Finally F'ing OUT of the Ship Yard!!!

Hi Everyone! Sorry for the silence – figuring out how to work, sleep and blog is quite a challenge but now that we’ve finally gotten the HELL OUT OF THE BOAT YARD, I will make an effort to write more… Sleep is so overrated…

So, we did it. That last trip that I briefly blogged about was more sea trials, but with the boss aboard. We survived, didn’t sink and went back to the boat yard for a haul out so they could repaint the water line after adjusting the ballast and to work on some engine stuff – which, since it has nothing to do with food, I don’t really know anything about (and besides, I spent the week passed out on a beach in Key West) - but there have been significantly more carpenters, engineers and electricians aboard over the past two weeks rushing to get everything done – like, three times as many as their have been over the past year. I guess they wanted us out of the yard as much as we wanted us out of the yard! Only 316 days late – give or take a day or two, but who’s counting…

Departure day was yesterday and was a mix of cheers and teary goodbyes as we pulled away from the dock and began to wind our way down the river. I feel like I’ve been rushing and working so much that our departure was hardly a blip on the radar – but rather, just one more thing to do. But every once in a while, the cloud of work and to do lists would clear and for a brief moment I’d fill-up with a surge of joy that we were finally, FINALLY departing to GO AROUND THE WORLD! But just as quickly, that joy would dissipate and it was back to work – unpacking loads and loads of groceries, organizing my freezers and walk-in (quickly becoming a squeeze-in), stowing and cleaning, stowing and cleaning. If cleanliness is next to godliness than I want to be canonized upon my death!

The river has been lined with fishing nets by the Native Indian tribes and we had to wind the yacht around the nets. I figured that was as good a time as any to start the brine for my corned beef. Maiden voyage of the yacht, maiden voyage for corning beef. It’d be a day of firsts. I also had the brilliant idea of vacuum sealing the corned beef in a bag with the brine – which was a great idea once I got it done, but not before I spilled half the brine. And, despite how big the yacht is – it’s still a yacht, which means cubby holes that load from a hatch in the counter – which means brine spilled across counter and leaked into the cubby hole – which means I had to unload everything from that (large) cubby hole, clean everything, clean the cubby, and then put it all back. Ok, so maybe brining a brisket underway isn’t one of my better ideas but I have my rye starter going and am feeding it everyday and soon, very soon, I’ll be making the best Reuben sandwiches south of the equator!

We still have crew from the boat yard aboard and the yacht ‘technically’ isn’t “ours” for a few more days. So, our captain is working with the captain from the builder who is handling the boat until it’s handed over. But the day the yard people leave is just around the corner and then we will really celebrate! And only then will I finally, truly feel that we are actually on our way.

Three cheers, please! We’re out of the yard! Hooray!!!

I’ve been waiting for this day for 453 days… It almost seems a little anticlimactic. . Oh well, I’ve got mouths to feed – back to work…

A hard days night...

There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting and enslaving than the life at sea.
~Joseph Conrad


My alarm clock squeals, 4:45am arrives much too quickly at the beginning of my third, 15-hour day – especially with engine room alarms and water-maker alarms going off half of the night due to the testing going on for the sea trials. My head feels heavy, like I’ve hardly slept. I resist the urge to hit the doze button again… and again...and again… Besides the fact that I have to get up to make breakfast for the small army we have aboard – I don’t want to wake my bunkmate who was up late last night on anchor watch and is now snoring away on the upper bunk, blissfully unaware of the struggle going on in the bunk below. The guests and extra crew are on for 5 days, which although is a little tiring, is nothing compared to the several week and month long trips that I know are ahead of me. The 10th day is about when exhaustion really starts to creep in and the back begins to ache – from then on after, it’s an intravenous caffeine supply by way of the espresso machine feed line – directly into a main artery.

We’ll be pulling up the anchor at 6am, departing Friday Harbor and heading for Stewart Island. Mr. and Mrs. X, Mr. Precious and Scotty are all aboard for the sea trials, plus 10 crew and five people from the boat yard – 19 people in total, and it’s my duty to keep them all fed.

