Just a lucky so and so

Victoria was just a stopover and a bit too cold for Mrs. & Mr. X. So, with a gentle breeze and a following sea, we set forth on the next leg of our journey – but not before I had the chance to hit up the local farmers market where I got the last of the pole beans, baby turnips and tomatoes of the season, some artisan cheeses and bread. One, lone table of produce remained at the market – the rest were jewelry and craft tables, the tell-tale sign marking the beginning and the end of the farmers market season the continent over. I returned to the yacht with a few bags of goodies. A note was stuck on my cutting board, “duck confit, fig and plum sauce pizza – upper fridge”. Ah, Mrs. X takes such good care of me…

A pod of fat, stubby, black and white dolphins race us down the Northwest Coast, leaping out of the water and diving under the hull. The days are quiet on passage – it’ll be 3 1/2 days until we see land again and if the seas are calm, for me that will mean time to get ahead of myself for the busy weeks of entertaining that lay ahead – preparing pasta dough’s - rolling it out and freezing it, cracker dough’s, ice-cream bases, pesto’s and sauces.

The X’s are easy owners, they like to be self-sufficient and help themselves to whatever they need. Mrs. X jumps in the galley to help cook and make cookies and treats for the crew, which is great for me – many hands make light work! And Mrs. X and I are usually laughing or talking food when we’re in the galley together. Being a private chef can sometimes feel like working in a vacuum, but not with Mrs. X – we can talk food for hours and she’s always giving me articles and recipes which helps me a lot since I have to come up with breakfast, lunch, dinner, horsdeouvres and snacks everyday for weeks on end without repetition. It’s nice to have a hand, especially from the person eating most of my cooking! Beats the hell out of becoming a mind reader…

An average day for me on passage is up at 5am to setup breakfast for the X’s and crew. It’s not usual for the chef to be doing crew breakfast, but it’s a passage and the bosses are easy and it makes the crew happy – egg sandwiches, oatmeal and fruit, scones – with clotted cream of course - that one won a few points from the Brits aboard! After breakfast is setup I prep a few things for a later date – bread starters, dough’s, sauces. Around 10am I begin preparing lunch and try to catch a nap sometime after lunch. At 3pm it’s back in the galley to make horsedouvres and begin prepping dinner. Dinner by 7pm and hopefully cleaned up and out of the galley by 9pm. The crew rotates watch shifts so everyone is up at different times, eating and sleeping at different times.

As long as the weather holds out, passages are quiet and slow and uneventful. I always find it remarkable to look out the window or go out on deck and be completely surrounded by the ocean, as far as the eye can see – yet able to surf the Internet, watch television, cook gourmet meals. It seams almost surreal, to be so disconnected and far away from everything, yet still have access to it all. Stock markets crashing, the election catching fire, wars breaking out – and yet here I am, cruising the wide open sea, not another person (besides those aboard), bird, tree or anything in sight and I’m cooking up Kobe tenderloin and tuna carpaccio. Totally weird. But who am I to complain? I must be doing something right…