Like Sniffing Glue - Only Funner

Curried Butternut Squash Soup

Rack of Lamb Marinted in Homemade Yogurt and Spices

With Fresh Mint Chutney

Wild Rice Pilaf with Cranberries and Apples

Grilled Asparagus

Chocolate and Orange Flower Pot de Crème with Komquats

Passion Fruit-Coconut Pana Cotta

The owners came aboard last Sunday just for the day, to meet me and try my cooking. There wasn’t much ambience to be had as we were out of the water and the boat was strewn with equipment and supplies and canvas covers over the floors and furniture.

HOYSTED OUT OF THE WATER

The owners decided to have the crew join in and they all gathered around the dining table in the galley (it’s a big open kitchen with a country style dining table and bar stools at the counter), watching me cook. The butterflies in my stomach flapped madly trying to escape as I grew increasingly nervous having all eyes on me while I worked. I broke a sweat running up and down the stairs to check my lamb as it sizzled away on the grill outside on the fly deck. In a boat yard filled with the fumes of paint, apoxy and petrol – I’m sure it was the best smell ever to come off of a yacht “on the hard” (out of the water).

JUST A LITTLE WORK BEING DONE

I’d made my own yogurt a few days before from a culture that I bought at the health food store. It worked out perfectly, although it took nearly 24 hours to set to my desired tartness and firmness – perhaps because of the air condition, the coolness slowed the process. The taste was tangy and fresh and the crew loved it when I gave them a try with some fresh mango sliced on top… Early in the day, I separated out the chops and marinated them in my homemade yogurt with turmeric, cumin, cinnamon, coriander, ginger, garlic, lime juice and cilantro.

THE VIEW FROM THE DECK

The panna cotta I had made the day before; layering the passion fruit, letting it gel, then layering the coconut mixture. And the pot de crème came from a recipe from Cooks Illustrated, to which I embellished with Grand Marnier and Orange Flower water and garnished with homemade whipped cream and thin slices of tart, sweet komquats.

The first course went down, but I wasn’t in the galley to hear the comments as I was making my 15^th run up the stairs, through the pilot house and out on deck to check on the lamb. All was good as the chops sizzled away, the cast iron grill leaving a beautiful grillage. Judging by the empty bowls on my return, the first course went over well.

I pulled the hot plates from the oven and plated dinner. All grew quiet as the crew and owners began to eat. The Mister looked up first and said that it was spectacular, next the Misses, commenting about how fresh and healthy everything was, the Captain (who used to be a chef!), saying that he loved how vibrant all the flavors were. Great, two courses down, one to go…

The butterflies started to settle. I went to plate dessert, but my panna cotta’s weren’t inverting as nicely as I had hoped. The coconut layer was separating from the passion fruit layer. Thank god I made extra! I decided, since I’d made them in nice, glass dessert bowls, to leave them and I garnished the top with a start-fruit chip that I had made earlier in the day by slicing the fruit, poaching them in ginger simple syrup, placing them on a silpat and baking them at 195 (farenheit) for about 2 hours – until they became paper-thin and crisp.

I put out the dessert. The Mister doesn’t care for chocolate and when I mentioned Grand Marnier and placed the panna cotta in front of him, he became noticeably sad that it wasn’t his dessert that contained the booze and that he had gotten something fruity instead of rich and decadent. But, the sad face quickly disappeared as he devoured the panna cotta, all the while asking me questions about how it was made, what was in it, etc.

I sat with the owners at the dining room table, we talked about wine and food and they licked their dessert bowls as I gnawed on a lamb bone. It was all very casual. They asked how I began cooking and we talked about their food preferences (they eat anything – lucky me!), and their holiday traditions. Looks like I’ll be whipping up my first oyster stew this Christmas Eve, and they love to fish and hunt so there will be lots of quail, pheasant and fresh catch… Looking forward to it.

I got a nice email from them the next day exclaiming their pleasure at my cooking. It will be a great season, I can already tell. The crew are more than thrilled to have me on board and the captain has already said that I am not allowed to quit, I’m the best chef they’ve had so far (and they’ve been through a lot!).

