Even if stores are readily available, they are not 5 minutes away and we don't have a car to take us there.  We do regular shopping and hauling of things by taking a local bus and walking to the stores, then carrying the bags of groceries home.  I learned to be more aware of what we have on board at all times, make lists when I shop, and get everything I need when I go to the store.  If we really need to do a major provisioning, it is time to get a taxi.

At first I thought I could just get a mental image of what I need and go shopping.   I quickly found out that you start to prepare things only to find out you're missing something you need to prepare the dish (or worse yet, the meal).    Depending on where we were, it sometimes meant we didn't have much of a meal.   I had to learn to be more organized.  To learn how to provision (and store things like fresh produce), I started by reading books. What I ultimately arrived at was to define a "typical" set of meals for a day by servings of food categories (protein, starch, fruits, vegetables), which I multiplied by two (for two crew) then by 30 for the total number of servings of each food type we needed for a month. Armed with this servings per month information,  I had to take those servings and come up with a list of supplies.   The food categories I came up with are at the end of this page.

Keeping track of what is on board

I'm no where near as organized as some cruisers who keep a complete database of what is on board and constantly mark off what is used and what is needed.  They can print out a shopping list at a moments notice and always know what they have available.  I use my storage locations to tell me what I need to buy.  I separate my categories of food by storage locker.  I keep a short-term storage behind the settee seats for every-day access.  I have long-term storage under beds and in lockers.  The long-term storage is by category.  When the quantities for a category drops, I add it to my shopping list.  I may end up with more canned pears instead of canned pineapple, but I do have a constant supply of canned fruit.

When I go on a major shopping expedition,  I open all my lockers and make a fairly detailed list of what I need. 

Sequel is a 51 foot boat, but was not well organized for storage.  In Trinidad, we did a major remodel job to create more usable storage space.  We have space behind and under settees, under bunks, in hanging lockers and cupboards.  It is now well organized to hold Rubbermaid or Tupperware storage bins that are packed based on a category of supplies.

I also learned pretty quickly that  when stowing items for long or intermediate terms, things that can potentially leak (Joy, Wisk, even cans of soda) are best stowed on the bottom of a storage area. That way, if they leak they don't ruin everything else in the storage area.

Meals

For us the quality of the food is important to the quality of the life. I won't say that we live to eat, but we certainly do more than eat to live.  I'd originally given all my cookbooks away, but found they were something I enjoyed too much to live without.  I've slowly collected cookbooks again and often spend hours browsing to decide what to I'd like to prepare. We have two shelves dedicated to cookbooks   

I'm much more creative in substituting things in recipes.  The ingredients listed in recipes are often either not on board, or not available in any local store.  I also find that I need a large part of our stores of foods primarily as ingredients, rather than as dishes. I probably have 30 different spices aboard, 5 different vinegars, flavored oils, and bottled flavorings.  Cans of mushrooms, pimentos, tomato sauce, as well as canned creams and milks are a large part of our stores.  I keep four kinds of rice aboard as well as 5 or 6 varieties of pasta.  When we're away for long periods of time, I keep large quantities of different flours aboard for baking bread.

Allen has a dedicated locker for "goodies".  We keep all his special little treasures there: sunflower seeds, candies, beef jerky.  It is often stocked with new items we find in the local stores.

Keeping things fresh

After we got all this stuff on board, we had to learn some tricks for keeping it fresh or useable. We discovered, for example, that some things that we always refrigerated at home didn't need to be.  In fact, if you buy things that have never been refrigerated, and don't refrigerate them, they will last much longer if carefully stored.   A great book on this topic is "Keeping Food Fresh" by Janet Bailey.   Some interesting tips that I use regularly include

Eggs will keep for weeks at room temperature, if you turn them 180 degrees every 48 hours or so. You do learn to break an egg into a bowl before you put it in your recipe, however, no matter how recently you bought it. You also learn to save egg cartons and carry them with you to the island markets; carrying a dozen eggs in a bag back to the boat is a real challenge.

Green tomatoes, stored stem end down and individually wrapped in paper towels or newspaper, can last as long as six weeks.  They ripen at different rates, and one over-ripe tomato can spoil them all so they need to be checked regularly

Store potatoes out of the sun and keep the eyes from growing (just rub the eyes off) and they will keep for weeks. Don't store them with onions, they give off a different gas and will ripen quicker if stored together..

Pests ... the dreaded weevils and cockroaches

Weevils and cockroaches are a constant concern while cruising, and we constantly work to protect against them. We use lots of Tupperware, Rubbermaid, and zip lock plastic bags. We have a number of different sizes of Tupperware storage containers to hold staples such as flour, sugar, rice, pasta, etc. When we get these items from the store, we enclosed them in double individual zip lock bags. After opening, they're stored in the Tupperware. This isolation inside plastic ensured that an infestation of bugs in one product didn't migrate to another.

We never bring items aboard in cardboard boxes. Roaches lay eggs in cardboard and paper sacks. We unload cardboard boxes on the deck, and immediately remove the cardboard from boat. In some places, I bring a big tub of water with a mild bleach solution and rinse all vegetables before taking them below decks.

Keeping bay leaves in the flour seems to work to prevent weevils.

Medical supplies

We have a well-stocked first aid kit aboard.  We have a huge supply of things such as bandages, gauze pads, alcohol and  antiseptic creams.  We are well-stocked with over the counter drugs like antihistamines, antibiotic creams and sprays, Betadine, aspirin, advil, and motion sickness pills.