West Marine Catalog & Cooking

I picked up the 2006 West Marine "Master Catalog" yesterday... The 2007 catalog doesn't come out until Feb 2007 apparently.
I think having this catalog may be a dangerous thing from my pocketbook strings...
While in West Marine yesterday, one of the sailors there gave me a different point of view on the cooking stove situation. He suggested buying hot plates and not going with the propane stove. Propane is a very explosive fuel, and of course, is not a renewable energy source. But... cooking with electricity is no easy deal either... My boat is somewhat small with not much space for solar panels... I'm going to have to get creative and perhaps increase my battery pack. Currently Athena has two batteries. If not recharged by the sun, there's always the engine that can be used to recharge the batteries. Yes, using the engine is using a non-renewable energy source of diesel fuel, but you can purchase a lot of diesel fuel to recharge batteries when compared to the cost of solar panels... although these are coming down in price, and really, one of my goals of the boat, is to be as self sufficient as possible and steer away from non-renewable energy sources.
However, cooking and good food is very important to enjoyable passages. This is very evident from all the different books I've read of sailors documenting their sailing experiences. The discussion of cooking, meals, and food is always prevalent.