dining changes

There will be some dining changes on board SPARTINA for the fall cruise, courtesy of some sailing friends.  Lunches, which in the past have been cans of tuna salad with crackers.  That was fine until Tom gave me a can of Rio Mare tuna that he had picked up in Europe.  He said eat it right out of the can, it tastes better than the tuna we commonly get in the US.  I have not tried that tuna yet, I'm saving it for the trip.  I tried to buy more of the Rio Mare tuna at Amazon, but my initial search found only the Callipo variety so I ordered a nine-can pack of that.  I tried one can for lunch, it was excellent.  Going back to order more tuna the Rio Mare variety showed up in a second search at Amazon so I bought a half-dozen cans of that (it is almost twice the price of Callipo).  Italian tuna for lunch and the New Zealand freeze dried meals that Webb sent me for dinner, I will be eating very well this fall.

The other change will be in how I store my food.  Lorenzo sent me a digital copy of Tinkerbelle, the story of 47-year-old Robert Manry single-handing a 13.5 foot long boat across the Atlantic.  It was a a wonderful read.  One of the things Manry did was pack each day's meal in a sealed plastic bag.  In the past I have stored my food in one-gallon jars, i.e. a jar of dried fruit, a jar of breakfast bars, a jar of lunch kits.  So each evening I found myself opening multiple jars to prepare for the next day.  This coming trip I will pack meals for each day in one-gallon freezer bags.  I have yet to sit down and make a list but each freezer bag will contain something like a breakfast bar, three cups of fruit, some dried fruit, home-made trail mix and a can of tuna.  This should simplify things in the evening and allow for a little more time to read or just relax.  

So Lorenzo, Tom and Webb, thanks in advance for improving meals on SPARTINA.