Sylvia Williams Dabney - The Boaters Cookbook: 450 Quick & Easy Galley-Tested Recipes

Copyright 2018 by Sylvia Williams Dabney
Illustrations 2018 by Roger H. Newell, AIA

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Tom Lau and Mona Lin
Cover photograph by iStockphoto

Hardcover ISBN: 9781944824280
Ebook ISBN: 9781944824297

Printed in China

To my father, Daniel Cyrus Williams, who raised me with affection, a zest for life, and to always seek adventure, and to my husband, Stanley, who continues to give me all of that!

Orchid Bay Resort and Marina, Abacos, Bahama Islands, taken by Steve Stresau, who along with his wife Karen, cruised throughout the Bahama Islands aboard their Tayana 42 sailboat, Blue Lotus.

Contents

PART 1

T hough I was raised on a ranch and my husband Stanley on a golf course, after we went sailing one glorious afternoon in the Caribbean, the sailing bug bit usand bit us hard. Stanley quit his job just three days after our first sailing adventure and I quit mine three short months after that. There was no turning back from our new discoverya life of freedom through travel. We moved into our fourth sailboat, a Valiant 40 named Native Sun, in 1975 and lived aboard for fifteen years. We cruised some sixty thousand miles offshore, and still have our Native Sun to this day.

Stanley and I were so smitten with our newfound passion for sailing, that upon our return the following weekend from the Caribbean, we bought our first boat, a charming little Ericson 23. The only problem was that we knew virtually nothing about sailing, so we convinced the broker who sold us our boat to include lessons in the deal. After only four lessons he said, You need to go out and practice and get some firsthand experience on a boat. We took his advice shortly after our last lesson, and went down to Shilshole Bay Marina in Seattle, Washington where our little Amalie was docked. (We named our first boat after Charlotte Amalie, the capital of the US Virgin Islands where Stanley and I first sailed.) We stopped at every boat that looked as if someone was aboard. These sailors were so kind to young dreamers like us and we will never forget their kindnesses when we simply asked if we could tour their boats. We were so starstruck by a life of sailing that it never dawned on us that these boats were these peoples homes, that they could have been in the middle of dinner, or might think us rude. We were often asked to join these people for dinner or to race with them on the Wednesday night Seattle beer can races. We never said no, and after we permanently moved aboard our own boat a few years later and met young people on the docks with the same new dreams we once had, we always asked them aboard. I smile now thinking of the wondrous prospect of living aboard and exploring the world on their faces.

Stanley and I both love to cook and in fact, we met while he was working his way through the University of Washington, cooking at a Seattle seafood restaurant. Growing up, I was sent to my parents best friends fishing and hunting lodge five hundred miles north of Seattle every summer. Here I earned my keep starting at twelve years old until I graduated university; hauling firewood to the cabins, cleaning cabins at the lodge, riding tractors as we brought in the hay, rounding up cattle and horses, and learning to cook from the most incredible woman Ive ever known, Millie Hamilton, at the well-known Ten-ee-ah Lodge in British Columbia, Canada. I loved every moment of my years there and Stanley and I still spend a month every year in our own cabin, on a beautiful wilderness lake just fifteen miles from Ten-ee-ah Lodge.

Even with our first small boat, we realized we could eat and prepare fabulous food aboard, but some of it, because of the lack of standing room, was prepared at home and brought aboard later. Eighteen months after we took delivery of our first boat, our new Ericson 27 arrived. We called her Amalie II. It had standing room and a real gimbaled stove and ovenand thats when the real fun began. Hearty appetites can be stimulated by intense activity like sailing, so we spent weeknights poring over our favorite recipes from family, from Millie, from the restaurant Stanley had worked at, and from an already bourgeoning collection of recipes from fellow sailors who cheerfully shared hints for storing dry goods, fresh food, and what menus worked best at anchor or heeled over while crossing the Straits of Juan de Fuca. On Friday nights, we shopped, stored our goods on board, and headed off, regardless of the unpredictable Seattle weather, for a weekend of sailing (and on special occasions, a week or longer cruise up to the San Juan Islands and into Canada).

Our third boat, an Islander 36 named Amalie III, was launched just eighteen months after the delivery of our Ericson 27 and now, I had a real, total, and complete galley and I was in heaven. We realized early on that this was not a boat we wanted to possibly sail around the world, though it was a wonderful boat for our sailing adventures between Canada and Seattle. Thats when we contacted Bob Perry, a man we met at a Seattle boat show where he and Nathan Rothman were putting chicken wire together and demonstrating the making of a concrete sailboat designed by Jay Benford. Concrete was not an option for us, so we put our heads together and the Valiant 40 was born, with Stanley being the marketing manager, Nathan the president, and Bob the designer of Valiant Yachts. We had hoped to have Hull #1, but Stanley was good at his job and thus we kept getting bumped, until we finally took delivery of Hull #9. We lived aboard and cruised every free day we had and almost every weekend.

Smitten, enamored, infatuated, hooked, obsessed, fanatical, enthusiastic, and passionate are all good words to describe the last forty-plus years of our lives as boaters. We know there are others out there who have the same feelings and the same passion for cooking and good food, even while cruising or making offshore passages. As longtime sailors having sailed more than sixty thousand offshore miles, weve learned to be creative, altering traditional meals and combinations of dishes using local herbs and ingredients while enjoying both the preparing and sharing of wonderful meals with friends. We always took advantage of local markets, local food, and peoples willingness everywhere we went to talk food. Most local people love to share their recipes and are happy to show you how they prepare everything from Caribbean conch to Alaskan salmon and more exotic fare the further we sailed from the continental US. The necessity of a well-stored pantry is as essential as a well-prepared tool kit and engine spares kit. You may find that you change up your salads from arugula and romaine to cabbage and carrots depending on local availability, but youll always eat well aboard ship if you are adventurous and well stocked.