What’s for dinner… skinner?

We get a lot of questions about living aboard but two topics top the list. Folks want to know where we go to the bathroom and what do we do for food? The first one is easy… in a bathroom. We have one on the boat and there is a bathhouse in the marina. More on that later. As for food, our boat has refrigeration and a wonderful Hillerange three-burner propane stove with an oven and broiler. The stove in our land house was electric. It was one of those fancy, schmancy glass-top deals that were “easy to clean.”  Well yes, it was easy to clean but it took me twenty-minutes to boil a pot of water! Hated it! The stove we have on board boils water in minutes. It’s hot. Very hot. When the thermometer hit the triple digits recently this summer, it was all we could do to fire that baby up and cook dinner. Even with the AC running, the cabin temperature is significantly affected. If you fire up two or God forbid all THREE burners, you should be prepared to cook along with the dish you are preparing.

Now, Mel and I have a pretty strict diet we adhere to. We eat very little processed foods, boxed stuff or complex carbs and buy everything organic or local when possible. Mel loves her pasta but I have developed a bit of a wheat allergy that kills me if I stray so pasta has pretty much been put on the “no” list for me. I will occasionally fall off the wagon  for my love of pizza but that is a rarity. We’ve been lucky to find great little markets where we’ve been thus far and fill our galley cubbies with cans of organic black, navy and kidney beans, asparagus, wild caught salmon, tuna and almond butter. We buy fresh tomatoes, bell peppers, kale and spinach whenever possible. Red and yellow onions and garlic are staples in most meals. Coconut oil replaces my olive oil on most nights but grape seed oil is a nice change for chicken if you like. The fridge is filled with almond milk, organic cage-

Hillerange stove. Burners are covered by the removable counter top

free eggs, apple cider vinegar, organic lemon juice, greek yogurt, baby bella mushrooms and anything else we can cram down in there. Our freezer section, though small, keeps our ground turkey and chicken fresh and the brussel sprouts, broccoli and chopped frozen kale in good order for when we can’t find the fresh stuff. We eat out maybe once a week just to keep with the local vibe. We’ll try to find the funkiest little gems of local joints and avoid chain restaurants like the plague. Call us food snobs if you like… I won’t argue. If we’re eating top-notch, I want top-notch but if I’m eating a fried crab-cake, I want to be on a dock with uncomfortable wooden benches, cheap plastic baskets and cold beer. I don’t want some big chunk of frozen “crab meat” slapped on a sisco bun. I want crab caught just off-shore on a soft kaiser roll, served by a waitress who’s been a waitress for far too long. She’s got a faded and blurry tattoo somewhere, a voice that could cut glass and calls everyone hun. If not that… I’ll cook it myself.