Catherine Schmuck loves food. She loves to eat food, she loves to make food, and she even loves to shop for food. Her career has always revolved around food. She was born and raised in Brockville, Ontario, to German parents. Every Sunday as a child, her family would spend time walking around Blockhouse Island enjoying eating ice cream and ship-watching.
Catherine’s passion for ships started at a young age. She inherited a sense of adventure from her parents who immigrated to a country in 1954 where they didn’t know the language or anyone. Their love of life, food, and adventure was an example they lived each day. She has an entrepreneurial spirit, and after sailing on the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River on multiple ships from 1981 to 1994, she took her love of cooking and set herself up in her own restaurant in Mont Tremblant, Quebec. During her 24 years operating Creperie Catherine, she often thought about sailing…. She missed the adventure!
In 2019, Catherine made the decision to close the restaurant and return to her first love: sailing. She started sharing her photos and stories about life onboard and found a new passion to add to her love of food and love of sailing. She found a passion for writing.
Catherine is a cook, entrepreneur and self-published author. She maintains a blog, sharing photos of her days on various vessels and the meals she prepares for her crew. The recipes she cooks, the adventures on different ships, and photos of the ever-changing scenery can be found in her first cookbook, Ship to Shore Chef: Recipes and Stories as I Sail Through My Day. The book features over 280 full-color pages with more than 200 recipes. Intertwined with the recipes she collected over the last 40 years are stories and photos of life on a ship.
Catherine followed with a second cookbook, More Recipes and Stories as We Navigate Healthier Eating; the gluten-free cookbook features over 280 full-color pages with recipes made without processed sugar, grain, and flour. Following the style of her first book, the recipes are intertwined with stories and photos of life on a ship. For the young ship watcher, Catherine shares her personal photos and stories, which she had illustrated for a children’s book, The Stowaway Adventures of Mitchell Mouse.
Catherine began writing her Eat Like a Sailor! column for The Lakeshore Guardian in 2026, where she shares the recipes she makes to feed her crew. Additionally, be sure to follow “Ship to Shore Chef – Catherine Schmuck” on Facebook, where she shares her Galley Girl’s diary, so that all can follow along on her sailing – and cooking – adventures! Likewise, to enjoy more
recipes, please visit https://shop.shiptoshorechef.com/collections/e-magazines, and click on the Free Download photo and check out. There will be a $0 amount owed, and at the end of the purchase, the download is available immediately. (Be sure the download doesn’t land in a spam folder.) Catherine’s books are also available for sale at www.shiptoshorechef.com. Happy Cooking!
Please reach out to Catherine Schmuck by using our “Contact” page.