Fresh Mint Chutney

1/2 cup fresh mint leaves

½ cup fresh cilantro leaves

3 shallots, finely chopped

3 scallions, finely chopped

1 ½ tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon ground corriander

¼ teaspoon salt.

Combine all ingredients in blender and puree until smooth. If chutney requires thinning, add a small amount of water or yogurt, until you reach desired consistency.

The Thunder from Down Under

Cheese Toasties with Vegemite

Things have been absolutely hectic for the past week as we get the yacht ready for our departure to the Exumas, in the Bahama’s, on Tuesday. We were out of the water, in the yard, for four days having some work done on the engine and I have some really awesome pictures of the yard and us being hauled out that I will post as soon as I have internet access on my laptop. Being out of the water and surrounded by other mega yachts (they are so much bigger out of the water!) is like being surrounded by a dozen Titanics. It’s almost awe inspiring to walk amongst them. The crew that I work with are fantastic, they are all a bunch of monkeys and we got on well and are having a lot of fun as we work our fingers to the bone; cleaning, detailing, provisioning, etc.

I’m loving my new galley; yards of granite counter space, beautiful wood floors and cabinetry and extremely well equipped. And thankfully, my galley is on the main deck so I have a beautiful view out of my port and starboard sides; full windows all the way across, no more looking through a tiny porthole and watching the water slosh by. And, if I should want to watch some re-runs of Julia Child’s cooking series on PBS all I have to do is turn on the giant, plasma, widescreen television on the wall across from me. I have a four burner gas stove, and although it’s gas it is pretty responsive and works well. But, I am putting “induction stove” on my wish list as the owners are currently looking into upgrading to a 130” (45 meter) Fedship. Along with the fridge and freezer in the galley, I also have a coffin freezer in the laundry room and two more freezers down near the engine room, plenty of storage space – but it will all be packed to the brim before we depart.

My first order of business has been to get my pantry together and start provisioning for the passage which has required no less than two trips to Costco, at least a dozen trips to the grocery store (filling up two grocery carts per visit), six trips to the gourmet store and two large deliveries directly to the yacht from provisioners. There are two great shops down here; The International Market and the Grateful Palette. I was first told about International Market by some Australian yachties that I met at the crew house. They were talking about their excitement over finding TimTams, an Australian cookie (or biscuit, as they call them); a chocolate wafer, covered in chocolate and with a chocolate filling. The biscuits are rectangular in shape, and the Aussie’s do what they call “slammers” – bite each end off, put the biscuit in coffee and suck it through. I have yet to experience a slammer, as I haven’t wanted to sacrifice one of my shirts in the mess that is sure to happen, but I did get a pack of TimTams to try and I was really enjoying them until I read on the package that each cookie is 340 calories. I think I’ll wait another couple of decades before I delve into them again.

The international market is full of all sorts of goodies. Catering to yacht chefs, they carry everything from gelatin sheets, gourmet chocolate and vanilla beans to sumac, za’atar, pomegranate syrup and grape leaves and whatever they don’t have, The Grateful Palate, just a few blocks away, will. Unlike the International market, The Grateful Palate is a full fledged provisioner – meaning they supply fish, meat, produce, specialty ingredients, wine, kitchen equipment, etc. to the yachts. I can just call in my order and it will be delivered to wherever the yacht is in Fort Lauderdale, or shipped to the yacht anywhere in the world for that matter. It’s really quite an amazing world to be a part of; I mean a world where the best of everything and anything you could possibly want is, literally, a phone call away. And it’s my job to know that number…

My first season in the yacht world was all about meeting South Africans. But this season is setting out to be the season of the Kiwi’s and the Aussies. I landed this job through an Aussie that was staying at the crew house that knew a captain in need of a chef, and put me in touch. Our 1st Mate is an Aussie, and I’ve been making Aussie friends left and right. It was another Aussie that put me in touch with the Grateful Palate, as it seems to be the only place in town carrying Vegemite (Yes, that Men At Work song goes through my head every time I look at a jar of Vegemite), which I had to stock up on for our mate.