The sun hasn’t even begun to crack the sky yet. The galley is clean, peaceful and quiet except for the slow, undulating whir of the juicer motor and the tap of a knife against a cutting board as the morning stewardess is already up squeezing oranges for juice and brewing coffee. The boson comes in from the outside, his breath trailing behind him from the cold, he’s been up since 3am on anchor watch and is getting ready to go back to bed. One by one, the engineers and electricians from the boat yard come in to fill their coffee cups and warm up. I pull out the ingredients to make a batch of pecan-date bread and just as dawn begins to break we lift anchor and set off for a different cruising ground. The symphony begins…

The last time I saw Mrs. X, she sent me on a mission – to eat corned beef hash at The Georgian in the Fairmont Hotel, and replicate it. So, a few weeks ago the captain, purser and I went for brunch. The corned beef hash was delish - better than the service, that’s for sure - but on the first bite, I knew that just a pinch of fresh herbs would make all the difference and it’d be a breeze to improve upon. As I made my way through the grocery store last week with 3 heaping grocery carts full of food, and too short on time to actually prepare some things in advance, I spotted uncooked corned beef and opted on giving that a try rather than corning it myself – but Mrs. X has now asked me to perfect the Reuben sandwich, on homemade rye bread (using the sourdough starter I made at her house last summer) – so corning my own beef for that goes without saying... Anyhow, after two days simmering on the stove in a bath of beer, chicken stock, black peppercorns, coriander, mustard seed and bay leaves - the succulent, tender meat shreds easily with a fork and is full of flavor. I dice some Walla Walla sweet onions and Yukon gold potatoes and sauté them in my new favorite pan, an18-quart brazier, which provides ample surface space to sauté in large batches without overcrowding the pan – perfect for preparing large quantities without screwing up the browning with an overcrowded, small pan. Reminds me of my restaurant days. I add the corned beef, fresh thyme and parsley, season with salt and several cranks of the pepper mill. Nothing fancy, but like a slice of Defaro's pizza in Queens, some things are best left unadulterated.

Poaching eggs for everyone is a breeze too with the Miele steam oven and some cheap egg poaching pans that I picked up at the local restaurant supplier. The pans poach 8 eggs at a time and were fitted into a half hotel pan, with a lid and meant for the oven. But I just replaced the hotel pan with a perforated pan and they fit perfectly in the steamer. I have 16 perfectly poached eggs in about 8 minutes.

By 7am, the peninsula in the galley is spread with date-pecan bread, fresh melon and berries, corned beef hash and poached eggs, fresh coffee and fresh squeezed orange juice. The. X’s, guests and crew all seem pleased with the corned beef hash - but I hardly have time to sit for a proper breakfast as I’ve got to get the galley cleaned up and begin prepping for lunch while we’re underway.

The guests are on for another two days as we make our way through the San Juan Islands. But once again, there are delays and itinerary changes and soon it will be back to the shipyard, much to the chagrin of the owners - but much to the relief of the chief stewardess and myself as there is still a ton of work to do to get the boat setup and properly provisioned for our real departure…

I swear to God, someday we’ll get out of here. Someday…

Equilibrium

Equilibrium has been restored to the crew as we finally settle into our living quarters aboard the yacht. I don’t think I can imagine anything worse than taking 9 people that aren’t too fond of land, desk jobs and offices and stick them on land and give them lots of paper work for 6-months…

It’s funny how easy everyone is falling into their jobs aboard – even the captain seems happy to help with something like a wash-down of the boat- because at least it’s easy and predictable – unlike all the paperwork that’s required that will finally allow us to get on our way. Even I’ve had to suffer through writing some procedures documents (which is what the Chefs Prayer evolved out of) - but far less than the chief stewardess, engineer, captain, mate and purser. The stress level has dropped considerably over the past week and a somewhat “normal” (there’s nothing normal about the yachting world) pace has returned to our workday. I’m finding my groove easily in the new galley and though I have far too many small appliances and utensils stuffed in my utensil drawers – I’ve found a place for everything and getting around the galley seems fluid, effortless and smooth.

