Chili and Chance

Rick and I are enjoying the upper regions of the Chesapeake. Eventually, we will go through the Chesapeake Canal and make that (often) dreary slog down the Delaware Bay. But the best weather for that appears to be still a few days away, and in the meantime, we are visiting some choice spots en route. Rick has long talked of a favorite anchorage in Queenstown Creek off the Chester River, a place I’ve never been to, so that is our destination for tonight.

Galley cooking can be cramped, uncomfortable and even possibly dangerous in a moving boat, so we typically don’t cook the evening meal until we have stopped for the night. Quickly cooked meals like steak or pasta with sauce are staples on Valkyrie. In the past, I have found myself hungering for comfort food that cooks for a long time, such as stews, braised pot roasts, or homemade soups and the like. This kind of cooking is just not practical on a sailboat with limited propane. We also would have to babysit the cooking pot since you can not leave a lit stove unattended. I’ve tried using a pressure cooker, but the results were less than wonderful.

Thermos Nissan Thermal Cooker

Through numerous internet searches these past two years, I have come up with a solution – thermos cooking! Yes, you can cook food by trapping its own heat in a simple thermos. For a big chuck roast though, you need something bigger, so I bought a thermal cooker, made of course, by Thermos. It is essentially a pot with a lid that you can use on your stove to heat your food, bring it to a boil for five minutes, then put the whole thing inside a vacuum insulated shell and let it sit for four to eight hours. When you open it up, you have a fully cooked meal waiting for you, piping hot. Kinda like a Crock Pot, but without the electricity. Perfect for the boat!

I make up a pot full of chili in the thermal cooker, and we head over to the Chester. Rick is so right; the anchorage here at Queenstown is lovely. We are surrounded by a near perfect horseshoe of natural shoreline, unspoiled by even a single cottage.  We’re also the only boat in here, making it feel like our own private Eden.

Lounging in our (now shady!) cockpit after a swim, we notice another boat coming in to anchor about three hundred yards away from us. “That reminds me of John Merrill’s boat,” Rick comments. John is a recently retired violinist from my section at the BSO, who has long been a passionate sailing enthusiast. He belonged to Get-Away Sailing where he could sign out boats, until last year when he sought Rick’s advice in the purchase of a boat of his own. Rick gets out his binoculars. “By golly, I think that IS John Merrill!” “No it’s not,” I say, rolling my eyes, “don’t be ridiculous.”

But immediately I am hit with a pang of guilt. Earlier in the spring we had promised John and his wife Julia a raft-up with our boats. This invitation had been completely forgotten in our boat mania.  Until now. “Let’s call them up and see if they can meet us somewhere in the Chesapeake before we go through the canal.” Unfortunately, I can’t find John or Julia’s phone number, but I have John’s email address and shoot him off an invite. Pretty soon, I hear back from him.

“Rebecca,” he starts off. “Too bad. There’s no chance we can meet up. I am currently anchored for the night out at Queenstown off the Chester River, all by myself.”

!!!!!

There are only two boats in this anchorage at Queenstown, and one of them is us – that other boat MUST be John’s!

"Is this your boat?"

I take a grainy picture of the boat in question with my iphone, and send it to him. “Does this boat look familiar? Come over for dinner!” We wait awhile, but John does not answer. He’s no doubt not reading his email right now. Not willing to wait any longer, Rick and I dive in the water and swim over to him. “Surprise!”

After a good laugh, John invites us aboard. He’s not expecting company, and in fact we have interrupted the cooking of his own dinner. Rick and I are wet and dripping from the swim, so we only stay a few minutes. But before we go, we invite John over for breakfast in the morning, and this time, he accepts.

Our chili dinner is wonderful, just as envisioned. There’s a problem though – I’ve made enough to feed an army! Even if John had joined us we would still be eating chili for a week to get rid of it. The thermal cooker only works if the container is almost full. It’s the heat in the liquid that does the cooking, and any air in the container reduces the heat retention. I may need to rethink this latest innovation…

In the morning, Rick motors our dinghy over to pick up John, and delivers him to our boat for breakfast in the cockpit. We have a wonderful time catching up on news about boats, family and politics. The menu? Eggs with – what else – chili!