Vegemite is a “yeast extract”. It comes in a squat, brown, glass jar with a bright yellow label and in a big red triangle reads “VEGEMITE - Concentrated Autolyzed Yeast Extract”. What, precisely, that means, I’m not entirely sure but whatever it is, I am TOTALLY ADDICTED. It’s dark brown in color and thick and creamy, like peanut butter, or an overly reduced demi-glaze. But unlike peanut butter, Vegemite is meant to be used in a very small quantity. I find the smell to be quite pleasant; fermentation and must – like a wine barrel. It’s got a yeasty, fermented, savory flavor; exactly what I would imagine umami to be. Like The Colonels chicken, it contains that same secret ingredient that makes you crave it fortnightly. I love it; on toast in the morning with butter and a thin layer of Vegemite, or on a toasted cheese sandwich. I can’t seem to get enough of it! I tried Marmite last year when I was working with a bunch of Brits (Marmite is the British version of Vegemite) and I don’t recall reacting with the same fervor. In fact, I was very much put off by it. Marmite was quite pungent and had a funky aftertaste that clung to my mouth. I found it a bit overpowering. Whereas Marmite reminds me of something indiscernible, perhaps fish related, fermenting and rotting in a jar – Vegemite tastes like super concentrated beer. Perhaps that’s why I like Aussie’s so much! ;o)

Vegemite Sandwich:
Bread
Butter
Vegemite
Cheese

Spread a little butter on bread, apply a thin layer of vegemite and then top with cheese. Put under the broiler until cheese is melty and warm. Eat. Savor. Enjoy.

Life of a galley slave

We’re in Fort Lauderdale for a yard period having a bunch of work done on the yacht before we venture out to the Bahama’s and the Caribbean. Varnishers, painters and engineers are scurrying around the yacht like worker ants from dawn to dusk. And from what I can gather, the captain has had his cell phone surgically implanted into his head while he runs around overseeing the workers and making his way through his own lengthy To Do list. The first mate is off taking his yacht master course and so I haven’t even met him yet, and our stewardess is taking a Silver Service course, given by a yachting agency, which means that I have nothing but peace and quiet while I get my galley together.

My first order of business has been to sort through every cabinet, pantry and food storage area in the galley; inventory the existing provisions; clean out the freezers and refrigerator; get rid of the old and make room for the new… As the yacht hasn’t had a chef in over a month the cupboards, for the most part, are bare except for a few essentials. The refrigerator too was looking pretty empty but much in need of a thorough cleaning. In the past, when I’ve taken over a new galley I’ve been amazed by the weird things that the previous chef has bought; boxed cake mixes (so simple to make your own), sauce packets (not a fan), Spam (people actually eat that stuff?) – and so of course, this was no exception. I filled garbage bags with out of date scone mixes, hollandaise sauce packets and unlabeled bags of mystery food from the freezer; scrubbed out the fridge with bleach and sorted through all of the dry goods. Then, it was off to the store for my first provisioning trip and 32 bags of groceries later, I now have a galley in which I can cook. But, there will be many, many more trips to the market before we are ready to hit the seas.

In my trip through the store yesterday I picked up freeze-dried yogurt culture (from a health food store) and one of my first orders of business today is to make my own yogurt. While I was back in New York recuperating from my knee injury, I spent some time interloping in friends kitchens around the city – one of them being Restaurant Devi – where they made there own yogurt and which was probably the best yogurt I have ever eaten in my life. So, I figure, it should take no time at all and then I can bust out some mango lassi’s for a crew snack one day… I’ll be sure to update on my yogurt making process on the blog….

