Excerpt: Untangling My Chopsticks
by Victoria Abbott Riccardi
Across from a new green-and-red Fuji film store sat a small restaurant in a decrepit old building offering dusty plastic models of tempura-topped rice bowls and fat rice-stuffed omelets belted with ketchup. The eatery appeared more distressing than appealing, at least on the surface.
The Japanese believe that beauty can reside in things that are rustic, withered, faded, simple, imperfect or incomplete. This aesthetic concept applies to people, as well as things, and stems from the words wabi and sabi. The spirit of wabi tends to be inward and subjective and often refers to a path or way of life, while sabi generally pertains to material objects, art literature, and external events. A monk living in self-imposed isolation in the woods, for example, embodies wabi because he coexists with nature in a state that is physically impoverished but rich in spirit. The restaurant with its dusty models had a sabi quality because, by being housed in a crumbling wooden building next to a modern business, it evoked the corroded elegance of another era, like an antique kimono in a closet of designer wear.
9 April 2009 · Comment
Thoughts on yacht provisioning
When I set out to plan our sailing trip to the Grenadines this year I knew provisioning would be a huge time suck. With little time on the ground in St. Vincent to shop for ourselves, Excel spreadsheets became my weapon of choice. Thankfully, our charter operator, Barefoot Yacht Charter of Calliqua Bay, was willing to pitch in and do our grocery shopping for us.
Internet research suggested that there were a million ways to skin this cat, but no quick and easy methods for planning meals for 5 × 10 days. I found several helpful recipes friendly to the cramped and jostling quarters of a ship’s galley, exhaustive lists of suggested foods for life at sea, but nothing in the way of a solid planning tool.
To ensure that we weren’t left with bread but not butter or cooking oil like last year (hint: mayonaise can work in a pinch), I came up with the following spreadsheet.
Tip No. 1: Create a sample itinerary. Some islands offer great restaurants, and others are entirely uninhabited. This was key in planning meals for days of plenty and want. Knowing which passages can be rough also prompted me to plan foods that were easy to prepare and eat when life aboard is less than simple. I can assure you, boiling water on land is a task most can master. Avoiding horrific burns as you cook spaghetti for your crew on a tight close haul is quite another matter.
Tip No. 2: Make a note of which dates and times offer options for re-provisioning. A loaf of American bread can last a week or more. A loaf procured in St. Vincent will contain far less preservative and will spoil quickly. Many onboard refrigerators are nothing more than an icebox topped up and kept cool when the ship’s engine is running. The quality of your food depends largely on how regularly you can purchase ice. It’s a fine art to juggle your raw ingredients throughout a trip to minimize spoilage and waste.
Tip No. 3: Encourage each crew member to take responsibility for a meal. By designating an owner, you’ll ensure that everyone does their part to keep the crew fed. A bonus is that your crew members might have great meal ideas, thereby improving variety and possibly the quality of your dinner.
Tip No. 4: Everybody needs a good breakfast. Most all breakfasts are spent at anchor before departing for the day’s sail. Make breakfast count. Go big. A well-fed crew is a joy to work with. For our trip, we’re planning generous spreads of pancakes, cheese, burritos, egg casseroles, fruit, bacon, sausage, coffee, juice and more.
Tip No. 5: Anything can be a meal. One of my favorite experiences was eating chocolate cake, bacon and champagne for breakfast in a deserted bay at San Simeon. Don’t leave joy and spontaneity on shore.
Tip No. 6: Nothing beats a cheese sandwich or beer in the morning.
Tip No. 7: Don’t forget the charcoal, lighter fluid, dish soap and necessities.
Tip No. 8: Write out each ingredient by meal. You’ll be able to notice efficiencies and avoid repeat buys. Also, there’s no reason why noodle salad can’t become noodle dinner. We’re having a fajita spread one night, and breakfast burritos the next morning.
Tip No. 9: Use generic terms and offer up substitutions with your final order. I was surprised to find that our charter agent in St. Vincent was completely unaware of what English Breakfast tea was. Black tea, no problem!
Download our meal planning spreadsheet
Many thanks to John Yelda of Sailing San Francisco for his advice and guidance along the way. I’d never have learned the consequences of bringing a bag of chips or a banana on board without his help. For those interested, John offers sailing charters and
sailing lessons in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.
28 January 2009 ·
2008 and The Sea*
On the San Francisco Bay: 276 nm
On the California Coast: 305 nm
On Lake Tahoe: 18nm
On the N. Atlantic/Caribbean Sea: 75nm
Grand total for 2008: 674 nm
It seems I’ve earned a sparrow.
* sailed and motored
Many thanks to John Yelda of Sailing San Francisco for his advice and guidance along the way. For those interested, John offers sailing charters and
sailing lessons in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.
27 January 2009 ·
2008 in Places
We traveled less, but sailed more.
*denotes multiple visits.
Morro Bay, California
Monterey, California*
Santa Cruz, California*
Lake Tahoe, California*
Bolinas, California*
Orange County, California*
Benbow, California
Washington, DC
North Bend, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Eugene, Oregon
Cottage Grove, Oregon
Treasure Island, California*
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Kingstown, Saint Vincent
Tobago Cays, the Grenadines
Bequia, the Grenadines
29 December 2008 · Comment
Ah, Wikipedia...
Peets was created in 1966 (Bay Area); Starbucks was created by Jerry Baldwin (Seattle, 1971) in the image of Peets. Howard Shultz joined Starbucks in 1982 but left to create Il Giornale in 1985. Starbucks owners bought Peets stores, and sold Starbucks name to Il Giornale.
Thus what today is Starbucks is really Shultz’s rebranded vision Il Giornale; And what is Peets today is really the original vision of Starbucks, which, by the way, was the original vision of Peets.
30 June 2008 · Comment