140. Stop Press. Pretty Much All At Sea goes Foodie(ish).

It turns out this title is something of a misnomer. This blog already has a foodie element to it. Every time I posted something about Mother Watch routines

and how many other blogs do you know with personal messages from that “patron Saint of all Mother Watches” Mary Berry

This short video message (courtesy of my eldest daughter, Heather, strong-arming Mary to record it) was received pretty much slap-bang in the middle of our leg to Fremantle. While such personal “endorsements” are frowned upon in some quarters, it was also amusing having to explain to non-Brit team members exactly who “Saint” Mary is. It helped pass part of a long afternoon watch. My Mother Watch skills even warranted a comment in the Skippers personal blog, but you have to trawl through his daily reports on the UNICEF page of the official website – back to the first week of Leg 2 Race 3 to find that one.

So there you have it. This is already a blog with foodie overtones. Ok, maybe not recipes you can use at home. Unless, that is, you’re cooking for up to 24 in a kitchen that moves around quite a lot, but you get the idea. Lighting the cooker without blowing your eyebrows off is a skill worth perfecting, as is the timing required to bake anything. And in this instance I’m talking about the “timing” required to get your cake mix INSIDE the oven as it moves one way and you move the other. There are a few things that belong inside sailing boots. Socks and feet spring to mind. Cake mixture does not.

I have always been impressed with the quality of the food we produce onboard. Some fantastic meals. Due in no small part to the victualling team but the meals still have to be cooked and served. On time. The cooking challengd is particularly evident the longer a leg goes on and the lower our stocks get. JD (John Dawson) and I managed to conjure up a kedjerie on the last full day at sea on our overly extended leg into Fremantle when onions was almost the only thing we had left. Earlier that same leg we had produced a roast chicken dinner to mark Advent Sunday. Many other UNICEF “mothers” surpassed themselves. Acer (Anne Elizabeth Serigstad) produced cinnoman swirls one evening in the Southern Indian Ocean that would grace any High Street bakery. At one point, bread-making became a competitive sport. I had some success with my breads and one notable failure. I did try to make a gluten-free loaf one night. Let’s just say it was buried at sea with NO military honourz the following morning and, even now, it probably constitutes a navigational danger to shipping somewhere in the Southern Ocean.

It’s fair to say that quarantine meals out here, as I hinted in the previous blog, and as illustrated above, have not lived up to UNICEF standards. Eating some of it has actually proved less challenging than identifying it in the first place. Writing about it all is going to prove impossible. So here’s a selection of meals for you (like me) to guess at from the last 12 days or so …..