Welcome!

As promised, here's the schooner blog.

A bit about me for those of you who don't know: My name is Ria, I'm twenty-something years old, and I cook for a living. I tend to be a bit of a wanderer, I'm always up for an adventure, and when I grow up, I hope to be a pirate. I spent the last few years in Austin, TX where I attended Texas Culinary Academy. For my externship, I called in a favor from an old friend of my parents who had once told me "if you ever want a gig cooking on a windjammer in Maine..." April 7th, I packed my cat and everything I own into my Saturn and drove north.

I should probably tell you at this point that the largest sefaring vessel I have ever helped operate is a canoe. In the interest of full disclosure, I'll also say that I'm about 20 pounds overweight, and while I'm pretty strong when it comes to lifting a stockpot or doing a hundred knee bends a night to reach into a low-boy, I couldn't do a pull-up to save my life.

So I went from working insane hours indoors, never seeing the sun, and going home to my cat and a couple absentee roommates to working insane hours outdoors in the sun and crashing out in a 2br apartment with 6 other schooner bums. I've got to say that so far it's a change for the better. (BTW, my cat is livin' large with my parents in southern Maine.)

With any luck, this blog will be an account of how one pudgy hash-slinger transformes into a skilled, knowledgable and fantastically fit sailor, learning many life lessons along the way. Or maybe it will end up being a comical tale of hubris and humble pie served up on a woodstove. Probably a little of both.