The trips-en-mass to the grocery have begun as I provision the boat with all the essentials to last us at least through the first few months, and so I won’t have to go grocery shopping every single day – as I did in the crew house… I’m probably hovering somewhere in the realm of 100 grocery bags in just a few days - and that’s just on basic supplies, and meat and fish to get us through the next couple of weeks of sea trials where we’ll have double the crew aboard for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

My day starts around 7am with a cup of tea and breakfast in our cramped, little crew mess where 9 of us gather around a tiny table and elbow each other around for room. The crew are very particular about their breakfast – because it’s the only meal of the day they have control over *cue evil laugh here* and with the British contingent aboard, this means Wheatabix, Marmite for toast and steady supply of PG Tips. For the Aussies, there's lots of fresh fruit and Vegemite (which I prefer) and for the Swede, it's cucumbers and ham on slices of dense rye bread and yogurt with fresh berries. The snack/breakfast cupboard is stuffed full of snacks and cereal and can hardly be opened without an avalanche of boxes and bags careening out and the storage below the settee is stuffed to the hilt with backup supplies of snacks. Snacks are an extremely important part of the day and a good boost for crew moral. Whether it’s Tam Tams for the Aussies, “chockies” (chocolates - dark chocolate for everyone except the Brits, they prefer milk chocolate), dried fruits and nuts, tea, cappuccino’s – whatever keeps the crew going – without proper snackage, there could be a mutiny – and soon, when I get more settled and provisioned, I’ll be making some homemade snacks for the crew as well… Up until recently, my mornings have been spent unloading boxes from the warehouse and stowing cooking equipment. Now, it’s preparing crates of backup food supplies to go into the bilge, refitting shelves in the pantry and finishing paperwork and then sometime around 10:30am I begin making crew lunch – this could be anything from frittata’s and salad to putting out the fixings for panini’s – the crew LOVE the panini maker and are as excited as children on Christmas Day when I lay out a spread of charcuterie, cheese, condiments and bread and let them make their own lunch. But this too goes along with this theory I’ve developed about them having control over their own food… I mean, if I lay something out and they can make their own food, they suddenly get very particular and picky about what they eat, but if I’m making it for them – they’ll eat whatever I serve. Personally, I know that I could never work another position on a yacht because it would torture me to eat someone else's cooking for every meal… but I digress… Anyway… The person in charge of watch keeping that day is usually the one who sets the table for the meals and helps clean up afterward. Lunch goes out around 11:30 and after that I’m usually out the door making my runs to Trader Joe’s, Costco, Metropolitan and Safeway - filling cart after cart with groceries to stock the boat. Then, it’s back to the boat to find homes for hundreds of pounds of dry goods, cans, jars and bottles and bags and around 4:00pm it’s time to begin dinner – roast chicken, veggies and potatoes or a one-pot wonder like curry or chili… My friend, Gregory, a staunch environmentalist who tries in earnest to live the life of a locavore, eating locally and sustainable – and who, bless his heart, has never put me on a guilt trip for working on a fuel sucking mega yacht or for wearing leather boots - recently put me in touch with John Foss, a fisherman coming back from Alaska from whom I was able to purchase 15 lbs. of beautiful, wild Sockeye salmon from Naknek Family Fisheries - a group of fisher WOMEN from Bristol Bay. It’s now filling my deep freeze awaiting the sea trials and I think the boat builders and the crew will be quite pleased… When time permits, I try to hit the farmers market in West Seattle or Ballard, but sometimes necessity dictates and it’s not always easy to go local. Like Kermit the Frog would say, “it’s not easy being green”…

Dinner is served around 5:30pm and I make a concerted effort to be putting away my last pot and wiping down my stove just as I’m about to serve crew dinner, so that way, I can sit with them and eat. It’s a quick inhale of food and then back upstairs to finish wiping down the galley – wiping over the glass, chrome, stainless steel and laquored wood. I finish my day around 6:30 or 7pm. But when there are guests aboard, it will take me an hour AFTER the pots and pans are done to wipe everything down, dry up every drop of water, polish all the glass on the oven doors and stovetop, the steel and wood and clean the floor before I can shut the galley down for the night – probably closer to 10pm (with guests aboard, my days will starting around 5am)… But I guess that’s why they pay me the big bucks – for all my pain and suffering… ;o)

Wait, what was that about ‘equilibrium’?