Today will be spent inventorying the remaining three freezers and adding to my never ending provisions list, another trip to the grocery store, and cooking for the crew for the first time (the captain has told me to hold off cooking until the galley is in order and instead has been taking me and the stewardess to dinner, along with another captain from the yard and some of his crew). The captain and crew have requested some healthy faire to reverse the effects of all the late nights at Waxy’s (the local crew bar) so I’m planning on grilling an Asian marinated flank steak, some sugar snap peas, mushrooms and peppers tossed with sesame oil and brown rice with toasted almonds and scallions, and a curried butternut squash soup. Fortunately, the crew eat just about anything – so no vegetarians, or picky eaters here. Lucky me.

The owners will be dropping by the yard on Sunday and staying aboard for dinner on Sunday night. This will be my first chance to meet and cook for them…

I’ll be getting some pictures up over the weekend…

Back in the game...

Well, I landed a new job and as of this morning, I'm the chef aboard a 112 foot Westport Motor Yacht.

I'm one of four crew and the owners use the yacht for about two weeks a month. It's private and doesn't charter, but the owners like to entertain a lot so I should be pretty busy! The galley is gorgeous, I have tons of counter space, granite counters, huge refrigerator and a six burner stove (electric, unfortunately - but gas is rare on a yacht). The kitchen is open to a small dining room, but when the owners are on board they will usually eat out on deck or in the formal dining room.

Currently, we’re in Fort Lauderdale but as of December 10th we will be heading down to the Bahama's where we will stay through the New Year. After which we'll be going down to the Caribbean for the remainder of the winter - all over, the BVI's, West Indies, Eastern Caribbean, wherever the owners want to go. Sometime around June we'll be heading back up to the Bahama's where we'll stay for a couple of months before working our way the East Coast of North America to Nova Scotia, where we’ll be spending some time in Prince Edwards Island (which I hear is gorgeous)!

A few perks of the yacht: Although this was not a deciding factor (although I’ll have to set my standards higher now and make it a requirement on any yacht I join), we have TWO VESPA'S!!! YEAHHH!!! We also have two glass bottomed canoes, a 20 foot tender, two jet ski's and we tow a 32 foot Boston Whaler! Oh, and let's not forget the jacuzzi... Oh, and scuba equipment for six, how could I forget that?!

Oh, and did I mention, our deck hand is a dive instructor so I can work towards my scuba certification while I'm on board (everyone on the yacht are big divers and the owners want the crew certified!).

The downside? Well, I'll be sharing a 7 foot by 4 foot cabin with the stewardess and I have one tiny drawer for my belongings - which, honestly, is not even enough space to fit my shoes... But I'll make do. I’m sure we can tow another yacht along side for my belongings…

Anyway, I'm really excited. The crew are all relatively young (I'm actually the oldest - I'm really going to have to start lying about my age). There are three Americans (including me) and an Aussie. And yes, the cards are in my favor, the boys are all CUTE! Yeah me!

The boat has a really excellent reputation for working aboard and the owners, although quirky (who isn't?) are supposedly really nice people. They allow the crew a lot of liberties and they make sure that all the crew get off the yacht in any ports that we are in so that we can see the place...

So, finally, I'm back on water and the next post will be from the yacht!!! The next adventure of the Wayward Chef has begun ladies and gentlemen!!! Stay tuned…

The adventure continues...

So much going on, so much to write about and so little time in the day...

My life has been reduced to a 5x5 storage locker on Manhattans Lower East Side, the hippest neighborhood I've ever been able to afford. I left NYC on November 7 and spent a week eating my way through Northern California - a stop at Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes, dozens of Hog Island Oysters, BBQ in Jack London Square, and great Tapas in Napa...

I arrived yesterday in Fort Lauderdale, FL determined to find a new yacht to cook on after the 6-month leave I had to take due to my knee inury. Holy cow, knee's take a LONG TIME to heal! But, I am so glad to be looking for work again and CAN'T WAIT to find the perfect yacht...

I had two interviews yesterday with crew agencies, one today and hopefully an interview tomorrow aboard a 100 ft. motor-yacht heading to the Bahama's. We'll see what the future has in store.

