A Day on the Water

Last week was the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show. This is one of the few times that people can come aboard and tour private yachts. It was as I was touring Mike and Mary through our main salon that I realized how different yachting is from other boats on the water.

With that in mind, I thought I would use today's post to describe a day in the life of a yacht chef.

"We're on diets.  We don't eat butter, sugar or red meat," the already anorexic looking wife declared as she stepped aboard. She pushed her Prada sunglasses onto her platinum blond hair, expertly pinning the curls off her face.  She waved a slender hand in my direction as if she were waving off a fly.  The weight of a marble-sized diamond rotated to one side on her skeletal finger. "We'll have salad with just lemon juice and egg whites for lunch."

I nodded. There goes my creativity. But, they were the guests and I was there to cook for them.

When I placed the food in front of them, the man curled over his plate to inspect the meal, amplifying the roundness of his stomach. He picked up his fork and lifted the egg whites. He looked underneath and then at his wife.

"Where's the meat?"

I stared blankly.  Meat? His wife had ordered egg whites for both of them.  I looked to her for an answer.  She studied her French manicure silently. It only took me a moment to recover.

"I'm sorry, I misunderstood.  What can I get for you?"

He pushed the plate in front of him away with one hand and curled his lip in a snarl.  "Steak and fries, a side of béarnaise."

I guess they weren't both on diets. I flew down the stairs to the galley.

"Can you light the barbecue?" I called to our deckhand as I passed him in the corridor.  "Now!"  I added.

I pulled the steaks I had bought for the crew from the fridge.  We would have to go without. I scrambled quickly to heat the oil for deep-frying.  My knife flew through two potatoes to cut matchsticks as I gently, yet with furor, warmed the butter for the sauce.

"Can I do anything?" Chloe our chief stew asked.

"Just stand back and watch the show." Patrick, the captain said. He knew I could handle last minute requests, this wasn't the first one I had had, but it still didn't make them any easier.

I thrust the platter with tenderloin into his hands.  "You're now my grill guy." I felt like I was back in a restaurant armed with prep-cooks and apprentices. "Cook this medium-rare."

I pivoted on one foot to Chloe.  "He'll need ketchup and Dijon mustard."  She turned to grab the dishes as I called after her, "and a pitcher and ladle for the sauce."

I smiled to myself.  Patrick may have been right, I did like the adrenalin rush of last minute requests.

It wasn't long before I had another whole meal plated and ready to go. Chloe carried the plate and I followed with the sauces.

"Just a bowl of blueberries for dessert," the wife had told me earlier.

"Got anything chocolaty back there?"  The man questioned as I placed his plate in front of him.

I bolted to the galley to beat egg whites. The muscles in my forearm burned like searing steak.  I grated chocolate, my hands moving as fast as shaking a tambourine.  I selected the smallest ramekin I could find to quicken the cooking process and popped the cake in the oven.

They were those guests. The couple who cannot agree.  One tells you one thing and the other expects something else.  It is a power struggle just to decide on a day's events.

"I want to go to the beach."  The wife says, already dressed in her size zero bikini that accentuates her legs.

"No, we're going diving.'  He says thrusting a chubby fist into a bowl of jellybeans.

"Dinner will be at 7:00."  She asserts.

"I'm not eating until ten."  He states.

I could barely keep up with the carousel of plans.  One says they are eating out, the other refuses to go.  Round and round the game went.  The days stretched longer and the requests became crazier, but that is what we were there for. We are there for the guests and no request is too crazy, no plan too unobtainable. In yachting, you rarely say no.

This is a typical day on the water for me. What about you? How do you spend your days on the water? What is the craziest thing you have had to do on your boat?

Victoria Allman has been following her stomach around the globe for twelve years as a yacht chef.  She writes about her floating culinary odyssey through Europe, the Caribbean, Nepal, Vietnam, Africa and the South Pacific in her first book,

Sea Fare:  A Chef's Journey Across the Ocean, available through Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

Victoria is a columnist for Dockwalk, an International magazine for crew members aboard yachts.  Her column, Dishing It Up, is a humorous look at cooking for the rich and famous in an ever-moving galley.

You can read more of her food-driven escapades through her web-site, www.victoriaallman.com