A Ketchikan galley cook with a knack for whipping up dishes in cramped boat kitchens has an answer to the drab boat fare most commercial fishermen eat.

Instead of the same-old stuff -- salmon-with-mayonnaise, Kirkland Signature snacks and heat-to-eat meals -- LaDonna Rose Gundersen offers up a mouth-watering mix of wild salmon repasts and restaurant-quality desserts in her second cookbook, “Salmon, Desserts and Friends.”

After a round-the-clock stretch of commercial fishing, imagine getting your cold, stiff hands on seared salmon topped with wild blueberry salsa. Or maybe you'll have the hazelnut-encrusted salmon fillet? Oh, and for dessert, how about sweet-potato pecan pie or a banana-cream pie with peanut-butter-crust?

Sounds like a fisherman's dream. But it's all possible on the water, even in a rocking-and-rolling kitchen not much bigger than one in a Fisher-Price play set, said Gundersen.  And forget about any fancy grocery stores. Gundersen knows because she's done it for years. After marrying husband and Ketchikan commercial fishermen Ole Gundersen 25 years ago, she's cooked thousands of boat meals as the couple fished for halibut, salmon and shrimp, baking in a stove barely large enough to fit most laptop computers while  washing dishes in a sauce pan.

But the fishermen on her boats never lacked quality. Scores of quick-to-cook recipes for main courses and desserts filled her first book, “Alaskan Rock'n Galley” -- seafood tacos, chicken-with-caramelized apples and Thai peanut-butter chicken, to name a few. Sales of that self-published book, so named because "my galley's always rocking," have done well for a self-published venture, selling 20,000 copies in four years, LaDonna Gundersen said.

Her latest book was released in May, mostly to stores in  Southeast, Anchorage and Fairbanks.  Already, 15,000 copies are gone, and she expects sales to grow, since the book is just now reaching Lower 48 venues such as Whole Foods Markets. "It's not on the best-seller list yet, but we're trying," said Gundersen.

Also sure to help: The book's marketing campaign just kicked off, with a flashy new web site. The promotional push was put on hold until this week because the husband-and-wife team -- Ole took the photos for the new book -- fished for salmon on their 32-foot gillnetter, LaDonna Rose, most of the year.

Previously a professional baker, Gundersen began cooking for her husband during fishing openers after getting stinging  headaches from the monosodium glutamate found in ramen noodles, canned chili and just about everything else she’s eaten on boats for more than 20 years. The symptoms vanished after she cut packaged foods out of her diet and started cooking from scratch, choosing ingredients by following the labels on the boxes and cans she'd soon toss away.

This second book came about after years of overhearing cruise-ship tourists in Ketchikan wondering what to do with the packages of smoked-salmon souvenirs sold in gift shops. Her advice in the new book includes such things as corn and potato chowder with smoked salmon, a huge favorite, or combining eggs, smoked-salmon and other ingredients to make mini-frittatas, basically a quiche without crust, she said.

Wild salmon recipes and desserts are the heart of her latest book. Published by Todd Communications in Anchorage, there's also a section for those moments when fishermen briefly duck indoors for a snack. Instead of chips, they can grab salmon-and-herb quiches, smoked-salmon spring rolls and other healthy treats.

You can follow LaDonna on Facebook.

(Correction: LaDonna Gundersen's first cookbook has been selling for four years, not two as the article originally noted in error.)

Contact Alex DeMarban at alex(at)alaskadispatch.com.