Getting on the Boat

My flight landed in Puerto Plata, D.R. Monday morning, November 21. I zipped through customs and out into the sunny parking lot where Chris Small and Ryan Smith were waiting for me with a hired driver, Nino. We drove along winding roads to Luperon, a small village on the north coast of the island. The roads were crowded with animals, cars, motorbikes, vendors, trash, and pedestrians.
We reached a small wooden dock where we loaded a small dinghy with my luggage, which consisted of only a medium backpack, a handbag, a ukulele, and a guitar. We also had several bags of groceries and ice from a supermarket in Puerto Plata. We nearly sank the little boat down to the water line as we held tight and motored out into the harbor. Ryan's sailboat, Ventana, was waiting there, at her mooring, where she'd been at rest since June. Ryan and his partner and child had left for the storm season to live and work on San Juan Island, Washington, for the summer and fall and now we three would pilot this ship back out to sea and across the Mona Passage to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Ventana is a 35' single-masted sloop sailboat with a fiberglass hull, built in 1963 per the Alberg design, among the first generation of fiberglass sailboats. Although not intended for long-term ocean cruising, Ryan had outfitted his boat with additional cabinetry, a highly efficient water-maker (desalinizer), a solar panel and wind generator, an array of batteries and an 110 Amp alternator. Technological additions include a small array of 12-Volt car-type plugs, a DC-to-AC inverter, a Wi-Fi antennae and router, a speaker system connected to a car CD player, built into the woodwork, and a GPS-powered navigational system on a netbook in the cockpit.
With all of this, plus our laptops and musical instruments, we felt like we were really cruising in style. Our amenities, as I would learn, pale in comparison to the luxury of many of the vessels we encountered. Vast expensive vessels fill the harbors and yacht clubs of the Caribbean equipped with more creature comforts and luxury accouterments than I have ever had at home. We were, comparatively, roughing it old-school with our hank-on sails and compact cabin space and early 60's rig.
I made myself at home, despite an odd mix-up of comforts and annoyances. Absolutely everything has a place, and often several things must be moved to get to the thing you want. There is a delicate order of operations to each endeavor on-board. This includes water use, using the head, taking a shower, stowing groceries, preparing a meal, going swimming. It is vitally important to keep salt water out, and to preserve energy and water, and to keep everything tightly stowed, and to kill any and all cockroaches on sight. Chris pointedly warned me early on that the boat beats you up. Bumps, and bruises, and scrapes are an accepted part of life on the boat. We are all frequently hitting our heads, getting our fingers smashed, getting smacked by cabinetry or loose objects, and stubbing our persistently bare feet. And that's when the boat isn't moving. Underway the rocking and pitching on the waves sends us careening from one side to the other of the cabin or cockpit, swings doors in our faces, launches kitchen items and tools through the air, splashes sea water in our faces and has us slipping and gripping our way along the deck. I would estimate we've each sustained an average of 2.5 moderate injuries per day. I'm not even going to talk about sunburn and bug bites.
I have taken well to cooking on the boat, even underway. The kitchen contains an oven, a 3-burner gas stove, a sink, a cutting board, a cooler, and some spices. What else does one need? I will go into detail on some of the things we've cooked and eaten later on (with photos, of course).
Now, I've been living and sleeping aboard Ventana for two-and-a-half weeks and it feels like home. Even the motion is becoming unnoticeable. I am eating and sleeping at least as well as I do at home. Our consumption of rum and cheap Caribbean lager is substantial, but I believe justified, and we are perhaps deficient in at least Vitamin K. What I would give for a crispy bunch of lacinato kale right now...

Another America

I am writing this from Bahia Boqueron, Puerto Rico. I arrived via sailboat yesterday after crossing the Mona Passage from the Dominican Republic.
The Mona Passage is, more or less, the raison d'etre of my invitation to board Ryan Smith's sailboat, the Ventana. It is a long time at sea, eastward into the Trade Winds, with little to no communication and nowhere to anchor until you've finished. It is important to carefully chose an appropriate "weather window" in which to make the cross. We had such an opportunity this week and seized upon it.
I have just spent 75 hours at sea, by my clock. Three nights and two days. There was time when no land was visible under the sun in any direction. I have sailed before, but nothing like this. I felt the oppressiveness of the unending motion upon me after we left our anchorage in Luperon, Dominican Republic. I did not believe that I would get sea-sick. I have never experienced motion sickness. Not in boats, on airplanes big and small, nor motorcycles, rafts, or roller coasters. Somehow this was different. I felt ill immediately and had to cower in the corner of the cockpit to close my eyes and lean against the canvas 'dodger' while the boat bobbed up and down violently and without rhythm.
We motor-sailed through the night, against the wind, against the waves, into the obscurity of a sea greater than 2,000 meters deep. No phone. No internet. No appetite. No stomach to read or play music. And no turning back. That was Wednesday, November 23rd, my 28th birthday.

