Story and photos by David H. Lyman
Sailing from Maine down to the Caribbean each November, my sole companion was the renowned French chef Pierre Franey. During these two-week voyages through the Bermuda Triangle, Pierrebecame my mentor in the gallery — rather, I should say, it was his cookbook: The New York Times 60-Minute Gourmet. This book is more a storybook than a mere collection of recipes. He gets to talking about trips to the market, skills learned, disasters overcome, and people he’s met. It’s an education in French traditions in the kitchen, and each meal of which he writes takes no more than 60 minutes to prepare, complete with a lesson or two.
Pierre arrived in New York City in the 1930s, a young French-trained chef, and ended up as executive chef at Le Pavillon. Soon after, he began writing a weekly column for the Times, which led to a collaboration with food critic Craig Claiborne on ten cookbooks.
The 60-Minute Gourmet was, and still is, a joy to read. It would occupy a good part of an afternoon watch as I read about his life as a young chef, while I scoured the pages for something to make for my solo dinner. What did I have aboard that could be adapted to one of his recipes?
Pierre helped me become more creative in the galley — and more resourceful. If I didn’t have cognac aboard, maybe a splash of rum would do. His chicken breasts Veronique with curried rice might become white fish Veronique with garlic mashed potatoes. Out there in the middle of the Atlantic, 350 miles from the nearest market, I was forced to use what was at hand. This naturally forced me to adapt and experiment. This led to great discoveries — and a few disasters — but since I was alone, no one complained. I was building creativity and expanding my repertoire.
Meal preparation, I realized, can be as creative and rewarding as writing, painting, or composing. You combine ingredients — or ideas — to create something whole. And if you do it well, your audience devours what you’ve made.
Few joys in life are better.
Another sailor/chef I’ve sailed with also imparted valuable lessons. Larry Tyler is a storyteller, yacht skipper, and hotel-trained chef. He’s been chartering The Dove, his 54-foot Crealock-designed sloop, in the Caribbean for more than 30 seasons, with side trips to Antarctica (twice) and Greenland (twice). He serves dinners aboard that rival any four-star restaurant ashore.
“Don’t scrape the chopped vegetables off the board with the sharp side of your knife,” he once reprimanded me, slapping the back of my head. “That’ll teach you. Same lesson my instructor gave me in hotel school. Use the back side of the knife. The knife is your best friend in the kitchen. Treat it with respect.”
That advice replays in my head every time I scrape chopped onions into a skillet.
I learned bread-making from Larry. When I asked him for a recipe:
“It’s simple. Flour, salt, sugar, yeast, and water.”
“But what’s the kneading sequence?”
“I don’t know. It just comes naturally. It’s how the dough feels.”
Another of Larry’s lessons: use real charcoal in the grill, not briquettes. It makes a difference — whether you’re cooking leg of lamb, mahi-mahi, or burgers. Finding real charcoal in the islands isn’t hard; most locals use the real stuff.
Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a good read, but her recipes are all-day affairs, and not well suited to the cramped confines of a boat’s galley.
I do keep a copy of Lin and Larry Pardey’s 400-plus-page book, The Care and Feeding of the Sailing Crew. It’s not just another cookbook — it’s a complete guide to how food fits into every voyage, from provisioning and meal planning to food storage, told with authority. The Pardeys circumnavigated the globe twice on small, engineless boats they built themselves, and authored many books along the way.
Recently I was sailing through the Caribbean with a fellow Mainer, Richard Thompson, on Strider, his 44-foot Reliant sloop.Meal prep is hard enough in a small boat, especially in someone else’s galley, but it’s provisioning ashore that tests the cook’s creativity.
“What’s in there?” I asked Richard, who was half buried, upside down, inside the freezer chest at Knight’s Market in Port Elizabeth on Bequia.
“Frozen pork chops and some chicken legs,” he mumbled.
“No hamburger?”
He didn’t answer, but emerged with two packets of frozen chicken and two of pork chops.
“These’ll have to do,” he said. “That’ll give us dinner for four nights.”
Richard and I were provisioning for a sail down to Tobago Cays and Carriacou. He’d been sailing Strider south through the islands most of the 2024 season, solo. I’d flown down to help him sail back north to Antigua for the Classic Yacht Regatta in late April.