Happiness is...

Sauteed Halibut Cheeks with Brown Butter, Thyme and Lemon
Roasted Carrots and Fennel with Anise Seed
Broccoli Rabe

I remember when I first began working on yachts. I was on a really poorly run 120-foot sailing yacht anchored out in St. Barth. The crew were rarely aloud to go to shore and we worked for months on end without a day off. I was fresh and didn’t know how the industry worked. I thought it was enough just to be in the Caribbean. But at night, sitting out on the swim platform alone, chain smoking cigarettes and drowning my woes in the bottom of a bottle of 151 proof rum, I looked longingly at the big, shiny, fancy motor yachts in the marina at the Port of Gustavia, trying to spy the chefs through the windows and I thought to myself, “I need to be on one of those, damn it. And I want to go around the world…”.

Some wizened, sage soul one said, “happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.”, and I would agree. Even in that miserable situation on the first boat, I was happy – oh, but maybe that was the rum… Ok, well, never mind. Although I agree that happiness comes from the inside – I do have to contend that sometimes getting what you want isn’t such a bad thing and I am very, very, very happy in my new galley…

Bit by bit, box by box, everything has been loaded aboard. I’ve, amazingly found places for every toy and utensil. However, if someone were to give me a box of toothpicks, I really would have no place to store it. I think I’m personally responsible for increasing the ballast on the boat and ever since we loaded on the meat-slicer, I’ve detected a slight lean towards starboard.

1. A few people, whom I wont name, but job titles rhyme with ‘mapton’ and ‘renginsmeer’, have given me a lot of grief about the number of appliances I have aboard. But I took this job because I knew I’d be able to pimp out the galley – and so pimp I did. Here’s the short list of the few little appliances I have aboard:

1. Industrial meat slicer
2. Paco Jet
3. Industrial grade vacuum sealer
4. Kitchen Aid mixer
5. food grinding attachment
6. pasta making attachment
7. 20 cup food processor
8. Vita Mix blender
9. Panini Press
10. Belgian Waffle Maker
11. Vegetable Juicer
12. Citrus Juicer
13. Hand Mixer
14. Hand Blender
15. 2 Baking Stones
16. Full Set of Stainless Steel Cookware
17. Full Set of Cast Iron Cookware

And every manner, shape and size tart pan, pie pan, loaf pan, muffin pan, cake pan, pastry gadget, etc. that one can imagine

I’ve got what I want and want what I’ve got and I’m very, very happy. And, apart from, perhaps a few more feet of storage space, I’ve also got my dream job… So, what's all this nonsense about happiness not being about getting what you want and wanting what you've got?

So, I’ve been eyeing halibut cheeks in the marketplace for a while now and I’ve never cooked them before and have only eaten them once. I picked some up and cooked them for the non-meat-eating crew; sautéed them in clarified butter and oil and finished them by adding some butter to the pan and letting it sizzle away until it was a nutty brown, adding some lemon zest, lemon juice and thyme at the very end. The halibut cheeks have an amazing texture – they don’t seem to dry out the way a halibut filet would. They are also slightly sweet and the flavor and texture almost remind me of crab. They were a hit with the crew and I would definitely do them again. I cooked them on my new induction cooktop. It takes a little getting used to – the pans heat up really quickly and get piping hot, but I love it! The handles stay cool and I’m not sweating my butt off while I cook. I’ve also been using the steam oven which is turning out to be a dream! No more boiling giant pots of water to blanch veggies – just chuck them in the steam oven and have an ice-bath ready…

I’m happy. Very, very happy… Now, if we could just get the hell out of here and go somewhere warm and sunny…

The Daily Word

Chefs Prayer

Our Chef, which art in Galley
Hollowed be her Name
Thy meals come
Thy food be done, on stove as it is in oven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses into the walk-in, as we forgive them who trespass against us
And lead us not into obesity
But deliver us from gluttony
For thine is the fork, and the knife, and the spoon, for ever and ever. Amen.

