Our Daily Bread...and Fish

It is always an adventure figuring out what provisions to take on board.  We always make a run to the closest big market to get the food items we just couldn't do without for two weeks:  coffee, cream, and cookies.  Well, soy milk is our cream substitute, but it is pretty hard to do without those cookies...right, Jorge?

In all fairness, we ate fish every day through the efforts of Jorge and Boyo. Boyo caught several bonito during our charter, but it was Jorge's free diving and spearfishing that kept us in the money...er...fish.  This is his first catch, a dog tooth snapper.  As Jorge said, "This guy presented himself for our supper."  We ate the snapper for at least three days including a lunch of outstanding ceviche.  He also caught at least three more yellow snappers.




As for our daily bread, I was prepared to bake bread after the bolillos ran out. We bought a dozen, but they were gone by the third day.  Well, they were little ones....  Thanks to Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, I have been using their recipes for months now to make incredible fresh bread at least every other day. Everything was ready...but the oven would not light.  I had to call in the tech crew, who determined that the oven had not worked for years and was not about to start now.  Apparently, the boat maintenance men had never turned it on or checked it, assuming charterers would only fry or use the outside BBQ unit to cook.  WRONG about this sailor.

Now what?  I remembered about being able to cook in a pan in a Dutch oven.  I was able to set it up in a pan within a pan. Fortunately, Sea Sirena had good cooking pans.  Here is how it turned out.  The first loaf was too brown on the bottom, so Boyo suggested raising the pan and proceeded to create a higher level with four crushed Pacifico beer cans. Perfectly baked, except the bread did not ever develop a brown or crusty crust.  Not a problem for us sailors.

Remember the coffee we could not do without? Guess what wasn't on board?  You are right!  There was no filter cone holder.  I had remembered to buy filters, and there was a stove top percolator, but I do not know how to use one of those.  I tried, but it was not good coffee.  But Boyo, my tech man, came through again! He designed and built a filter cone holder out of...yes...Pacifico beer cans.





We got low on ice, but at one of the anchorages we were able to obtain a cooler full of crushed ice from a tienda onshore.  Of course, the Jorge cookie supply did not run out either.  We ate extremely well on our two week charter.