BOAT MAGIC

COASTAL MAINE MAKES NO PROMISES FOR WEATHER, AND THE WINDS CARRY YOU WHERE THEY WILL, BUT ON THE J&E RIGGIN ONE THING’S FOR SURE: YOU’LL BE EATING VERY WELL.

BY AMY TRAVERSO

FLEMING

The waters of Owls Head Bay are still and silent in the last hour before dawn. I hear a door latch quickly lifted and closed and look out my porthole to a blurry darkness. It’s 4:30, an uncommon hour for me but a typical start when you’re cooking for 24 guests and six crew members on a Maine windjammer. I can hear that my host, co-captain Anne Mahle, is already on her way to the galley to light the stove, so I splash water on my face and creep up the companionway and across the deck. ¶ Onshore, a rooster crows, and in the dull blue light I can make out the silhouette of Monroe Island, one of the largest undeveloped islands in midcoast Maine. Down in the galley, Anne—she goes by Annie—is humming quietly as she washes her hands and fills a pitcher of water. Just a few feet from where she stands, behind a curtain on the port side, a young apprentice named Jasper is sound asleep in his bunk. He won’t wake until 6:15, when Annie, marveling at the snoozing powers of teenage boys, will rouse him. But for now the morning is hers, a rare bit of solitude.

This is how the day begins aboard the J&E Riggin, with passengers asleep in their cabins and Annie getting her systems into gear. Only the lobstermen loading their bait bags over at the Owls Head Lobster Co. are up to share this watch. The Riggin —one of 13 windjammers that sail out of Rockland and Camden—is a 120-foot, two-masted schooner first built in 1927 as an oyster dredger for Charles Riggin, who named the boat after his sons, Jacob and Edward. Converted for passenger sail in 1977, it’s now a National Historic Landmark that takes passengers on three-to-seven-day sails from May to October. Annie and her husband and co-captain, Jon Finger, took custody in 1998, when she was pregnant with their first daughter, Chlöe. “A boat and a baby,” Annie says. “Go big or go home.”

The first task of the day: boil water for coffee, a 45-minute project when you’re cooking on a wood-burning stove. There’s no food processor here, no stand mixer, no microwave. The limited electrical supply on the boat comes from a rechargeable battery system, which powers navigation equipment, cabin lights, and ice chests. But this simplicity is very much by design, and the mild smoky scent that permeates the food is Annie’s special spice. “I never feel we have a summer of lack and then go back to luxury,” she says. “Not even a little bit.”

She puts a blue enamel kettle under the faucet and opens the tap, which lets water flow down from storage barrels up on the deck. She adds a few logs to the stove’s firebox, then lights some of yesterday’s leftover cardboard and puts it in. The Crawford stove—Annie calls her “Lucy”—is slow to catch today, even though there’s enough wind to create a strong draft. “I’ll be feeding this box all day,” she says. “To get water boiling in time, I’m really cranking it.”

The quiet is periodically broken by lobster boats tearing out of the harbor as they race to their traps, but it still allows a borderline introvert to recharge for the very social, close-quartered day ahead. “Right now, the phone’s not ringing. Everyone’s sleeping,” Annie says. “Once I get this moment, I can do anything.” Which is why Jasper gets to sleep in instead of her.

By 5:40, the water is boiling audibly. She’s now joined by Mark “Chives” Godfrey, the mess mate, who works the same job Annie had back in 1989 when, fresh out of college, she first met Jon aboard the Stephen Taber, another Rockland schooner. Annie and Chives roll through the day’s menu, take stock of the remaining supplies, and decide on a breakfast menu of frittatas, French toast, home fries, and pecan sticky buns. Chives starts chopping vegetables while Annie sifts flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt for the dough. Into the skillet go some onions and peppers, then mushrooms, eggs, and goat cheese. To control the cooktop’s temperature, which fluctuates with the fire, Annie rotates her skillets, moving them closer to or farther from hot spots. To prevent the sticky buns from burning in the oven, she tents them with foil. She didn’t learn any of these techniques working in restaurants, or at the Culinary Institute of America, where she studied baking, or on the Caribbean yachts she and Jon worked aboard before buying the Riggin . Operating this stove is a complex choreography, a relationship built on compromise over 20 years.

About a quarter of the produce served on the boat comes from the garden that Annie cultivates at her house in Rockland. Friends and neighbors help with the garden when she’s on the boat, and in fall and winter, she cans produce and makes jams. Whatever she can’t grow, she buys mostly from a farm that delivers right to the dock. It’s all part of Annie and Jon’s larger mission to run a carbon-neutral operation, to leave every island they visit untouched by their arrival, to source locally and live their lives by the wind and tide.