Stay tuned, the adventure continues...

because every food blogger has to blog about hamburgers

Hamburgers are one of those things that I could never cook for myself and enjoy. It is the food of kicking back and relaxing, it’s a craving happily satiated, it’s a night off – and if I’m going to have a hamburger, damn it, it had better be good.

I’ve noticed an outcropping of trendy burger “eateries” popping up around the city over the past year or so, places offering organic burgers on homemade bread, every incarnation of veggie burger, turkey burger, bison burger, kobi burger, etc. All these places seem to have a very modern-trendy, clean lined and sterile feel about them – not entirely unlikable, but when I think hamburger I feel much more drawn to the places better referred to as a ‘joint’ rather than an ‘eatery’.

I confess to being totally biased on the subject of what environment I like to eat my hamburger in, to the point that I haven’t even stepped foot in one of these newfangled hamburger places. Perhaps, for posterity or in the name of scientific research, I should check one of these places out. But when I want a burger I don’t want a white table clothe restaurant, I don’t want to be staring out the window checking out the shoes and handbags of the passers-by on the streets, or pompously displayed New Yorker, Zagat and/or Wine Spectator reviews stuck on the wall. I want a place where unfettered pleasure is the goal; a place where I can guiltlessly and blissfully throw down a pint and a burger without being reminded that there are vegetarians in this world, without having to debate whether I should go for the healthier choice on the menu, without having to choose whether I want foie gras or truffles. I want the decision making process to be simple and straightforward, streamlined in fact. Choice 1: Hamburger, Choice 2: Cheeseburger. Choice 3: There is no choice 3. Rare/ Medium Rare/ Medium/ Well (God forbid!). I don’t want a bun so thick or crusty that I must disconnect my jaw, like a boa constrictor, before taking the first splendid bite. I don’t want some fruity, homemade ketchup or fancy ingredients.

I want it medium-rare on a soft, white, fluffy cloudlike bun. Mayo, pickles, lettuce and ketchup. Lots and lots of ketchup. Ketchup on the bun, ketchup to dip it in. I love ketchup. I hate broccoli. And much to my parents dismay, that’s just about the only thing a Bush president and I will ever agree upon. But I digress.

One of my favorite places to get a hamburger is Café Fanelli on Prince and Mercer. That place never ceases to be an experience. A dark wood interior, long bar and comfy barstools, old black and white boxing pictures line the walls, two-tops in a row along the wall opposite the bar, the staff as checkered as the table clothes. The tattooed and pierced waitresses have a look like you’d better be careful how you behave or they just might kick your ass. The bartenders are salty, surly and sarcastic – just the way I like them. The clientele too is a pretty checkered bunch. The same drunk has been at the end of the bar since I first started going there eight years ago, and their is a cross between old-school SoHo artists (can you say, “rent controlled apartment”?), a few businessmen, a tourist or two and a few starlets who’ve wandered in off the street to use the toilet. The place is strangely unchanged and unaffected by the retail storm that has slaughtered much of the neighborhood charm, unfazed by the mignons of fashionistas and bankers that have come through its doors and replaced the old artists, bohemians and mobsters of yesteryear. Amazingly, it maintains a little bit of what the rest of SoHo used to be - brash, eccentric, and smug.

They have a decent burger served on a soft onion roll. But the pickles are on the side, and aren’t cut for proper placement on a hamburger. Their fries are good and they have Heffeweisen, Guiness, Stella, Bass and Brooklyn Lager on tap on tap so I can’t complain.

But recently, I found a new favorite hamburger joint (sacre bleu!). And I can’t believe it, but I was taken there by friends from South Africa! How is it that someone from S.A. knows where to get a great burger in this town without me knowing about that place first?! Impossible, or so I thought. I was hesitant but by my friends description, I knew I had to investigate.

