Focus on Favorites

A boatyard neighbor, new to living aboard life, asked me about provisioning the other day. “Where do you provision around here?” they asked. They’d moved to the boat from Utah, and the different grocery options between there and Maryland felt both overwhelming and underwhelming.

At first I offered a standard response, talking about where I’ve found the best prices for stocking up. Costco, Walmart, Target. Then, as I grabbed my favorite falafel mix to make dinner last night, it occurred to me that there’s a more nuanced answer.

Stocking the boat up with basics when you have access to a car (and a dock) makes a lot of sense. Buy lots of shelf-stable essentials, particularly the bulky ones. But to be honest, most staples are available most places. Need flour? Any grocery store will have it. Canned tomatoes? Same. Pasta, rice, oil, vinegar, salt, sugar. The list goes on. Yes, make sure you’ve got enough of those to keep you going, but it won’t be a big deal to restock down the road.

My MO with basics like these, especially if I’m coastal cruising or know these things are readily available even if not my favorite brands, is to make sure I’ve got one in reserve and one on the go. Depending on our cruising plans, and possible length between provisioning opportunities, this might even mean 2 in reserve, especially if the ingredient is essential. (Flour for bread, I’m looking at you!) If I’m starting 100% from scratch, this means buying at least 2 of everything. One is in immediate use, while one is stowed deeper. Once I grab the reserve to put it into use, I start looking for the replacement.

This worked marvelously for us in the US and the eastern Caribbean. It took a load off my head, thinking I needed to BUY. ALL. THE. THINGS. (and lots of them!) It meant too that it was a rare shopping trip that required a lot of big bulky things all at once. When we needed beer, it was highly unlikely that that coincided with needing flour. Pasta could be bought one pound at a time, and no danger of running out.

What you want to really stock up on are your favorites. The special items that make your cooking/entertaining/eating life just that much better, that maybe aren’t found everywhere you’ve looked. Maybe you need semolina flour from Italy to make pizza, or the exact brand of bruschetta topping that means you can entertain in a flash. There’s this tonic syrup that’s only available mail-order, or you’ve found a special type of dried mango that makes your mouth water in anticipation just from seeing the bag. Take advantage of being in a place you know, with stores you are familiar with, to make sure you’ve got a good pile of those goodies.

For us, that means things like bruschetta topping from Trader Joes and 2-lb blocks of Cabot extra sharp cheddar cheese. Certain boxed wine that’s not available most places I’ve looked. There are spices from Penzeys, stashed carefully below the waterline in their perfectly-sized bags. The Jack Rudy extra-bitter tonic syrup stash is stowed in the bilge along with as much Vermont IPA as we can carry. Once those are gone, it’ll be hard to replace them easily. Hopefully when that time arrives, though, we’ll have discovered new favorites that we need to make sure we’ve stockpiled before we move on. It’s rotates stock as we rotate discoveries.

*Can’t find this favorite any longer! :(*

If you’re starting to think about the whole provisioning thing, focusing on favorites might be one way to fine-tune the process.