I met Judy and Hein in the Marina in Arrecife, Lanzarote. They are both enjoying early retirement sailing European waters. We connected straight away and our friendship has grown into one of those beautiful connections you make with fellow cruisers on the same wavelength looking for the same adventures. This is what I love about the cruising world, meeting, engaging and sharing great times with people you just probably wouldn’t normally meet.
Judy shares my passion for good food. She makes an excellent Sambal Olek and is as wise as she is kind. She also worked for Small Vegan Kitchen when I was contracted by a High/profile performance sailing yacht during their recent stay in Arrecife. She was amazing to work with and her organisational skills and knack for just getting on with the job in hand blew me away considering she had never worked in a kitchen or even hospitality before. She now proudly wears the Small Vegan T-Shirt.
I have had the pleasure of eating, actually devouring would be more accurate, Judy’s cooking on numerous occasions and quite frankly it is amazing. What is even more amazing is how tidy and clean her galley is after cooking up a storm. So put your clean tidy galley envy in the cockpit and take a peak in into her wonderful galley.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I am retired and together with my husband Hein we are sailing the European Coastlines. We started our journey in 2021 and after a year of preparations, we left the Netherlands for our new life onboard Erica our 42 ft beloved Beneteau Oceanis Clipper named Erica. We are currently moored in Lanzarote Arrecife where we are enjoying the Canary Islands life.
Can you tell us about your galley?
Our lateral galley is located on portside it has a 3 burner stove, an induction cooker a oven and 1000 w microwave it also has a top loading fridge and 12v fridge/freezer. We decided it would be a good idea to create more cupboard space making it a practical and spacious galley for us.
What one thing would you change about your galley if you could?
We don’t really want to change anything now since we have made the changes we feel it is really suited to the way we live and we love our galley and are pretty happy with how things are set up.
What are your three favourite ingredients?
Onions, garlic and tinned tomatoes are our three favourite ingredients onboard Erica. I think these three simple ingredients make it super easy to prepare all kinds of dishes from Spanish to Greek, Indian, and Mexican. You can make almost anything using these three ingredients as a base.
Have you ever provisioned for a long passage? What did you learn? Would you do anything differently?
We have provisioned for a passage of a week, the big lesson for us what that we really overestimated the cooking we would be doing whilst on passage. We also bought way too much tinned food that we didn’t end up using and overcomplicated our planned menus. So now we prepare a few dishes before setting off and pop them in the freezer. This means we can still have a tasty and comforting meal that just needs heating up the meal. This is so much more practical when on passage rather than cooking from scratch. Another interesting and useful thing we learned was that potatoes and onions shouldn’t be stored together as they go off really fast. And to buy bananas of varying ripeness as they all ripen at the same time.
What equipment can you not live without?
Our favourite galley item that we couldn’t do without are our knives. We each have our own favourite. Hein has a Chef´s knife and I have a paring knife It is practical and makes preparing food much more enjoyable.
If you are interested in what knives you need onboard and how to look after them then check out our blog post after reading this article. You will find the link at the end of this article.
We also absolutely love our Wok pan, we use it almost every day and it is perfect for all kinds of dishes. We particularly like it for simmering and it comes in handy when we want to have a quick stir fry so it is also something we couldn’t do without
Where has been the most difficult place for you to provision?
Provisioning hasn’t been that difficult as we have really only sailed in Europe. In the more remote places sometimes stock in the supermarkets can be a bit low and it can be difficult to get the fresh fruit and vegetables you want, so you make do with what you find.. When we were in La Gomera we noticed that it didn’t have a lot of supermarkets but when we go to places like that we just adapt our menu and it all works out.
What is your most loved recipe that you cook onboard?
My favourite dish sambal this chilli paste gives a delicious depth of flavour when we add it to rice. We also love to spread it on our sandwiches. It goes really well with peanut butter or cheese and is a firm favourite onboard for an on-the-go easy-to-make snack. I love its versatility, however, it is true that I never quite know how hot it is going to be as chillies vary from country to country so how spicy it will turn out is always a surprise!
Judy and Hein don’t have a sailing blog, but I would love to do a special shout-out here to the act of kindness and selflessness shown by their son and his family, who are also full-time liveaboards on SY Susie Jane. They are currently in the Caribbean and were one of the many boats that fled Grenada when Hurricane Beryl hit back in June. They managed to get to Trinidad in time and found themselves a secure anchorage to wait it out. The devastation, however, was so great that they felt compelled to return to the island of Grenada and the neighbouring Carriacou to help out the fellow sailors and locals who lost everything in the hurricane’s path. Look out for a special blog post later this month, where I talk to Sander and his wife about their selfless journey back to Grenada and Carriacou and how the devastation has been felt and the amazing way they brought a community together to help out.
If you want to know more about peanut butter then check out our superfood for sailors article here.
If you have a jar and not sure what to do with it then we highly recommend our super simple and so delicious African-inspired kale and peanut butter stew here.. You will be amazed at how simple it is.
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