When your family onboard includes a Londoner with a rare and supreme talent in the kitchen, another Londoner with a great appreciation of good food and a Californian who likes to experiment with new flavours you know that the average mealtime is not going to include a can of corned beef.
We like food. We like good, healthy, tasty, organic, real, honest, no junk food and we go out of our way to make choices as consumers that reflect this. We eat locally, seasonally and prepare everything from scratch.
We are also sailors and, heading off to the remote dots on our scheduled route through Melanesia means that we’re taking full advantage of our last chance to get hold of certain items before we set sail.
And, rather than simply go down to any old store and just buy any old things, we have sought out specific products made by particularly lovely people that will not only make our eating on board extra fantastic but have a firm ethos of sustainability, quality and nutrition.
Our first passage from New Zealand is the 8 day passage to Vanuatu. Sailing all day and all night, sometimes in big seas or lumpy conditions, means that there is a real need and temptation to reach for snack food. Food on the go can often be full of chemicals, sugar and additives which are simply not what we want to be putting into our bodies (or our children’s bodies for that matter).
Since arriving in New Zealand back in 2014 we’ve sampled our fair share of the yummy things made by kiwi company Tom & Luke. Their products were born out of the collaboration between Tom, a personal trainer, and Luke, a chef, who saw a need for snack foods that were also healthy and nutritious.
We’re using their bars and their ‘snackaballs’ as a way of filling our tummies for that quick fix on a night watch, a little boost to keep going on passage, and a naturally sweet treat to keep the sailing team morale up. And how great is it to be able to do that with something packed with organic ingredients without preservatives, additives or artificial flavours.
We love our chocolate onboard and we’ve discovered the joys of cacao nibs sprinkled liberally on breakfasts and smoothies. Our friends at Ola Pacifica consider their role as taking people on a journey to discover what real food tastes like. The company is based on the key values of quality, sustainability, support and love, as it’s a family business that practices direct trade with the cacao growers in Samoa.
The chocolate and cacao products that they make taste phenomenal. The beans are imported and roasted, winnowed, graded, ground, conched, aged, melted, tempered, moulded and wrapped (who knew you could do so many things to chocolate?!) in Hawke’s Bay, here in New Zealand. It’s all organic and there are no additives or fillers, just good, real ingredients.
As well as things sourced from the Pacific islands, we turned our minds to the produce that wouldn’t be available in the countries we’re visiting. We discovered a company called Fresh As who freeze-dry fruits, herbs and vegetables. Fresh coriander in your guacamole mid-ocean? A tangy zing of mandarin segments on your yoghurt while at anchor? Sweet, ripe powdered strawberries on a birthday cake served in an atoll? All of these are going to be possible with these products.
From chilli, sweet basil and fresh oregano powders to blackcurrant, mango and raspberry powders, there are so many ways to use these exceptionally tasty and flavourful ingredients. They’re also just so pretty, the bright coloured powders and beautiful fruit segments and slices will be such a breath of fresh air in those remote islands.
And, there is not a day that goes by on the yacht that we don’t drink coffee. New Zealand is a country that really understands good coffee and we must admit to having been pretty spoilt with it during our time here. But what will we do when we leave?
During our time in Wellington we slurped our way through many a mug of Peoples Coffee. Their coffees are 100% organic and fair trade and they have close personal relationships with their producers. The very core of their business is the well being of the people working in the co-operatives that they deal with. Every decision for the company comes from a stance of making great coffees that are ethical, sustainable and financially viable.
The beans themselves come from Mexico, Ethiopia, Peru, Guatemala, Colombia, Nicaragua and Rwanda. These are places close to our hearts too, we sailed in Central America for quite some time. We had our daughter in Mexico and James once lived on a coffee plantation in Guatemala.
Yes, we love good coffee, and the exquisite layers of flavour to these ones (everything from milk chocolate, caramel, to red apple, earl grey tea and even pomegranate and pineapple) make them the best coffee we’ve had in the 32 countries we’ve visited. But that’s not why we love these guys.
We’re proud to support those who support others, who care about the world we live in, the people who make things and those who give a damn about others’ welfare. And that’s what they are – coffee geeks with a big conscience.
And that’s what we wanted to share with you. Delicious tastes, great food that elevates the level of eating in the galley, and social responsibility – proving that every consumer, with every purchase they make, can make a difference.
What are you eating today?