A few weeks ago, a cruising friend shared the inspirational story of Eduardo Garcia, a friend of his ( cruising people tend to easily make friends, and love sharing stories!) Trained as a chef in the USA, Eduardo went to work on big yachts, travelled all over the world, enjoyed the good life…so far, sounds familiar, right? Then, he had a terrible accident on land, which literally changed his life. He did survive, but my words will never be good enough to tell you about his journey back to health. Instead I encourage you to watch this wonderful video, which is a story of fortitude, determination and positivity, all wrapped into one person. It lifts my spirits and gives me goose bumps everytime I watch it!

Eduardo’s belief that “food is a gateway to other cultures”  totally resonates with me and November was a perfect example of mixing in with different cultures: from Mexico’s Day of the Dead, American Thanksgiving and a visit from an Australian friend…there was plenty to celebrate.

• An unforgettable visit to Xcaret to experience the Festival of Life and Death Traditions, leading to our own Day of the Dead celebration on the boat.

• Our boat mule refilling our stock of Australian confectionery, mustard and Vegemite, not forgetting bringing me up  to date with the latest food news from Oz ( Party season is about to kick in over there!). See photos here.

•  American Thanksgiving, which we don’t celebrate as such, I like the idea of being thankful everyday, rather than once a year. Still, when food is involved, we like to observe the special day, and our take on this was BBQ steaks (does it have to be Turkey?) and mashed sweet potatoes, followed by cranberry tortefor dessert.

• An eating “safari” around the Riviera Maya, with our visitor. Some days we ate out, others we played around in the galley with local ingredients, like jicama . This is my take on a Waldorf salad, Mexican-Voahangy style (recipe to follow)

• Experimenting with Dairy-free and Egg-free baking, for the benefit of a friend, and with the help of this website. More testing and tasting is required before I can share a recipe, but I can already say that even non-allergic eaters around me, keep asking for more!!

• Started on a mission of cleaning out our fridge and freezers of any fresh produce ( part of boat lock-down procedure, as we’re going away for the holidays, so the less appliances we have on, the better!) That led to interesting and yummy meals, such as lobster on avocado puree,

deep fried squids and chick pea spinach salad,

or conch cassolette

Yes, that’s a lot of frozen seafood and I am pleased to report that none of it suffered from freezer burn! We still have a lot of cheese and vegetables to go thru, which sounds kind of healthy and just what we need before the Holidays blow out starts!!!