Buy the book I wish I had when I left to go cruising!

NEWS FLASH!!! Available on Amazon, pre-orders now, shipping July 8, 2012 - click on The Boat Galley Cookbook above to go to the Amazon page!

For the "Rest of the Story", read about how I made the transition from a non-cook to cookbook co-author as I started commuter cruising!   Click here:      "Commuter Cruiser to Galley Manual Co-Author?"

“The Boat Galley Cookbookl” is exactly what it sounds like:  a cookbook and galley guide for cruising cooks, written by cruisers who have dealt with the challenges of cooking aboard a boat.

For over two years, my friend Carolyn Shearlock, The Boat Galley, and I have been writing this galley guide, which was born of our utter frustration in using the available cookbooks while cruising.  None of the “cruising cookbooks” provide a comprehensive collection of everyday recipes prepared from simple, available ingredients without fancy equipment.  And shore-based cookbooks that offer a large number of from-scratch recipes, such as “Joy of Cooking,” assume that the cook has an infinite collection of utensils, pans, and ingredients.  These don’t meet the day-to-day needs of cruisers.

We designed “The Boat Galley Cookbook” to be a solid reference book, containing all the basic recipes and more needed in a self-sufficient galley. If the following sounds like a cookbook you’d love to have in your boat galley, stay tuned, I'll post a notification and even prior e-mail notification to be notified when it's actually published:

• Every recipe was carefully tested aboard the galley of s/v Que Tal or s/v Winterlude and selected especially for the fairly common ingredients (we realize provisioning is not the same everywhere), ease of preparation and special cruiser considerations such as propane consumption and galley heat.

• The book includes over 800 everyday “from scratch” recipes, sprinkled with a taste of Mexican, Asian and other cuisines to add variety.   Whether a cruiser needs a pie crust, spaghetti sauce, or salad dressing – are all included.  In most categories, we have more than just one or two recipes, for example 20 varieties of cakes, 16 ways to prepare plain fish and 11 regional barbeque sauces.

• Our recipes are designed to be made by hand – without an electric mixer, blender, bread machine or microwave, although they work equally well for cruisers with those appliances.

• Certain cruiser foods are universally available and store easily but become boring without a variety of recipes.   “The Boat Galley Cookbook” has over 40 recipes for tuna, 20 recipes for cabbage, and 31 recipes for rice and beans plus a myriad of recipes for other cruising staples.
• If a cruising cook doesn’t have a particular ingredient, our Substitutions chapter contains a comprehensive list of over 150 useful substitutions, including things like taco seasoning, sour cream, baking soda and even non-foods such as drain cleaner.   For cruisers confused by differing measurements in different countries, the Measurements and Conversions chapter will clear up the mystery.

• Virtually all of our recipes offer multiple alternate ingredients because we would rather stay in a gorgeous anchorage for an extra week than waste time running back to town because we’re missing one ingredient.

• Chapters devoted to Meals on Passage, Storm Preparation, Food Storage, Nutrition, Foods for Maladies, Propane, Thermos Cooking and Holiday Cheer provide insights and recommendations specifically for cruisers.

• With “The Boat Galley Cookbook”, cruisers no longer need to leave the U.S. with dozens of expensive “just add water” mixes.   We provide detailed directions to give even “non-cooks” confidence that they can turn out a variety of tasty meals without prepared foods.

• Most cruising boats have a grill on deck – unfortunately, many rarely use it.  “The Boat Galley Cookbook” provides step-by-step instructions for grilling almost anything from steaks to pizza to vegetables plus 39 recipes sure to get that grill fired up.  Grilling provides the added bonus of minimizing heat in the galley below.

• We include step-by-step directions for things cruisers may never have dreamed of doing:  making yogurt and bread, filleting a fish, cutting up a whole chicken and Thermos cooking, amongst others.

• For cruisers who can’t get fresh meat, an entire chapter is devoted to tasty nutritious recipes made from canned meat, plus detailed tips to avoid canned meat “mush.”

• We offer a variety of meatless menu options by having a chapter devoted to Meatless Main Dishes as well as many soups, salads and other vegetarian options.

• Sometimes the cruising cook just needs inspiration.  “The Boat Galley Cookbook” provides an entire chapter of “Quick Reference Lists.”  Need an appetizer in five minutes?  Feel like Mexican or Asian for dinner?  Want inspiration for tomorrow night’s potluck on the beach?  Need a fast dinner after a long day?  Just check out the appropriate Quick Reference List to find a list of recipes with page numbers.

• “The Boat Galley Cookbook” is designed to be user-friendly, with extensive cross-reference lists, a reference section on the back cover, a spiral binding allowing it to be laid flat and no extraneous “white space” making it larger than it needs to be.

We are so excited to partner with International Marine to bring you the reference manual we both wish we had when we left to go cruising!  Who knows how many catastrophe's might have been avoided... at least aboard s/v Winterlude.   s/v Que Tal was a bit more advanced in understanding the entire cooking thing than me, Jan, the non-cook, turned sorta-cook by force of commuter cruising!  

If you'd like to be notified in June 2012 where the The Boat Galley Cookbook is available, visit commutercruiser.com and sign up to be notified in the sidebar!