With some 30 passengers and crew to feed every morning, noon, and night, the Riggin ’s cast-iron wood stove—nicknamed “Lucy”— sees plenty of action.

By 7:45 all the guests are up, circling the deck with mugs of coffee as they wait for the 8 a.m. breakfast bell. “I’m not even a breakfast eater,” marvels Tim Stilwell, a passenger from Bradenton, Florida. “ But when 8 rolls around, I’m eating. And I think I’m full, but then lunch rolls around and I can’t resist.”

Between meals, when the boat isn’t docked at a port or an island, guests talk, read, nap, and knit. They knit themselves together, too, sharing bottles of wine, washing each other’s dishes after meals (the only labor expected of them, though many pitch in with sail raising and anchor dropping). “It’s boat magic,” says Rhea Butler, a Mainer who has now cruised on the Riggin five times. “By the time you leave, you know each other so well.”

On our last night, after a meal of stuffed Cornish game hens, zucchinieggplant gratin, and mini lime pies in jars, the crew washes the pots and pans, takes down the flags, and brings out kerosene lanterns. Daylight fades from yellow to orange to a soft purpleblue, and Jon and Annie announce that Music Night has begun. They take a seat above the companionway with their daughters, Chlöe and Ella, and when they launch into a string of chanteys, we all join in on the chorus. Then Chives brings out his guitar to accompany Chlöe and Ella on Hozier’s “Cherry Wine” in two-part harmony, and suddenly we have become the von Trapps of Penobscot Bay, or, rather, we’re in their care. The wind has died down and the air is warm again. Someone calls out, “Let’s have a contest of who doesn’t want to go home more!”

Later that night, I step out to take one last look at the bay and see a single lantern, the anchor light, gently swaying in the rigging. The water is so still, I can see the stars reflecting back at me. Captain Jon is walking the deck, doing a final check before retiring, and I ask, “Are those really stars? I’ve never seen the ocean so still.” “Yes,” he says, “but you might also be seeing this.” He pulls a long pole off the wall and waves it in the water; thousands of bioluminescent plankton light up in its wake. A phosphorescent sea, a magical place.

These recipes will give you a taste of life aboard the J&E Riggin . Several come from Anne Mahle’s books At Home at Sea and Sugar & Salt . To learn more about her family and their boat, go to mainewindjammer.com.

PECAN STICKY BUNS

TO TAL T IME : 1 HOUR , 20 MINU T ES

H ANDS- ON T IME : 35 MINU T ES

This dough is interesting because unlike most breakfast rolls, it’s not a yeast dough. Instead, it’s a sweet biscuit dough, which is easier to work with and takes much less time to prepare. Treat it as you would any biscuit dough: with a light hand and minimal kneading.

For something a little different, try substituting cardamom or cloves for the cinnamon, or adding orange, lemon, or lime zest to the filling.

FOR THE DOUGH

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

2 teaspoons baking powder

¼ cup granulated sugar

½ teaspoon table salt

6 t ablespoons ( 3⁄4 stick) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into ½ -inch cubes

3⁄4 cup milk

1 large egg

FOR THE FILLING

3 t ablespoons salted butter, melted

½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar

½ cup chopped pecans

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

FOR THE TOPPING

½ cup (1 stick) salted butter, melted, plus extra for the pan

½ cup packed light brown sugar

¼ cup chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 375°. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, bak- ing powder, sugar, and salt. Press the chilled butter into the mixture with your fingertips or a pastry cutter until the results look like coarse cornmeal. Add the milk and egg, and mix with your hands until just combined. Sprinkle the countertop with flour, then turn out the dough. Knead gently five or six times to just combine. With a rolling pin, roll the dough out to a little more than ¼-inch thickness, dusting with flour as needed.

Now, make the filling: Brush the dough with the melted butter. Sprinkle with the brown sugar, pecans, and cinnamon. Carefully roll up the dough into a log and cut into 12 pieces.

Lightly butter a 9-by-9-inch baking pan. To make the topping, combine the rest of the melted butter and sugar, and stir until well incorporated. Spread the mixture onto the bottom of a baking pan and sprinkle with pecans. Place the dough, cut sides facing up, and dab a little butter on top with a pastry brush. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the insides are just cooked and the tops are golden brown. Invert onto a platter or cutting board, and serve warm or at room temperature. Yields 12 buns.

Cornish Game Hens With Smoked Shrimp And Brandy Stuffing

TO TAL T IME : 1 HOUR , 30 MINU T ES

H ANDS- ON T IME : 30 MINU T ES

This recipe can also be made with a single 3½- or 4-pound roast chicken. As with the game hens, rub the chicken inside and out with oil and seasonings and fill it with the stuffing. Then roast it at 375° until a meat thermometer inserted into the inner thigh reads 165° (about 60 to 80 minutes). And while Annie recommends using smoked shrimp for the stuffing, you can substitute smoked oysters or mussels.

