The ETTR: The One Factor You Must Know To Cook On A Boat

For cooking on a boat, you MUST know the ETTR: Estimated Time To Rot. If you’ve ever opened an avocado to find those black rot pockets, picked up a bag of veg that’s gone nasty wet, or turned over a skanked out tomato, you know how key this variable is.

And on the boat it’s even more vital because we don’t have the giant fridge to hold Costco quantities of produce. That’s why estimating the ETTR is a daily doing aboard Amari.

So this morning my avocado was lounging about in its veggie hammock minding its own business. I came by to give it a little love-squeeze and discovered that it was getting a little soft about the middle (aren't we all).

We already had two big lovely tomatoes mush out on us, so the current pair of them were put into the fridge to chill out. Lastly, the sliced Gouda had been opened for a previous sandwich-a-palooza but the pack wasn't quite done yet. Ergo, I was plainly forced to make toast w egg, cheese, avocado, and tomato for breakfast.

And truthfully, these are actually conversations we have with each other.

Me: What are you hungry for.

Dottie: Mmmm, not sure. What’s about to rot?

Me: Well, the blahbitty blah about to turn, and that cheese is going to need a good scrape around the edges to get the penicillin off, and if we don’t eat the [fill in the blank] soon we’ll have to toss it.

It’s like being on the Iron Chef every day, but with a moving target of foods that all have their own ETTR.