Another point: Provisioning a yacht in the Caribbean can be frustrating and expensive. In some places, you might visit three or four small markets and still only find half of what you want. The rule here: forget the shopping list. Go ashore, see what’s available, then decide what’s for dinner once you’re back aboard.
These islands are the last stop in a long supply chain. Islanders make do with what’s available, and it’s not much. Most West Indian meals are little more than rice and black beans.
Thankfully, there’s no shortage of fresh fruits and vegetables. Much of it is locally grown, and the rest arrives daily from larger islands. You’ll find a dozen fruit and vegetable stands on the streets of Port Elizabeth, Bequia, some little more than a card table with pineapple, coconut, papaya, mango (in season), and pumpkin.
You can drag a line, hoping to land a mahi, tuna, or wahoo, if not a pile of sargasso weed. Fish is usually available at island fish markets or from a local fisherman. I’d buy only deep-sea-caught fish caught well offshore, as ciguatera, a toxin in reef-dwelling fish, is a nasty affair.
Ten years ago in Bequia, the covered market near the fish dock was bustling. Last year, only one vendor was there. The others must have realized they could skip the rental fees and set up on the street instead.
At Knight’s Market, we bought the basics: rum, tonic water, fruit juice (for rum punch), rice, canned tomatoes and beans, cereal, eggs, and whatever frozen meat we could find. They took my credit card. The fruit stand vendors, though, needed cash. We filled canvas bags with pineapple, bananas, nutmeg (for the rum punch), garlic, onions, peppers, potatoes, and mangoes. That would hold us for the week.
It took the better part of a day to sail south from Bequia to the Tobago Cays. By 4 p.m., we picked up a mooring in Clifton Harbour on Union Island. We’d leave the Grenadines tomorrow, bound for Carriacou, but first we’d clear out in the morning.
Late afternoon, time for a rum punch. Reclined on cockpit cushions, we sipped and watched the harbor unwind.
“What do you think we should do with those chicken legs?” Richard asked. He’d had enough of his own cooking and wanted fresh input.
“That large cast-iron skillet down there would be perfect for chicken cacciatore,” I said.
Richard and I are both one-pot sailors. Anything that can be cooked in a single pot or skillet is on the menu.
“Take that cast-iron skillet and cook the chicken. While that’s on the stove, sizzling, chop up an onion, two peppers, and some garlic. When the chicken’s done, take it out and sauté the vegetables in the same skillet. Boil up two cups of chicken bouillon. When the veggies are done, throw in two cups of that whole pineapple we bought this morning. It’ll give it a Caribbean twist. Add the chicken back in, pour in the broth, and let the whole thing simmer.”
No need for specifics. Richard knew how to cook. He just needed the idea.
“A splash of rum?” he asked.
“Can’t hurt.”
Getting back to Pierre’s book — it’s his poulet poché sauce suprême that has become a tradition on board my own boats and at home. It’s easy to prepare and takes less than an hour from start to finish. Only one large pot for the chicken and veggies and a small one for the rice, and when done, you have leftover chicken for a few days of sandwiches and a pot of broth for soup. And Pierre’s story that accompanies this pot of boiled chicken is an insightful look into this chef’s roots.
It’s all about attitude, this galley stuff. If you stick to printed recipes, you’ll never discover anything new. Being aboard a small boat with limited storage and resources forces us to improvise, and from our perceived mistakes come gifts, lessons, and discoveries. Along with a more creative mindset, we develop awareness and build skills. It’s a lot like anchoring.
Practice teaches us what works and what doesn’t.
And if all fails, there’s always rice and a can of black beans.
Bon Appétit!
Some practical advice:
Sailing and provisioning in the islands are both adventures, so some prep may make your time in the galley more enjoyable.
The French islands are best for provisioning. These French take their dining seriously — so wine, cheese, leg of lamb, pâté, coffee, and crème fraiche are available and reasonable.
Tyrrel Bay on Carriacou has two large air-conditioned supermarkets that rival those on larger islands. Stock up on staples when you can.
Refrigeration and a freezer aboard make life more enjoyable, and ice keeps the rum punch cool, but I’ve spent more than a season or two with neither. Cube ice is usually available ashore at the dock or store. Midafternoon, I’d give my young son EC$5 and tell him to take the dinghy to the dock and fetch me a bag of ice — but do his exploring on the way in and come straight back, or there’ll be precious little ice left.