For The Stuffing

2 t ablespoons salted butter

1 small onion, minced

1 s talk celery, minced

½ shallot, minced

No hardtack and salt pork for these fortunate sailors: Mahle, who has three cookbooks to her name, laid out a feast including stuffed Cornish game hens and zucchini-eggplant gratin.

¼ teaspoon table salt

1½ cups finely diced day-old French bread

3⁄4 cup smoked shrimp (or oysters or mussels)

½ cup chicken stock

1 tablespoon brandy

For The Hens

4 Cornish game hens, about 2 pounds each, giblets removed

¼ cup olive oil

1 teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon paprika

Preheat the oven to 375° and set a rack to the middle position.

Set a medium skillet over medium heat. Melt the butter in the skillet, then add the onion, celery, and shallot. Sprinkle with salt and cook, stirring, until the onions are translucent, about six minutes. Put the bread and smoked shrimp into a medium bowl, then add the onion mixture and toss. In a small bowl, stir together the chicken stock and brandy, then sprinkle over the stuffing and toss until everything is evenly mixed.

Rub the outside and inside of the birds with the oil, salt, pepper, and paprika, then set them on a rack in a large roasting pan. Fill the birds with the stuffing, leaving them untrussed, and roast until the thighs move loosely in the joints, about one hour. Transfer the birds to a platter, and tent it with foil as they rest for 10 to 15 minutes. Serve hot (for eight servings, cut each hen in half lengthwise). Yields 4 to 8 servings.

ZUCCHINI GRATIN

TO TAL T IME : 1 HOUR

H ANDS- ON T IME : 20 MINU T ES

As any gardener knows, a few healthy zucchini plants can outpace a family’s ability to consume the harvest. “That’s lock-your-car-door season in Maine,” Annie says. “If you don’t, you may find your car stuffed with huge zucchinis, courtesy of a ‘friend.’” This gratin is one of the many delicious things Annie has learned to make with abundant summer vegetables. If she has eggplant on hand, as she did when I was on the boat, she’ll layer some slices in there, too.

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the pan

1 pound zucchini (about 3), cut crosswise into ¼-inch-thick slices

½ teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

½ cup plain bread crumbs

1 large garlic clove, minced

¼ cup crumbled goat cheese

3 sage leaves, thinly sliced crosswise

Preheat the oven to 400° and set a rack to the middle position. Grease the bottom of a 9-by-9-inch baking pan with oil, then layer the zucchini in four overlapping rows. Drizzle each row with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. In a medium bowl, combine the bread crumbs, garlic, goat cheese, and sage, then spread this evenly over the zucchini. Bake until the zucchini is cooked all the way though and the cheese begins to brown, 40 to 50 minutes. Yields 4 to 6 servings.

Lime Pie Jars

TO TAL T IME : 1 HOUR , 30 MINU T ES , PLUS AT LEAS T 3 HOURS CHILLING T IME H ANDS- ON T IME : 35 MINU T ES

Pies-in-jars and cakes-in-jars may be a cute food trend, but they’re also a practical way to serve dessert to a crowd, since you cook and serve your sweets in the same vessel. Annie makes this lime pie ultracreamy by using egg yolks and condensed milk, then lightens the texture with whipped egg whites.

For The Crust

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

3½ tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

For The Filling

1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

½ cup fresh lime juice (about 4 limes)

2 large eggs, separated

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

4 drops green food coloring gel (optional)

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Garnish: whipped cream, mint leaves, edible flower petals, or fresh pomegranate seeds

Preheat the oven to 325° and set a rack to the middle position. Set six 8-ounce jars or ramekins on a baking sheet.

In a medium bowl, stir together the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and butter. Press the mixture evenly into the bottom of the ramekins or jars and bake until the crust is firm and crisp, about 10 minutes. Set aside.

Now, prepare the filling: Combine the condensed milk, lime juice, egg yolks, and vanilla in a medium bowl and beat until smooth and thick. Add food coloring, if using. In a separate bowl, whisk the whites until they hold soft peaks. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar to the whites and continue beating until stiff. Gently fold the whites into the lime mixture until evenly combined.

Pour the filling into the ramekins or jars. Bake until set, about 15 minutes. Remove and let cool on a wire rack until the jars or ramekins are no longer hot. Transfer to the refrigerator and chill, covered with foil, until cold, at least three hours and up to overnight. Garnish with whipped cream, mint leaves, and edible flower petals, or pomegranate seeds, and serve. Yields 6 servings.

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