We pulled up on 56^th Street in my friends bright orange rental car. It was like riding in a pumpkin, perfect for the season. By some strange stroke of luck (that I never seem to have), we found a parking spot right in front of the Le Parker Meridien Hotel and I thought to myself, how good could it really be? We walked into the grandiose lobby; polished, chic and trendy and I thought, “oh no, here we go”. We ducked behind a long, curtained wall behind the front desk and I felt like Jody Foster in Contact when she slid through the worm hole to another dimension. Suddenly I was in this tiny cube shaped hovel, maybe 400 square feet – maybe. Ramones and Soprano’s posters adorned the wood panneled walls, thick wood tables and walls carved up with initials “J.M.” heart “B.L.”, autographs, stickers from the women’s roller ball league, a few carved-up, vandalized booths, a large communal table in the middle. The counter and kitchen open to view and two guys working – one taking orders, the other flipping burgers over a flaming grill. And the best part was the smell – it smelled like grill smoke, char and sizzling meat. The menu was written in magic marker on torn cardboard and states:

If you aren’t ready you go to the back of the line.

They also had fries, milkshakes, Sam Adams and sodas.

I waited in line and mulled my choice, sure to be prepared when it was my turn at the front. I wasn’t going to be sent to the back of the line for not having my order ready. I waited and waited and like a good New Yorker, when I got to the front of the line and spat out my order so quickly the guy told me to slow down and repeat myself…

After a weekend of gluttony cooking (and drinking) up a storm at a friends farm in Pennsylvania, a stop for lunch at my favorite Middle-Eastern restaurant in Bay Ridge where we gorged ourselves yet again, I thought that there was no way I would possibly be hungry for dinner, much less a hamburger. I was thinking more like Perrier and a lemon…

But once I smelled that fine, fine smell of fat dripping into a fiery grill, I was suddenly famished. It was my dream come true and I was taken their by a tourist! Say it isn’t so… The burger was great, the flaming grill leaving its stamp on every tasty bite. The pickles fit, the bun was soft and fluffy. Perfection. I can’t wait, wait, wait to go back again – many more times before I leave for the Caribbean.

The Crew at The Hamburger Joint at Le Parker Meridien

On a side note, I know many New Yorkers will say Corner Bistro (Burger Bistro, as some call it) is the place to go for burgers. It was my favorite for years – but ever since a friend of mine got a glue trap with a rat on it stuck to his foot there, I can’t ever go back.

So happy to have finely found a decent replacement. Plus, you won’t have to endure the frat boys and drunk chicks at The Burger Joint.

The Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien
118 W. 57th Street
Between 6th and 7th

Cafe Fanelli
Corner of Mercer and Spring
SoHo

Bollywood Nights

If I died tomorrow and went to Heaven, it would smell like the prep kitchen at Devi.

The air was fragrant with the intoxicating aroma of roasted spices - cardamom, coriander, cumin, fenugreek, asafetida and cinnamon; and the walk-in full of kuri leaves by the sack full, fresh ginger and chilies. I was dilerious by the smell of it all and didn’t hear a word the pastry chef was telling me as we entered the walk-in and she pointed out which side the dairy was on, where the produce was kept, the prepped veg, the fruits for desserts, etc. The squeal of a Bollywood soundtrack played in my head as I drifted into a world of coal rimmed eyes, bright sari’s, tabla’s, sitars and spicy food. The sultry, heady aroma of curries, masalas and biryanis stealing my attention away like an opiate… I was pulled reluctantly back to reality as we stepped out of the walk-in and back into the prep kitchen and I realized that every word Surbi had just told me in the walk-in had gone in one ear and out the other. All I wished for was some time alone in there and a spoon so that I could sample from each and every brightly colored quart container. I was completely transfixed, I’d found olfactory nirvana, my taste buds salivated. I closed my eyes and drew one more deep breath before the walk-in doors closed and I returned to my prep station in a spice induced haze.

