Ger Tysk is the cook on the Brilliant, a 62-foot schooner that is one of the stars of the recent Labor Day weekend’s Gloucester, MA, Schooner Festival. The ship began her life winning or almost winning Bermuda Races in the 1930s and celebrated her 90th birthday this year. The Brilliant travels from New York to Maine in the summer months for the purpose of training teens and adults on sail handling, navigation, teamwork, and all aspects of daily vessel operation. Ger cooks for the vessel’s crew and trainees, which ranges from 12 for overnight stays and 14 for day sails.
Because of the demands of the schooner festival on the day I spoke with her, the race day’s lunch was food that can be picked up quickly: pulled pork sliders, polenta squares with sauteed cremini mushrooms, caprese salad, a crudite plate, and chocolate chip cookies.
On a less-hectic day, dinner might be pork dumplings with fried rice, slow-cooked bolognese with fettuccine and homemade bread, balsamic mushroom chicken, potato and lentil curry with jasmine rice and fresh naan, or taco night (“everyone loves tacos!” Ger says.) It’s even more impressive when you see the Brilliant’s galley.
The average New York City apartment tiny kitchen might seem palatial in comparison this ship’s galley. It’s about the size of a small walk-in closet and has the bare minimum—a three-burner propane stove, an ice box refrigerator, and no running water and no freezer.
I’m the kind of cook who’s always running to the store at the last minute for that one critical ingredient, but Ger has to be a much better planner. “I like to stock up on fresh food every 6-7 days and for dry, I can go for two and a half weeks, but meals will get very boring—rice and beans and canned things,” she says. The ship can only store enough water for a group of 12 for about five days, so that is a limiting factor that helps to assure timely restocking.
She accommodates various dietary needs of the crew—vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, and peanut and shellfish allergies—that make many cooks throw up their hands in defeat. These and other limitations don’t seem to deter her. It helps that she’s been working on ships as a cook or deckhand for the past 10 years. Ger’s tall-ship career was inspired by reading Moby Dick and her first job as a deckhand for the Charles W. Morgan, the last wooden whaling vessel in the world.
Ger is understated about her talents. Turns out in addition to being a U.S. Coast Guard-licensed tall ship sailor, she’s the artistic director of a traditional Japanese drumming ensemble, a web and graphic designer (her website is stunningly beautiful), and she writes and lectures about the history of American whaling and the role of the sea in the American and Asian-American experience.
In 2020, Ger was interviewed in the New York Times about her role as a volunteer reader for the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s Moby Dick marathon, which was streamed over about 24 hours and that you can watch here. She read chapter 121.
Has there ever been a ship mutiny in response to Ger’s fare? Absolutely not. “The tall ship sailors are appreciative of my cooking,” she says. “It goes both ways. I appreciate what they do for me—they usually do the dishes. They work hard so I try to work hard for them. There are days when it’s cold and rainy and I know when you are on deck all you think about is a nice hot meal. I want to do that for them because they work so hard.”
Ger likes to vary the food she cooks. “When I was just starting out almost a decade ago, I would meal plan, but these days I have a good sense of what works on any given day, so I go with my gut,” she says. “Sometimes it depends more on what I have available and needs to be used. Sometimes I plan to cook something the next day and I wake up, and the weather has changed and what I wanted to make isn't appropriate, like hot soup on a hot, muggy day. I like variety, and I also have a catalog of recipes saved on my phone if I need more inspiration. If I'm stuck, a big cookbook like Joy of Cooking is nice to flip through for ideas.”
There is no set breakfast. “Today we had blueberry scones, fried eggs, and sliced apples and blueberries. I also put out granola,” she says. Other breakfasts have included biscuits and gravy, cinnamon rolls, homemade bagels, homemade croissants (for special occasions because they take two days to make), and English muffins (sometimes made from scratch but usually storebought) with bacon, eggs, and cheese.
Her routine changes in the winter months, when Ger works on boats in the Caribbean, most recently the Roseway, a 125-foot schooner with a crew of 40 that was built in Essex, MA in 1925. The Roseway begins the journey to the Caribbean from Boston, stopping in Charleston, SC, as the last provisioning stop, and then it’s 10 days until they reach the Virgin Islands.
The tricky part for Ger is the provisions available in the Caribbean. “I’ve cooked on other boats that went from the Virgin Islands around the Caribbean. I once did a trip from Grenada to Key West, FL. Buying food for that was interesting because in the Caribbean they don’t have what I’m used to getting here [in the U.S. Northeast]. I was provisioning green apples, a lot of eggplant, and broccoli and a lot of fresh fruit because there is an abundance of that there. I didn’t really have access to a lot of staples Americans are used to eating. The crew got very tired of eggplant [laughs]. I still hear from some of the people I cooked for who say, ‘man I can’t eat eggplant anymore.’ I tried my best, guys [laughs].”
Traveling to the Caribbean has also influenced her cooking. “I like to make a lot of Caribbean dishes, such as rice and pigeon peas, fried plantains, and Jamaican-style chicken (jerk or brown stew),” she says. “I bake a lot because of my experience sailing in the Caribbean, where we would be offshore for a few weeks at a time. Making fresh baked bread and baked goods was a nice way to add variety.”
Her favorite destination is Puerto Rico. “I liked the vibrant culture and how proud the people are of their heritage. The food is great. I was lucky and unlucky to be there right after the hurricane. I saw the relief efforts and how hard they were working to recover. I talked to a lot of local people who said it was hard but they are devoted to their island and this would make them stronger. I admired that.”
Ger misses her cat who lives at her home base in Maine and is cared for by friends, but she feels a strong sense of camaraderie with the crew. “The crew becomes your family because everyone is away from home, and you know you have these people who are there for you. Everyone knows if you live with someone for long enough you get on each other’s nerves, but I know these people would die for me quite literally and I would do the same for them. If we were in a scary situation and the boat was in danger, they would put their lives at risk so everyone else would be safe. That means a lot.”
Ger is cooking up her next act, which will be her own home kimchi business, but in the meantime, she seems content and quite capable feeding a hungry crew at sea.
Where to find Ger:
Red Kettle Foods @redkettlekimchi on Instagram and Facebook
Homemade bagels and croissants in a tiny kitchen at sea? What’s my excuse??
This was fascinating! I'm amazed at what Ger can cook in that tiny space and still offer such variety. It sure does take some extra careful planning to have all the basics onboard.