First I had one on one taco time. We chowed down on tacos in the cockpit. I adapted a crockpot recipe for chicken taco meat and it worked wonderfully on the propane stove. (Chicken breasts with taco seasoning, and salsa with some chicken broth brought to a boil and then simmered for 30 min or so. And then shred the chicken.) I also made some pico from scratch, delicious!
Having lunch in the cockpit is fantastic. It's beautiful, peaceful and everything tastes better on the water! I was even expecting some bold seagulls to harass us. But they were off somewhere else.
A couple of nights later and it was brewskis, pizza and Mah Jong night.
With three strapping men and little ole me the place started to feel pretty cozy. And my entire table almost disappeared under one large pizza box. When I'm by myself the table is huge, I forget that it's not a big table when compared to normal dining tables. Brought out my grandmas set of tiles and decided to teach some white boys how to play Mah Jong. Of course as I got more tipsy, I forgot rules and they reminded me of the rules. That means I'm a pretty good teacher while sober, right? It's also great to see other people discovering the joys of "Ponging" your enemies.
And then a few nights after that, we had a company party at my boat. You can do that when your company only consists of five peeps. Take that super big corporations.
No pictures survived the night of my guests on the Pax (ie we all were having way too much fun or just forgot we had cameras). There is this sunset pic though.
This was the most challenging night of entertaining. And it wasn't the because of the guests (except for one who really wanted to unscrew all the bolts holding the boat together.), it was because I found out the hard way about the door, the boom, serving sizes, and small kitchens.
For the party I was expecting anywhere from 5 to 10 people. We ended up numbering 7 including myself. Now this was starting to get tight, not cramped, tight. Thankfully it was mild and warmish January night so my guests could spend time down below and in the cockpit. All the ins and outs did introduce my guests to the intricacies of sailboat doors (I have three wooden panels that have to be placed in order, with the right sides in, otherwise the hatch won't properly close above the door. As one guest put it: "You like doors, and you like puzzles. Why not combine them?" Promoting some alcohol aided/hindered puzzle solving. Of course as soon as the door was closed up somebody would want to go outside, or somebody was outside who wanted to come in.
Sometimes I do really dislike my door.
I tried to be a good boat hostess and tell people always have two to three points of contact, you know so they wouldn't fall over board. So focused was I on making sure they didn't fall off, that I forgot to warn them about the boom. The boom is perpendicular to the mast and extends out into the cockpit at normal people height. I'm short so I hardly ever hit my head on it. But my guests aren't of the super short Asian variety. And well BOOM smack dab into the boom. Guest's forehead 0, Boom 1. And of course it's the guy who my dog consistently hits in the nuts (no I didn't teach him that) who also runs into the boom. I felt like I just failed as boat hostess right there. But alcohol and pretty sunsets fix lots of things.
So I was preparing for a group of 10 just in case everyone brought a plus one. I took this crockpot recipe that I had never cooked before (bad idea #1) and just doubled it, without paying attention to the size of the crockpot in the recipe or the one I was using (bad idea #2). So I mixed up the sauce, had some cocktails. Added the vegetables, more cocktail imbibing. Added the meat, didn't read the recipe, got distracted, ohhh hello alcohol. And then I realized the crockpot was totally full, to the brim, and I hadn't added any noodles in. And my guests were already there and hungry. So I split up the recipe, half on the stove top, half in the crockpot and tossed in the half the noodles into each pot. Of course, also half my noodles are Americanized Asian noodles that you can get at the regular supermarket and they have instructions in English, the other half were bought from Ranch 99 had instructions in Chinese, and despite my heritage I can't read it. I just assumed they'd both cook the same way (bad idea #3). Of course they didn't. The crockpot half with the Asian Asian noodles turned to goop. The other half though was just fine and enough to fill up my guests. It didn't hurt that I also pan fried up lots of potstickers. Cover up your mistakes with potstickers, they'll never know.
This party night also got alllll the dishes in my galley dirty (well except for the cast iron skillet, but I probably splashed some oil on it by accident, so let's just say it got dirty too.) Of course I don't have too many dishes, but when your galley is tiny, having three big bowls, a plate, a frying pan, soup pot, crockpot, seven sets of chopsticks, seven mismatched drinking vessels and the cutting board all dirty make the whole place look completely trashed. And we even used disposable plates (because I only have one plate), but still it looks trashed. (I know, I know, disposable plates are bad for the environment. Trying to not use them in the future)
I spent much of the next day cleaning up the shenanigans from the day before. Doing dishes in the galley makes me miss high powered faucets and running hot water. Thank goodness for electric kettles! Anyways cleaning up took so much time that I didn't have time to run out and grab some provisions. Thankfully I crammed my galley with snacks and have enough for my guests. I hosted a meeting of tiny house enthusiasts in my tiny space! Tiny house enthusiasts should always meet in tiny spaces, right?
And now I'm going to be a boat hermit for a while.
