Cooking Carbonara On A Catamaran

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to cook in the galley on a boat, and this winter I whipped up my own version of pasta carbonara onboard our neighbor’s gorgeous 34 foot Gemini Catamaran in Fort Lauderdale.

Years ago I owned a cruise travel agency, and I’m convinced that my love of the ocean and of the boats that sail the seven seas is actually a part of my DNA.

• I’ve watched the America’s Cup yacht race from the deck of a ship in San Diego…
• I’ve cruised from Athens to Rome…
• I’ve gone swimming with stingrays in Mexico while cruising on a catamaran…
• I’ve cruised through the Panama Canal…
• I’ve traveled to the Caribbean and Alaska many, many times…on many, many ships…

Until this winter I had never been able to combine those two passions into one great evening, but I can assure you it was worth the wait. I had an absolute blast while cooking for our friends in that galley!

Norm and Nancy’s catamaran is docked on the water right outside our door, and she is a beauty. Here is a brief tour of the vessel before dinner…so welcome aboard!

Have a seat on the aft deck to sip a cocktail and enjoy the view…and check out the mast…It’s 48 feet tall! So when Norm and Nancy sail away from the dock they must wait for the draw bridges on the Intracoastal Waterway to raise so their sailboat can pass through the gap safely to head out to sea.

This catamaran, built in 1999, is an original Gemini…still in mint condition.

Now step through the door into the main salon…and meet Captain Norm!

The dining area provided very comfortable seating…with lots of room to spare.

The master bedroom is beautiful! I can only imagine lying in that bed in the middle of the ocean on a moonlit night…and looking through the large, curved, forward window to gaze at the moon and the stars…

The teak floors and all of the built in cabinets on this catamaran are absolutely gorgeous, and it’s clear that ship carpentry is a special art, since there are so many curves and angles on a boat that you don’t find it other types of woodworking.

As you might imagine, boats must be designed to weather a storm, so all the doors and portholes have special locks and hooks to keep them in place in rough weather…

This 34 foot beauty has sleeping accommodations for six, in three separate cabins. Norm and Nancy say the vessel is perfect for the Florida Keys and the Bahamas as it draws only six inches when the center boards are up, and she draws only two feet when they’re down, so this Gemini Catamaran can travel into shallow waters without becoming “stuck”.

Catamarans are much wider than monohull vessels, and the wider hull helps to stabilize the boat so there is less of a rolling motion on the ocean. (Great news for anyone who fears becoming sea-sick.)

Norm and Nancy have traveled thousand of miles on her…from Key West to Maine. These adventure-seeking newlyweds have cruised throughout the Bahamas, and they have navigated all around Florida waters including a trip across the middle of the state from Lake Okeechobee to Fort Myers. And Nancy has even sailed her previous boat from England to Spain…a five day journey across the Bay of Biscay, with only one other person onboard! (I LOVE people who live life to the fullest because, as the saying goes…Life is NOT a Dress Rehearsal!)

By the way…all boats are referred to as “she”…and there are many theories as to why this tradition developed. And some of those suggestions make for salty reading not fit for my G rated blog! But one theory stems from the fact that in the Romance languages, the word for “ship” is always in the feminine, so many Mediterranean sailors always referred to their vessel a “she”, and this tradition has carried over for centuries to English speaking sailors. 

The galley on this Gemini is long and narrow…and quite compact as you might imagine. And I’m known to be somewhat messy when I cook. (Go figure!) But I found the space to be more than adequate to prepare the meal…especially when I created extra counter space by stacking the salad spinner and the wooden salad bowl in the sink while I prepared our salad course! (Where there’s a will…there’s a way Dear Readers!)

What a relaxing evening it was! And barefoot cooking is my favorite attire…topped only by cooking in my pajamas. (But I kindly spared Norm and Nancy from THAT wardrobe malfunction!)

Our evening on the water began with drinks and a simple cheese board…

I added a basket of bread and roasted garlic herb butter made with my fresh picked herbs from my small garden outside our back door…

Then I asked my guests of honor to be seated for dinner…

Our salad course came next…A simple mixture of greens, dried cranberries, toasted walnuts, orange zest and sliced apples. I made a salad dressing with course ground mustard, orange juice, extra virgin olive oil, honey, salt and pepper…and of course I threw in some chopped fresh herbs and Parmesan cheese for even more flavor.

My simple menu even gave me time to sit down and enjoy the salad with my “guests”…!

Our pasta course came next, starting with the bacon I had cooked before our cocktail hour…

The propane stove on the catamaran worked just fine, and Nancy told me she has even baked a peach pie “from scratch” when she was out to sea!

And Norm showed me how to tighten these knobs around the sides of hot pans on the stove during rough seas…to keep the pans where they belong!

I heated the pot of water to boiling and added a hefty handful of salt. (Any Italian chef will tell you the pasta water should be as salty as the sea!) Then I threw in the pasta, and I stirred several times at first to keep the pasta from sticking together. (No need to add oil to the water…just stir several times.)

And while the pasta cooked, I assembled the other ingredients for the  Carbonara. I broke two whole eggs and two more yolks into the pasta serving bowl. (Make sure the eggs are at room temperature…it will help them cook properly in the sauce.)

I added a healthy handful of grated Parmesan cheese and LOTS of fresh-cracked black pepper…

And I added lots of fresh chopped flat leaf Italian parsley, some onion chives, and some garlic chives to the bowl…

Then I stirred in the bacon (and the bacon grease!)…

And as soon as the pasta was cooked to al dente I added it to the ingredients I had already assembled in the serving bowl and stirred briskly for several minutes. The heat of the pasta is all it takes to cook the eggs, and I added some of the hot pasta water to help to finish the cooking and to thicken the sauce to the proper consistency. I topped each individual serving with more Parmesan cheese, fresh parsley and fresh cracked pepper.

And the finished dish?

Let’s just say I heard no complaints from the diners…and I was not asked to walk the plank.

And even though everyone assured me they were too full for dessert, I served each guest a small dish of fresh strawberries and cantaloupe topped with a drizzle of ricotta cheese mixed with honey and topped with slivers of fresh basil. A refreshing light dessert…

Peepaw even asked for seconds on that…in spite of being too full for dessert. (As my nearly one hundred year old grandma used to say…he had a “coming appetite”!)

I can’t tell you how much fun I had that night…it was wonderful experience from beginning to end. I’m so grateful to our generous neighbors for sharing their beautiful sailboat with us, and I’m glad we found the time to make that meal happen before Peepaw and I  headed back North. I’m especially glad, because Norm and Nancy have now listed their gorgeous catamaran for sale, and it’s already under contract! I’m sure it will be sold before we return to Florida, and I know some other lucky sailor will be cooking wonderful meals and making memories onboard.

And those memories for the new owner?

They will be priceless…just like mine.