Of Galley Kitchens

For the past few weeks my husband and I - and the dogs - have been living in the basement level of our house while the floors on our main level are being refinished and the rooms repainted. I've been preparing meals in our laundry room, in what is generally called a "galley" arrangement - two opposite counters with a narrow floor running between them. The room has our extra fridge, a kitchen sink, and a microwave in addition to a washer, dryer and utility sink.

This weekend we visited our daughter A.L.E. in Buffalo New York and spent Saturday morning at the Naval Park touring three WWII era ships: the USS Croaker (diesel sub), the USS Sullivans (destroyer) and the USS Little Rock (cruiser). I got an up close look at a real galley, which made cooking in my laundry room "galley" look downright luxurious! The picture above is a line of huge pots in the destroyer's galley; they could make a serious amount of soup or pasta!

What really caught my attention was the shipboard mixers. The destroyer had a floor model (above). I could not imagine how anyone ever lifted the mixing bowl in and out of the mixer, especially when it was full. The little diesel submarine had a much smaller countertop mixer (below)- but it was still many times bigger than my Kitchen Aid! I would love to have seen what those Navy cooks mixed up in those big mixers.

After my brief experience in our galley laundry room my hat's off to the cooks who prepared meals for an entire ship's worth of sailors in tight quarters!