August 2, 2002 - VEGETABLES
(written June 1 in Chagos)

	Beth with her onboard garden! She's holding a bowl of mung bean sprouts, and the bowl in the right-hand corner contains radish sprouts.

We are used to always having fresh vegetables. The markets in Malaysia and Thailand are full of gorgeous fresh vegetables, and we eat raw and cooked veggies everyday. We are addicted to fresh salads as well, and eat salad nearly every day. How do you carry enough vegetables and salad with you on passage and on to Chagos, for a duration of four to five months? You don't--at least not on SUNFLOWER. I haven't found any way out of this dilemma either. Frozen vegetables take up too much room in the freezer. Then there's canned veggies.

It is really hard for me to buy canned vegetables. I just don't like most of them. I mean, to me a can of carrots has no socially redeemable features. Green beans I tolerate--just. Al likes them though. He's from Ohio where vegetables are boiled to death, and a fresh, crisp, succulent green bean hasn't got a chance. I like canned zucchini; comes in an Italian-type tomato sauce. Al likes it better if it has green beans mixed in with it--of course. Canned peas are OK, but only once a month please. Al doesn't like the color of beets. Asparagus is lovely, but expensive. So what does that leave? Corn. Once you eat cut corn, creamed corn and Mexicorn, that's it. So you eat it over and over. Canned vegetables are boring.

I do buy lots of canned tomato products: whole, stewed (several different flavors), redi-cut, puree, sauce, and paste. Then there are beans: baked beans, pork and beans, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, chili beans and refried beans. And of course lots of canned mushrooms. But I tend to use all these things as ingredients though, and not as a stand alone vegetable.

When we first left Thailand I had bought plenty of fresh vegetables--too many for them all to fit into the refrigerator, as a matter of fact. Some veggies you can keep in a basket, others just have to go into the refrigerator. My refrigerator was packed so tight that I almost couldn't get in there to get at the vegetables I wanted to use! Whatever I put in the frig I wrapped first in newspaper and then put in a green bag--these are specially treated plastic bags that retard the formation of enzymes and gases that cause the vegetables to rot. Al thinks it's nonsense, but I know they work. How else to explain keeping a red sweet pepper for 7 1/2 weeks or eating the last of my Thai cabbage a full 3 months after buying it?!

For the first month we had alternatives to canned vegetables: green beans, cauliflower, green and red peppers, cucumbers, even a head of lettuce. I had tomatoes, carrots and cabbages too. What's the story with tomatoes these days? I bought a selection of ripe, semi-ripe, and nearly green tomatoes. The ripe ones went right into the kitchen basket, no refrigeration. None of them went rotten, even after a couple of weeks. About that time I took the semi-ripe ones from the frig, unwrapped them and laid them out to ripen. So far so good. Yet by the time I got around to needing the green tomatoes, some had gone moldy, others were simply dead. You just can't trust a tomato to do its normal thing anymore.

Carrots last and last if they're wrapped in paper, put into a green bag, and kept in the frig. I had too many to start with for the frig, so a lot went into the basket. We ate the carrots from the basket first, but after a few days they went limp. I could transfer them to the frig for revival if there was room, but usually there wasn't. Here's a thing we found by accident: wrap the sorta limp carrot in barely damp newspaper, then in foil. It revives itself and keeps really well. (At least the test carrot did) We eat a lot of carrots and were able to augment our supplies with carrots brought to us from Addu with cruising friends arriving later in the season. I still have 2 of those carrots in the frig. Talk about hoarding...

Then there's cabbage. I left Thailand with 7 cabbages. Two went into the frig, well wrapped and in a greenie. The rest I kept wrapped individually in newspaper and kept in a big plastic milk crate. I used the cabbages in rotation, peeling off the leaves I needed rather than cutting into the stems. I bought another cabbage in Addu and had a friend also bring a big one with them from Addu in March.

Dry Vegetables

I mean the long-term stuff here--potatoes, onions, garlic, jicama and pumpkin (squash). I took 10 kilos (22lbs) each of potatoes and onions, and stored them in baskets and bags up forward or kept in the (never used) shower. I've had to throw a few of each out, but on the whole, they've done remarkably well. I choose really good potatoes and onions to start with and would go over them quite frequently for bad spots. I have 4 potatoes and about 20 onions left after almost 5 months.

I had a hard time finding good quality garlic in Phuket. I think it just happened to be a time between shipments, as usually the vendors overflow with piles of superb garlic. I did gather up about 24 heads with lots of effort. They have lasted well, and I will have plenty for the duration without skimping or hoarding.

Jicama have done just fine in the open storage baskets. They tend to wither and shrink over time. Just peel and slice them anyway, put them in a container with water and into the frig. In a day or two they will reconstitute and be crisp again. We eat them raw as an alternative to carrots.

The pumpkins didn't fare too well this time and I don't know why. I had to toss one overboard that went moldy-rotten, and realized we had to eat the others quite soon to avoid the same fate. I would have preferred to have the pumpkins further on down the time line, when the other fresh veggies were all gone.

Salad

A big problem. When you're out of lettuce, you change to cabbage. Gradually the tomatoes and cukes are history, so there's cabbage with maybe some shredded carrots. Then you start hoarding the carrots, and it's down to basic cabbage. I like cabbage salad, but it gets boring after a while. I've always thought someone should do a cookbook on "One Thousand and One Ways to Disguise Cabbage", or "Zen and the Art of Coleslaw". In Chagos I augment cabbage with other stuff, primarily heart of palm, the hoarded carrots and some sprouts. Which brings me to the subject of gardening.

My garden is pretty minimal as compared to some of the boats here. Patrick and Carolyn have a hydroponics farm on the foredeck that produces cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, kang kong (a sort of spinachy plant) and various herbs. I feel lucky to have successfully mastered growing basil and parsley from seeds! I also have a nice pot of mint and 2 containers of green onions. I tried growing cilantro--a dismal failure. But I do very well with sprouts. Regular mung bean sprouts grow in a jar in the galley; just rinse them well twice a day. I like to let the little sprouted leaves turn green; they look pretty in salad. I also use radish seeds to grow sprouts. These I plant in dirt as they grow better. I harvest them in just 4 or 5 days. Also great in salads and nice on sandwiches too.

We will have been in Chagos for almost 5 months by the time we leave. Add another 2 weeks for the return passage to Thailand. Most of our friends will head for cold beer or ice cream as arrival treats. For us? Hit the fruit and vegetable market! Already I have visions of salads with piles of different lettuces, and laden with tomatoes, cucumbers, avocados, peppers, and carrots. To be closely followed by a binge with mangos, papaya, oranges, pineapple, rambutans. Hell, I'd even take a banana at this point!