To be continued...

I know I know

So...
been a while, to my zero readers out there. Is this blog doomed? Has it long been dead?
No way! I've got a mind to get down and dirty with some great food, agriculture, and chemistry writing. I might even include some original poetry. So hang on peoples.

Does this work

I just remembered how my friend at freeze_or_burn had done some cooking pictures with me last summer. I don't know if I can embed a flickr stream on Blogger. If anyone has succeeded in this, let me know.

Fresh Halibut

Last night in Portland I did what I usually do when I get stressed out: cook dinner for my friends. I went to a local grocery store and found fresh, never frozen, line-caught halibut fillets on sale for $10 / lb. I decided I wanted to bake it with a sort of provencal medley of sweet onion, carrot, zucchini, leek, and basil. I remember serving halibut on a bed of mixed greens and artichoke / potato mash at Steps Wine Bar and wanted to replicate that. Instead of artichoke, I wanted parsnip. There were no parsnips available "yet" so I grabbed a healthy looking celeriac bulb and some sweet potatoes. The chaotic improvisation set in and I found myself with mashed rosemary sweet potato and a pile of raw shredded celeriac. Now what? Maybe I can fry this... potato pancake? Yes! I mixed it up with some seasoning, a couple eggs and a handful of bread crumbs. The veggies were diced small and sauteed in an iron skillet before being transferred to a glass casserole. I cut the halibut into portions, seasoned it, and seared the pieces skin-down for a couple minutes before placing them on the veggies in the casserole. I put this in a 325 F oven for a slow juicy finish while frying the potato pancakes. I made a fresh aioli with egg yolk, canola, garlic, lemon, and thyme. It was all served on a bed of greens and topped with a "salsa" of ripe yellow heirloom tomato and red pepper. Delicious. We ate at around 10pm, which has been my typical dinner time when I embark on these "projects". It's a really nice way to extend my welcome as a guest when I buy groceries and do some cooking. A part of me really just wants to design a self-sustaining way to travel, cooking wherever I go, and getting food, lodging and gas money in return. If I did this, it would have to be a show, a video blog of sorts. This is an ongoing fantasy, that perhaps, especially if my job-seeking luck is slow, will be realized.

Road Trip 2.0

First ,an update of my life. I recently resigned both of my jobs ,an an trace analyst at an envirnmental lab ,and as a brunch cook. I am leaving Seattle today on a 2+ week motorcycle trip through California and Oregon. I'll be looking at graduate programs in biochemistry and also visiting some people and hiking/camping. This is all very exciting. I hope to post details of my trip here along with some more biochemistry and food stuff.
Experimentally, I've added this Loopt widget to my homepage with location and photo updates. More to come soon.

Making Ice Cream

Now that spring is here and those long sunny afternoons are returning, it is time to make use of my KitchenAid ice cream bowl. I used to think that ice cream was as simple as mixing milk with a flavor of choice and cooling the mixture in motion. There's a bit more science to it. Real rich and creamy ice cream is made by first creating a custard. Milk is cooked with sugar and then tempered into egg yolks. This is cooked gently for a short while, cooled, and then cream and flavor ingredients may be added. Today I chose cinnamon vanilla.

The result was fantastic. Ice cream, like so many other culinary concoctions, is fairly simple but has the potential to be truly amazing. It is best when quality ingedients are combined with proper technique. My first attempt was a total failure because I let the mixture get too hot after tempering in the egg yolks. The protein coagulated and I could smell the scrambled egg even before I saw the orange chunky horror in my saucepan. I calmly tossed this out and started fresh. The egg-milk-sugar mixture should not be heated above 170 degrees F.
For quality assurance I use good organic whole milk, fresh natural eggs, evaporated cane sugar, real vanilla extract and fresh cinnamon (well, not too old).

It is after this mixture is cooked and cooled that it gets poured into an ice cream "maker". Whatever tool you may have is just a method for gently mixing while cooling. Even after this step, my ice cream needed a couple hours in the freezer to really solidify. All of this tempering and cooling and mixing business is really about one thing: texture. If you are patient and give it the love it needs, this will really pay off. I would also advise not to skimp on the fat because come on, it's ice cream.

Cinnamon Vanilla Ice Cream
Yields One Quart

1.5 cups whole milk
3/4 cups sugar
3 egg yolks
pinch of salt
2 cups heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp cinnamon