THE 10 COMMANDMENTS OF THE GALLEY

1. Thou shall not make wrongful use of the name Galley by referring to it as ‘kitchen’.

2. Thou shalt not covet thy guest ingredients. During charter, thou shalt not enter the walk-in, less thy title be ‘chef’, ‘crew cook’ or ‘chief stew’. Off charter, thou shalt not take anything from any area in walk-in not labeled in blue tape for use by crew, nothing else shall be touched.

3. Thou shalt clean up after thyself forthrightly and leave thy Galley as ye have found it and not wait a fortnight to do thyn dishes.

4. Thou shalt Honor thy appliances by keeping them clean and handling them gently, as the Chef commandeth ye, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the Galley that your Chef is giving you.

5. Remember the non-stick pan and keep it holy - by raising not the temperature too high or for too long, or by burning food. Ye shall use non-stick pans labeled for “CREW-USE ONLY” for I, the Chef, am a jealous Chef punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who ruin my non-stick pans.

6. If ye burn stainless steel pans, ye shall clean them using all manner of scouring powder and scrubbers and scrubbing until all the spots are gone. Better yet, use the cast iron.

7. Thou shalt not use detergent when cleaning cast-iron. A gentle scrub with a plastic scrubber and dried upon the stovetop is sufficient.

8. Thou shalt wipe bottles clean and not put jars, bottles or food containers away sticky or with drips. Thou shalt put leftovers away in the smallest possible container.

9. Thy counter tops, cook top and backsplash shall be wipethed clean and be free of streaks, particles and spots hastily, after each use and not wait until nightfall. Thou would be wise to adopt the motto “clean as you go”.

10. Thou shalt clean and wipe out the sink after dinner and not leave bits of food in the drain; thou shalt leave the faucets clean, shiny and dry; and thou shalt empty the rubbish bin.

The path of the righteous crew-member is beset on all sides by the iniquities of those who do not put things away in the proper place. Blessed is she, who in the name of organization, sanity and good will, learns her way around the galley and puts things away where she found them and shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for she is truly her fellow crew members keeper and the finder of lost utensils. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would not attempt to put away things, in the right place, from which they have been taken. And you will know my name is the Chef when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

And please, shut the lights on the way out. Amen.

I'm going straight to Hell, aren't I? Well, I always did prefer a warm climate...

A walk on the beach...

I’m sure I could be a case study for people drawn to professions with a high burn-out factor. I mean, the trading floors of Wall Street - to this? What was I thinking? I went to school to think rationally, spent years writing programs that turned quantitative data into trading strategies, up at all hours of the night tinkering with communication protocols, writing code, gathering data, splicing and dicing it and sending it off to the four corners of the universe. Up at the crack of dawn to be on the floor when the market opened, to fix things in case my programs failed. Now, my life is ruled by different markets - farmers markets and grocery stores. But sometimes, the exhaustion is the same…

I used to think that the quantitative analysts that I worked for had an obsessive-compulsive disorder – but they’ve got nothing on a stewardess armed with a box of toothpicks, Q-tips and an arsenal of cleaning products to tackle any matter of filth, dirt, stain or mess. The Super Yacht Stewardess has put the meaning into OCD – fervently attacking toothpaste caps with toothpicks to pick out every particle of gunk from between its grooves. Every crease and corner of every cupboard, drawer and counter swiped with q-tips to get out any and every molecule of dust. Polishing and shining and not leaving a speck of lint nor fingerprint behind.

It’s been 10+ hour days, 6+ days a week as we get ready to be released from this hell we call the Ship Yard. And, it's been a dance on the boat between the crew and the yard workers as we try to clean and setup while they are still drilling holes and pulling down ceiling panels. And cleaning on a super-yacht, especially one that is just coming out of the shipyard, takes on its own special meaning – as every surface on the interior of the yacht is coated in a thin layer of fine, pink dust. Doors are taken off hinges, drawers removed so that every crack and groove can be wiped. Every surface touched, every room meticulously cleaned before even a sheet touches a bed. A process that would usually take about a month, but with all the delays we’ve encountered, we'll have to complete in about a week.

