our stay at this anchorage, we discovered the Hakai Beach Resort.  We had dinner with the Resort owners/hosts, and was it spectacular.  Wade, from Australia is a very talented chef.  Everything was of the topmost elegance and quality.

The Cow Bay Cafe in Prince Rupert was the grand treat this year (2003)!
2003:  Chicken cooked in olive oil that Shawn brought back from Baja earlier in the summer, with borwn/wild rice, Walla Walla onions and bell peppers.
Wade, a real chef.  Hakai, 2002.

 

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