My prep list included making shortbread dough spiced with fresh, green cardamom and garam masala, cardamom kulfi (Indian ice-cream made with milk cooked until it is thick and sweet), mango panna cota, tangerine and saffron custard, black cardamom and bittersweet chocolate truffles. A circle of prep cooks gathered around a table listening to the Dead Can Dance while making trays of lentil cakes and samosa, mincing chilis and peeling sweet potatoes. Another prep cook made potato croquettes spiced with chilis, cilantro, ginger, cumin and curry, another one still was busy decorating miniature spiced pineapple cakes. I was in bliss as I weighed and measured.

Cardamom Kulfi (Indian Ice-Cream)
layered with pistachio's and a passion fruit sauce

I figured staff meal had to be good but was afraid I’d missed it as I hadn’t arrived until after 1 o’clock. But luck shined down upon me and at 3 o’clock and I was invited to dine with the rest of the kitchen staff. A cook peeled away the aluminum foil hiding the contents of a deep hotel pan. Inside was a thick, green sauce with yogurt, curry spices and cilantro, chicken and potatoes. Another tray held fragrant jasmine rice and another of naan bread, fresh from the tandoori and still warm. The naan was perfect, lightly chard on the outside, slightly sweet and chewy on the inside. We gathered around the steel tables of the prep kitchen, sitting on glass racks tipped on their side, the pastry chef handed me a bowl of heavily spiced black beans and a friendly banter was tossed back and forth among the kitchen crew and the wait staff like a game of Frisbee on a sunny day in the park. Never before have I enjoyed staff meal quite so much…

Pears with funagreek leaves for a sweet and tangy chutney cook on a giant burner along with peas cooked with mint chutney, cumin and chilies for pea croquettes

Day two was full of rolling spicy pea croquettes, shaping tandoori salmon and crab cakes, cooking down pear chutney, coating cashew brittle in tempered chocolate and gold dust, cutting out fruit jellies and rolling them in sugar. The salmon for the salmon and crab cakes was coated in a red, tangy tondoori sauce and skewered in big chunks on long steel rods, over two feet in length and placed in the tandoori to roast. When trays of it were brought down to the prep kitchen, several cooks (me included) took the liberty of sampling it – we had to making sure it was up to snuff, and it was…

Salmon in the Tandoori

Staff meal this time was yellow curry with potatoes, peas and chicken. Although delicious, I had to comment to Jonathan, the youngest of the kitchen crew, that perhaps curry for lunch everyday might get old. He laughed and said that he didn’t want to burst my bubble by telling me that the day before.

The crew worked away in the prep kitchen and every once in a while chef Hermant, squat and round with his smoldering black eyes and thick black moustache, would come down and make sure that the prep was moving along smoothly, and switching between Spanish and Hindi as he guided and advised the kitchen crew.

I’ll be hanging in the kitchen of Devi for the next few weeks doing some recipe testing with the pastry chef, learning a few new tricks. Then, in just 22 days – it’s off to the Caribbean…

Rolling in the Dough

29 days left in New York City and then I’m out of here… It’s off to the Caribbean or Florida although I’m not sure where exactly. We’ll see which way the wind blows…

I’ve given up my apartment and am leaving New York once and for all – not an easy task given that I have lots of friends and family here and New York has this way of roping me back in. I’ve been trying to leave for five years now! But those Caribbean waters are calling my name. A fellow yachty and I have been talking about sharing an apartment down in St. Martin for the season and I’m also considering getting a place in either Miami or Fort Lauderdale. Either way, I’ll be heading down to FL in a few weeks time to meet with some crew agencies and friends that have arrived from the Mediterranean. I’ve sent out my cv to crew agencies, emailed crew friends and looking to jump on a boat sometime in November. The Caribbean season doesn’t really get going until mid-December, but there should be plenty of work doing deliveries from the Med and the US down to the Caribbean.

