Eat Real, Fresh Meals From a Tiny Fridge

Eating Well With A Tiny Fridge is a self-paced online course, plus a downloadable companion book, that teaches you how to eat satisfying, fresh meals aboard when your refrigerator is no bigger than a bar fridge and the next grocery store may be days or weeks away. It's the organized, boat-tested system for making the most of the cooling space you have, safely storing eggs, dairy, and produce outside the fridge, and provisioning so food stops spoiling and starts lasting. If your fridge fills up fast and the lettuce turns to slime before you can use it, this course is built for exactly that problem.

It's taught by Carolyn Shearlock, who refined these strategies over 17 years of cruising and cooking with a small refrigerator, so the methods come from real galleys in real conditions, not from a land kitchen with unlimited cold storage.

Who It's For

• You want satisfying, healthy meals aboard, but your fridge is tiny and you don't want to stop for groceries every few days.
• You're tired of produce and leftovers going bad too quickly and want to store food safely with limited refrigeration.
• You're heading somewhere remote and want to provision for longer stretches without constantly worrying about what's in the fridge.
• You want to stop stressing over food and feel confident about how you store and plan it.

What You'll Learn

Maximize the Refrigerator Space You Have

A small marine fridge works against you when it's overpacked: airflow drops, food gets forgotten, and spoilage speeds up. You'll learn what genuinely needs to be refrigerated, what can come out, and how to use smaller containers and smarter organization so every inch earns its place and meals feel abundant rather than cramped.

Store Food Safely Without Refrigeration

Much of what most people refrigerate doesn't have to be. You'll learn how to safely keep eggs, hard cheeses, butter, many condiments, and a wide range of produce outside the fridge, how climate affects what's possible, and how to make fresh items like sour cream, yogurt, and sprouts from non-refrigerated ingredients.

Keep Produce Fresh Longer

Most spoilage aboard comes from trapped moisture, poor airflow, and bruising. You'll learn moisture and airflow control, how to separate items that shouldn't sit together, and how to think in produce-lifespan order, eating the delicate items first and saving the long-lasting ones, so you can build meals around what's still good instead of throwing food away.

Provision and Plan for Longer Trips

With the right system you can go up to three weeks between grocery stops and still eat real, varied meals. You'll learn how to provision strategically, build meals around flexible shelf-stable staples, stretch what you have, and plan for stretches when re-provisioning is uncertain.

What's Included

• Step-by-step online course: The core module, Maximizing Your Refrigerator Space Step-by-Step, walks you through reorganizing your fridge, making the most of limited space, and storing commonly refrigerated foods outside the fridge. More than 80 photos guide you through every step.
• Companion ebook, Storing Food Without Refrigeration: A downloadable 229-page reference (updated 3rd edition, September 2024) covering how to safely store fresh meat, seafood, produce, dairy, and more without refrigeration. It includes over 60 main-dish ideas and 40-plus everyday recipes, techniques for making sour cream, yogurt, and ricotta, guidance on shopping and meal planning for longer trips, and a four-day sample meal plan.
• Produce longevity chart: A handy chart ranking produce from shortest- to longest-lasting, so you can plan which fresh items to use first and which to save for later in a trip.
• Editable provisioning spreadsheet: A bonus inventory and provisioning spreadsheet with instructions for calculating exactly how much food and how many ingredients you'll need for any trip. You can save it, edit it, and reuse it for every passage.
• Boat Galley Cookbook sample: A bonus selection of 33 boat-friendly recipes from The Boat Galley Cookbook.

One Organized System Instead of Scattered Tips

There's no shortage of free advice about boat food storage, but it's scattered across forum threads, videos, and blog posts, often assumes a full-size home refrigerator, and rarely fits together into a system you can actually follow. This course gathers the refrigeration, storage, and provisioning pieces into one place, in a sensible order, from someone who has lived with a tiny fridge for years. You get the organized version of what would otherwise take seasons of trial, error, and wasted groceries to figure out, and a reference book and spreadsheet you keep and return to whenever you provision.

Format and Access

• Primarily text with photos and diagrams: No videos and no filler. The written format is easy to skim, search, and refer back to while you're shopping, reorganizing lockers, planning a passage, or cooking, which is exactly when you'll want it.
• Self-paced: Work through it on your own schedule, with no set times or deadlines, and revisit it whenever you need to.
• Works on any device: Take the course on a phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop.
• Downloadable reference you keep: The companion book and the provisioning spreadsheet are downloadable files you can save to your devices and use even when you're offline or far from a connection. (The online course itself is web-based and needs an internet connection to view.)
• Lifetime access: Return to the material whenever you need it, including all future updates.

About the Instructor: Carolyn Shearlock

Carolyn Shearlock has 17 years of experience cruising and preparing meals with a small refrigerator, developing and refining the techniques in this course meal by meal. She has sailed more than 14,000 miles in the Sea of Cortez, Pacific Mexico, Central America, Florida, and the Bahamas. She is the founder of The Boat Galley, the author of The Boat Galley Cookbook and Storing Food Without Refrigeration, and an instructor at Cruisers University at the Annapolis Boat Shows.

Details

• Format: Self-paced online course (primarily text with photos), plus a downloadable companion ebook and spreadsheet
• Course module: Maximizing Your Refrigerator Space Step-by-Step, with 80-plus photos
• Companion book: Storing Food Without Refrigeration, 229 pages, 3rd edition (September 2024)
• Recipes and meal planning: 60-plus main-dish ideas, 40-plus recipes, a four-day sample meal plan, plus a 33-recipe cookbook sample
• Bonus tools: Editable provisioning and inventory spreadsheet; produce longevity chart (shortest- to longest-lasting)
• Topics: Maximizing tiny-fridge space; storing eggs, dairy, and produce without refrigeration; moisture and airflow control; produce-lifespan planning; provisioning for two to three weeks between stores
• Instructor: Carolyn Shearlock, 17 years aboard, 14,000-plus miles, founder of The Boat Galley
• Access: Lifetime access, including all future updates; works on phone, tablet, laptop, and desktop
• Best for: Cruisers and liveaboards with small marine refrigerators, anyone provisioning for multi-week trips, and anyone tired of spoiled produce and constant grocery runs
• Course last updated: May 30, 2026