Welcome to The Cruising Cook’s Blog!

Chris, Heather, Minnow and Kira

Let me start by telling you a bit about myself.  My name is Heather Stockard and I live and cruise aboard a Saga 43 sailboat, Legacy, with my husband, Chris and our two Portuguese Water Dogs, Kira and Minnow.  We are both avid home cooks who have attended numerous classes at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts in Cambridge, MA.  We spend about seven months each year on board, currently in Pacific Mexico, and take hurricane season off the boat to pursue other interests.  For the last few years, those interests have taken us to New England, where Chris’ mother lives.

Aialik Bay, Alaska, 1991

For most of our adult lives, we lived and worked in Alaska, first in Fairbanks, then Anchorage and Juneau.  Cooking was a great way to entertain ourselves and others during the long, cold winters.  We both grew up in sailing families, and when we moved to Alaska we continued sailing, first on small boats, then on a Freedom 32 and finally on our current boat.  During our working years, much of our cruising was in remote areas of Alaska.  We learned to be self-sufficient in both our boating skills and our provisioning because we were far from help and from the nearest grocery store!

We left Alaska in May 2003, headed south for a cruising adventure.  At that time, we didn’t know if our adventure would last 6 months or 16 years.  Our only requirement was that we would cruise for “however long it’s fun”.  After 10 years, we’re still having fun!

Legacy at the start of  Baja HaHa Leg 2, 2003.

That first summer, we headed down the Pacific Coast, ending up in San Diego in October for the start of the Baja Haha Cruiser’s Rally.  We spent the next few seasons enjoying the wonderful cruising in Pacific Mexico.  It was during that time that I wrote my first book, “A Cruising Cook’s Guide to Mexico”.  After a few years in Mexico, we cruised down through Central America and then to Ecuador.  The next season we traveled back up to Panama and after enjoying the Pacific coast of Panama, passed through the Canal to the Atlantic.  We spent a couple of months exploring the Atlantic coast of Panama, and then worked our way up through the Western Caribbean and on to Florida.  While in that part of the world, we cruised the Florida Keys and the Bahamas.  In 2012, Chris and two crew delivered Legacy back to Pacific Mexico.

Whether you are a cruiser, a casual boater, a foodie, or just interested in new culinary skills, I hope that you’ll find this blog interesting and useful.  I will be posting blog entries 2 or 3 times a month.  If you want to be notified of new blog posts, please “Like” The Cruising Cook on Facebook, or sign up to receive posts by email.  And, please send me your questions or suggested topics.  I will answer all that I can in future blog posts.

Fair winds, following seas, and good cooking!
Heather, The Cruising Cook