Our First Meal on Daze Off

Monday November 9, 2015

One of the first of many momentous occasions has happened on the new boat.  We’re now able to cook on her and have made our first meal!  Just in time too because eating down at the kitchen in the marina was beginning to become unbearable.  Ever since we arrived back to Indiantown after our mini vacay to Stuart, the marina has been chalk full of cruisers coming back to move their boats from storage You might be able to call me whiny or petty for having to put up with this, but it’s more than just the fact that I have to now share ‘my kitchen’ with other people.

Yes, it was kind of nice throughout the summer when we walked down to the patio area and were the only ones there.  Sitting down at a table in the screened in porch area we’d put the tv on to whatever channel we felt like watching (usually syndicated shows on FOX), and we pour a cold pop or beer and I’d run back and forth between the kitchen to the patio as I prepared my meal, with no cause to worry if I would be able to use the communal cutting board or measuring cups because I was the only one there to use them.

Then…people came. By this time another tv had been installed in the actual kitchen area, which also houses two little cafe tables, so we usually found ourselves in there since the later tables on the patio were for larger groups of cruisers that liked socializing at meal time.  Me…not so much at the moment.  There’s my work time during the day and then my me time at night, and with some stressful workdays lately, I’m kind of craving my me time.

Eating there still wasn’t a nuisance for awhile until little things began to eat at me and build up until the point I could no longer take.  Things (mostly) that were by no means anyone else’s fault, but only me being selfish that I couldn’t always have my way anymore.  I had to begin sharing.  Sharing the grill, which for some reason, one certain guy liked to keep at 600 degrees every night to cook his baked potato.  This resulted in multiple burned meals for me and one time even a burned hand. Now I also had to begin sharing all the meal prepping utensils I was used to having to myself, along with the counter space to prepare my meals. There were also other things, like having to wait in line to wash my dishes. I could no longer take up the sink for myself while Matt was showering and then retreat back to the boat as soon as we’d finished, but instead I’d now have to wait for six other groups of people to wash theirs first.  Again, just me being selfish…but I wasn’t loving this new routine.

One night last week we walked in to the kitchen around 6:00 pm to find that every table was full and all the counter space was being used by other people to prep their meals.  This was after an incredibly long and horrific day of sanding colliodal silica on the boat and I was not in the mood for any more hardships of any kind.  I swiftly turned around and drove right to the Subway up the road where I thankfully had a few gift cards and let the friendly crew there prepare our dinner where we enjoyed it back on the boat in peace.

The final straw came a few days later, after another torturous day of sanding which is quickly driving me to insanity, when I was at least excited about the fact that I didn’t have to prepare dinner that night because the leftover pizza I had made the previous night was sitting in the fridge.  All I had to do was heat it up. We made sure to head down to the kitchen after 7 when the other cruisers were heading back to their boats and maybe getting ready for bed, when I opened the fridge to find my pizza missing.  Someone had stolen it.  My homemade pizza.  It wasn’t even in a tempting delivery box, just a wrapped up cookie sheet. I wanted to loose it.  I wanted to cry and throw a tantrum, but instead I pouted in silence as I ate a bagel and watched The Big Bang Theory. I needed out.  I couldn’t force myself to do this dementia building boat work during the day and still deal with stupid s%*t in my off time.

I think Matt was getting a little tired of it as well, not quite as much as me though, and agreed that the sooner we could begin cooking and eating meals on our own boat the better off we would be.  There was a chance I might burn the marinas kitchen down soon if we didn’t.  So making the galley our biggest priority the past few weeks, we’ve finished up our new fridge enough to get it working (but there will still be some more small details to finish) and finding the right hose to connect our stove to the propane tanks out in our cockpit.  And people, that day has finally come.  A few days ago we tested out the fridge to find that it does work (yay!!) and enjoyed our first cold beers produced from it.  Once we knew it was keeping cold temperatures in we’ve stocked it full of goodies and had our first opportunity to cook a meal on board.  Beef stir fry.

This has become one of our favorite meals ever since I perfected the art of frying the veggies when we were back in Madeira, and I’ve even worked out making my own stir fry sauce that isn’t too bad if I say so myself.  Because there are so many preparatory steps and it’s best if you’re working with more than one burner, it’s not something we ever tried on the grill down at the patio.  But our first meal on the new boat?  I couldn’t think of anything better. And let me tell you; enjoying this meal that I cooked in my own space, even though it’s about 5x smaller than the kitchen, and then eating it without having to suffer through a football game on tv and then wait in line to do my dishes, has been nothing short of heaven. I may have even just gotten a little slice of my sanity back.