Packed Cones

Thomas Keller is too talented. Each time I lift a oven hot tuile off the silica mat and wrap it around a piping bag nozzle I feel like a lab rat in a learning experiment, I don't learn and keep going back for another zap. Eventually the product, 2 dozen one bite savoury cones kind of seems worth the effort. My fingertips feel sunburnt, wonder how long before I destroy all those nerve ending and I can be a real chef.

North cove marina

5 of a crew of 9 have walked off the boat this morning. Yesterday I agreed to a dinner party for 30. Finally at 2pm I have a thousand bucks, the luxury of being driven and thehardest part of my job begins.


The eccentric investor has requested a few things but mostly the menu is left up to my discretion. I need to have appetizers ready for 8pm, serious time problems, green market in the rain no thanks. So Chelsea markets for all I can carry in one trip. In the fish store a fellow customer asks me how i am going to cook the 10 pound of striped bass I am buying and I have no idea. Umm.. dunno, simply...ur in butter... whats that called pan fried, damn i am sure chefs have a better term for that. Tuna belly for a tartar and scallops for cerviche, done fruit and veg time.
I remember my knives are in Chile and the boat only has spoons. What the hell am i going to make for dessert, gotta be quick easy, impressive and not need any equipment the galley lacks, no inspiration here and my basket are full.
In the rain on the curb of ninth ave my cellphone decides it doesn't want to make calls. Reformed smokers feel my anxiety. I have time to appreciate being an observer in the battlegrounds of the nyc cab wars.
Ok gotta start cooking, half an hour in the city's quietest whole foods and back to the boat before 430, now i receive a text requesting h&h bagels and deli sliced salmon. Sorry you have no idea do you! these rich people!!! A few curses later i have my meat and decide on the 10 egg, half kilo of butter choco cake recipe.
Stuck in traffic you can feel my distress as each precious minute of cerviche marinading time disappears. Although I need this time to try get some people to come serve the food that is going to be late and possibly my first complete disaster.
5pm on the boat with most of the essential elements to pull off a nyc dinner party. Now I am lost in a world i know, i have to cook faster than possible with no help, my method is present at times, dessert and apps first. All elements, ovens and heat sources are blazing. A sink full of dishes gets done for me, but by 730 i am on the verge of breaking. Getting servers is impossible so i have now enlisted my girlfriend to bring anyone, experience useful but just need anyone!!! The cakes are baking, the cerviche marinating and the pots of water boiling.
Company arrives just after 8, i still don't have the apps ready but having a green haired girl ready for silver service stewardessing metamorphoses my worries into some form of enjoyment. Dishes get washed, cherry tomatoes halved and i almost have a menu coming together as the first brave guests arrive. My appetizers go out, of course the ones i put the least effort into, have the least of and think are the worst are the most popular and my beautiful scallop cerviche becomes crew food.
The lollie pop lamb chop are bland, maybe because they saw a marinade for all of ten minutes but it is going. The difficult owner barks a few orders at the inexperienced servers with the biggest compliant being his drink got taken away before he finished. Note - wouldn't you have plenty of glasses when holding a dinner party? probably at least one per guest? yeah so you would think a multi million dollar boat. No not enough of anything, serving plates, cutlery, glasses sometimes even booze, nothing not enough of everything.
After main courses made their way to the buffet table, the specific dietary requirements are relayed to the kitchen. Perfect time, deep exhale "rich people". The kosher guest seem happy with the few vegan offerings available. I feel like it is time to ring, or somehow inform all my chef mates about this feat i just pulled off. We leave and drink tequila.

Super yachting

Working on super yachts, or as I refer to them absurd floating white hotels, introduced me to an interestingly strange bunch of people. After half a dozen different boat family experiences I am struggling to find and adjust to a life as more than a paid slave.
Like all jobs, boat work has its perks, good pay, no expenses and free travel.
When describing my life over the past few years it ends up sounding like the good life, reality usually differs, as an employed crew member sooner or later I end up composing disturbingly depressive talent less lyrics. The boating blues was my first album with a range of hit singles from many genres “I got those bad, bad boating shoes” and “Manic depressive boating disorder”.
Have I ever got cabin fever? Well I did go through a stage of playing pinball in my cabin (prison cell) or galley (sweatshop). You don’t need buttons or flippers or even a ball, only confined space and temporary insanity.
Misery loves company - luckily your beloved crew is always around to piss you off with stupid comments or mannerisms that would normally be totally tolerable. However someone with no personal space who has been working 16+ hour days every day for a month or more can blow up a category 4 out of nowhere.
I have worked for and with the united nations of characters, temperaments and personalities. Disciplined yoga guru captains, very German carpet tassels combing stewardesses, no flavor diet engineers, hyperactive spontaneously backing flipping mates, perverted chefs (note- anything bad that happens is always the chefs fault, no one know why it just is, like the Bermuda triangle) and even the occasional alcohol, drug and prostitute addict cabinmate. Why the hell are we all doing it? For me it is all about the highly addictive quick cash injections.
Chronic complainers are encouraged to apply and in the end everyone becomes spoilt yachties. The industry forces it upon you, everything is done for you; washing, cleaning, cooking and almost anything you could want is close at hand.
I must clarify a few job descriptions for those not in the know. Captain = driver, Mate = back up driver, Engineer = pissing everyone else off, Boson = driver of smaller boats (tenders) and cleaner of boat, Chief Stewardess = Glorified cleaner that has been doing it so long doesn’t have to clean as much any more, Chef = stupid fool that works so many hours that they should under no circumstances consider working out their hourly rate, Deckhand = boat washer/ chamois technician, Stewardess = sexually harassed picker upper after spoilt crew and guests.
Now you have the job titles translated. If anyone is looking to see the world through a porthole, be on a tighter leash than a teenage girl in a strictly religious household and earn some cash there are plenty of jobs in this exciting industry.