As of November 1, I no longer have a place to live! AH! This should scare me, but it doesn’t. To some, it would seem inconceivable to give up an apartment and have no place to “live”, throwing caution to the wind and just taking off. But I feel free, and for me, that’s just how life works out best. Whenever I try to plan too much is when things start to go awry. I function much better just jumping in, and after last season on the yachts, I have a pretty good idea of what to expect, where to go and what the challenges will be. I can’t wait to be on the water again and feel the wind in my face. I feel totally optimistic about the coming season…

In the meantime, I’ve been keeping myself entertained by interloping in friends kitchens around New York. I spent the day today at the restaurant Barolo on West Broadway, learning to make fresh pasta! I went in this morning and met up with my friend, Maurizio, the chef – a bald-headed, overly caffeinated, Vespa riding Italian from Genoa. We met over a lengthy conversation at his bar the other night about chestnuts, as friends and I waited for a table for dinner. I’m preparing for an Iron Chef Chestnut cook-off at a friends farm in just a few weeks and pasta has been on my mind. So, I saw the chef and figured who better to talk to… We talked about savory chestnut cakes, chestnuts and game, and then he brought out some freshly prepared chestnut pasta to taste. After a great dinner (I had the cocoa pasta with wild mushrooms) and a ’78 Barolo, I decided to hit him up to let me hang out in his kitchen and learn to make pasta.

Maurizio put me in the capable hands of his master pasta maker, Manny. Expecting to walk into a hectic and chaotic environment, lots of bustling around, Manny perhaps being too busy to really show me his magic, I was pleasantly surprised that the kitchen was the exact opposite of what I'd anticipated. It was calm and sane as I walked downstairs into the prep kitchen; Mexican radio piping out of a flour dusted boom box, the butcher hand mincing lamb for a lamb ragout, another prep cook picking basil leaves and coring tomatoes. Something about Mexican music and foreign languages being spoken around me always makes me nostalgic for my time in restaurant kitchens…

Manny, a soft spoken and friendly Salvadoran, has been the resident pasta maker at Barolo for eight years and also moonlights as a pasta maker for other restaurants around the city. We started out the morning making 24 lbs. of pasta dough with eggs and durum flour; kneeding the dough in a giant mixer (you’d need Andre the Giant to kneed that amount of dough by hand!). He offered up the recipe: 18 lbs. of durum flour, 6 lbs. of a.p. flour, 50-something eggs. I declined writing it down, I don’t think I will ever be making that much pasta! Manny said he doesn’t need a recipe; he just goes by how it feels. And all along, as the dough was kneeding, Manny would grab a lump of dough and show me how the dough should feel – not too wet, not too dry, not too soft, not too hard. I fed a few pounds of dough at a time through a large pasta roller, which squished it out in thinner and thinner sheets - #3 for spaghetti, #1 for papparadell and ravioli.

We rolled and cut – busting out pounds of hand cut papparadell, linguini and spaghetti. Then we moved on to the ravioli making. Manny mixed up a batch of filling; ricotta, mascarpone, parmesan and lots of fresh herbs. After dusting them with semolina, he draped the ravioli molds with long, thin sheets of dough and showed me how to pipe in the filling. He worked like a machine, his dough was perfect, not a ripple out of place as he piped in the filling. Of course, when it was my turn to start piping, my raviolis really stood out – because each one was a different size! I didn’t quite have the trained precision that this pasta master had…

He said it was a slow day for him, not a lot to make (besides the 24 lbs. we’d just busted out), so we toured the walk-ins and he pointed out the black farfalle he’d made with squid ink, the chestnut linguini made with chestnut and chickpea flour, the cocoa pasta, apple and cheese filled ravioli’s, etc. Then, of course, it came time to sample and the chef set me up with a plate of apple and cheese filled ravioli’s with a lamb ragout. The ravioli’s were much lighter than expected and the lamb ragout was a delicious accompaniment to the mildly sweet filling.

On the way home, I stopped at the Buon Italia in the Chelsea Market and picked up chestnut, chickpea, durum and semolina flours to test out my new pasta making skills, and indoctrinate my new, hand-crank pasta machine…

Tomorrow I’ll be hanging with pastry chef Surbhi Sahni at the Indian restaurant Devi, on 18^th Street in Manhattan, picking up some new tricks to bring to the Caribbean with me…

Ahhh, life is good.