Search This Blog

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

Scrumptious Meals by Alisa

During my stay in Tasmania, I was in awe of Alisa's incredible cooking aboard the sailboat, Galactic. She cooks in a very small kitchen, and is used to cooking in all sorts of weather conditions as well as on limited food supply in the midst of crossings.
During my stay, Alisa always had the most wonderful meals planned for Mike, the kids and myself.  I felt truly spoiled. She would start the kids, Mike and myself off with a cheese and cracker tray and crack open a bottle of wonderful Australian wine, or make a simple mixed drink for the grown ups. Then she would cook as I sat at the galley table and played with the kids. It was such a treat to watch her, smell the aromas floating through.

Sidenote: (Alisa and my girlfriend, Balika, are two female chefs I highly admire-because they are used to cooking on a boat. This means they can scrounge together whatever is in the fridge to put together an incredible meal. AND cook in a small space with limited utensils. Balika grew up fishing with her mom and I got to appreciate her cooking when we did a boat trip in France with her family in 2010)
 One mid day lunch consisted of toasted ham and cheese sandwiches along with a green salad with boiled eggs atop it.
 For breakfast one morning she made crepes with yogurt and jams inside. They came out so beautifully and tasted delicious. This was her first time making crepes on the Galactic. It was a recipe a French friend had shared with her.
 The fridge on the Galactic was built into (under) a counter. To access it, Alisa takes the lid off the counter, and reaches way down inside to obtain ingredients. She has the organization of the fridge and her kitchen down to a science. Everything has its special space! Here Alisa is reaching in for more ingredients.
 Another delicious creation was PIZZA! She made the dough by hand and made a veggie pizza as well as Canadian Bacon and Pineapple. For dessert was a homemade lemon tart!
 And in really rough waves, the oven tips, which I got to experience! On the fishing boats I'm used to from growing up, the stoves don't adjust to the boats angles. It was wild to see how cooking can still continue admist the oceans movements.
Thank you to Alisa for so many memorable meals shared upon the Galactic. (And I still think she can do a cooking show of some sort! A "Cooking with Alisa" aboard the Galactic.  I would TOTALLY watch it!)

Zoya

1 comment:

Mike said...

Thank you Zoya for that very generous blog. We loved having you aboard and it was so fun to give you royal treatment! I really miss the cooking I used to do in Kodiak, when our chest freezer was full of wild Alaskan salmon, scallops, venison, wild blueberries....all the good harvests from Kodiak! Much love, Alisa