I’ve been fortunate that my galley is one of the first rooms (99%) finished, but as I clean every groove and surface (yes, with q-tips and toothpicks) and line my shelves and drawers with non-slip and begin loading in my pots and pans, I know that I’ll have to go through everything once again to re-clean. As, right now, I wipe my cooktop and within hours I can write my name in dust on its glassy surface. Except for a meal here and there, I haven’t cooked for the crew in weeks (and my stomach is suffering!), there is just too much other work to be done. I haven't cooked anything in the new galley yet and we don’t actually move aboard for another week.

So, it’s 7 days a week from here on out and the working hours are on the increase. I have a 2-week yoga retreat scheduled for 10 days beginning the 2nd of October, but most likely, not a day off until then. And if I have to swim to shore to make that retreat - any sharks had better get the hell out of my way...

Wait, so why was it that I left Wall Street again? Because I was burnt-out? Well, the yachting industry isn’t exactly a walk on the beach - at least not today...

Pictures!

Due to my freshly signed confidentiality agreement, I can't post photos of the outside of the yacht, nor can I post photos of the launch which is a bit of a bummer - but, since many companies have a "no-blogging" policy and the yacht owners have kindly allowed my to continue blogging, and actually enjoy reading about my silly antics and escapades, and my blogging hasn't gotten me in too much hot water (yet) then I'll gladly comply. However, I can post as many photos of my galley as I want...

So, without further ado - behold my galley, in all it's highly-polished-stainless-steel-and-laquered-wood
which-I'll-be-polishing-until-midnight-every-night glory!

There corner from which I'm taking the photo is a long counter and cupboards which will be setup as a baking area. There's also a double sink and 2 dishwashers in that corner...


And this is the piece d'resistance - the shelving system in my walk-in! Am I looking forward to filing that baby up!


Tomorrow is a big day. I've just been informed that I can get into my galley to do a thorough cleaning and then begin moving my everything aboard! There is a God!

It floats, yeah!

The feel of teak underneath my bare feat – mmm, I’ve longed for this… I look out over the portside well-deck… water… finally…

Ok, granted, it’s brackish and there’s a rainbow of oily scum floating on top and I wouldn’t stick my toe in it if you paid me… but it’s water… and the yacht is in it… floating! Hooray!

I open the side door. Silence. Everything sparkles. I stop and take it all in before stepping through. Smooth, cool tile underneath my feet… The carpenters and installers that have been working in my galley, the ones I’ve been sneaking special batches of cookies to and flirting with for the past 4 months, have done me good. The galley is impeccable and I think that it has been left the cleanest of any of the rooms on the yacht – yes, flirting and chocolate chip cookies go a long way.

There’s something about walking into a silent kitchen. Alone. Before the day has started, before the hustle and bustle. Before the rush begins. It’s a deep resounding silence, almost sacred... I imagine my new galley in the morning - a cool glow filtering through the massive windows, some faraway ocean sparkling outside in a pale-golden light. I setup my prep area – cutting board, hotel pans, prep bowls, sharp knife, clean towels… Crisp chefs jacket, clean apron. This is my lab where I can be a scientist, my studio where I can be an artist. I’m a kid and this is my playground…

The launch went off without a hitch, champagne bottle across the bow. The yacht was eased into the water on a giant lift, and most importantly, it didn’t sink. We’re only a few hundred yards from where we were in the hangar, but it feels completely different to finally be in the water. It all feels a little more real.

So, I should be able to really put my galley together over the course of the next few weeks. I’ve already mapped out where (almost) everything is going to go. I’ve been thinking about what the first smells to come out of my galley will be – but with the schedule that we have been on lately, it will probably be take-out! But I can’t wait to try out the induction stove and see how it works. I can’t wait to fill my walk-in with food. I can’t wait to organize my cupboards.

I can’t wait, I can’t wait, I can’t wait!

Galley pics coming soon – I swear!