EATING IS MERELY REPETITION!

NAVIGA Yacht Magazine November/December 2015

Culinary culture is a concept travelling with people. Consider a fish dish called Buğulama in Turkey, and Burdeto in Greece, and Brodetto in Italy, also Broeto in Venice, a bit further in France Bouillabaisse, and in Spain it is called Suget. We are still cooking such dishes that travelled around the world. Fish is the same fish, so is meat is the same meat. Eating is merely repetition.

What comes to your mind about the Greek cuisine?

Octopus, calamari, and above all moussaka come to my mind. However, Greek cuisine has many more diverse and unique dishes. Consider this:

If I ask you about the Italian cuisine, anybody would at least know pasta. But if you are more acquainted with the cuisine, you would say Linguini, Spaghetti, or Tagliatelle. These are all different names for pasta with various dough breadths and shapes, and you can be sure that there are many more types of pasta that you’ve never heard of. And pasta as you can imagine is the general name for all these different dishes. Also, be aware that in addition to the hundreds of sauces, cutting shapes and names under the umbrella of ‘pasta’, it is still not enough to describe the regional recipes counting up to hundreds.

Pizza has also a similar story. Today, Pizza is associated with the whole of Italy, but it is actually a Neapolitan. In Italy, the venues selling pizza are not called restaurants, but pizzerias. Italian culinary schools don’t teach how to cook Pizza. Because it’s the Pizza masters’ job. Just like ‘Kebab’ in Turkey. Lahmacun and kebab originates from one single region from south east of Turkey. Lahmacun is best cooked by lahmacun masters. You can’t find lahmacun in Turkish culinary literature, we have “Ottoman” cuisine first. just like pizza in Italy. But Italian and Turkish cuisine is best known for these dishes, pizza and pasta in Italy, and lahmacun and kebab in Turkey.

Likewise, it would be a shame saying that Greek cuisine consists of merely Moussaka, octopus salad in vinegar, dried and grilled octopus, Tzatziki and Greek salad, all of which you can find in any touristic restaurant. There is a lot more to Greek cuisine.

There is an obvious similarity between the names of these dishes in Greek and Turkish. They are also similar in taste.

Some extra Béchamel sauce on the Turkish Moussaka converts it into Greek; some more water in Greek Tzatziki makes it Turkish! An important ingredient of the Greek salad is Feta cheese, which is in Turkish cuisine a sort of ‘white cheese’, only a bit harder. That’s totally expected, isn’t it? We have been sharing a sea, a coast, a history. Although we use different alphabets, I would say that we share a language as well; Turks call orange “Portakal”, Greek people call it “Portakali”. Turks call watermelon “Karpuz”, Greeks call it “Karpuzi” ..just look at the names of the dishes stated above.

The most delicious food you can encounter on the islands is unsurprisingly sea food. Greeks know how to cook a shellfish. The most widely used method is to grill. On huge grills, they cook any sort of fish, shellfish or calamari in a very skilled manner. Don’t think it’s very easy! If you over-cook sea food just a little, you end up eating rubber! Therefore cooking temper is very important.

The Greeks are very fond of octopus. You can see octopuses hanging from the ceiling of almost any restaurant. They are dried under the sun with the sea water on them. And then, they are served on your table after the cook grill them. Their taste changes according to the taste of the person eating them. If you like a soft taste then you should the cook to boil them before grilling. It would be a bit harder, but since it would keep its salt, you’d feel a different sea taste.

When considering from this viewpoint, it is sad to say how negligent the Turks on the other coast of the sea are about sea food. Leave cooking to one side, there aren’t significant number of sellers. If you ask for mussel at a fish restaurant in Turkey, you’d most probably receive only rice stuffed mussels. You’d rarely find Jumbo shrimps, and even if you do, you’d have to pay a fortune. Fortunately, we, Turks, like octopus as well, but cut out its buttons and make a cold salad out of it; and never try to find other ways to make a delicious taste out of it.

What else did I see on the Cyclades? Cheese, of course. Cheese is a strange thing that people produce their cheese in their own way and naturally give original names in every corner of the world, each region and. Cheese of course is not limited to the Italian Parmigiano, Greek Feta, French Roquefort, or Turkish Ezine. There are hundreds of types of cheese. The Greek islands, each have its own cheese.

The most famous are Feta and Mizithra. I am not sure for what political or economic reason Feta has been distributed around the world from Caribbean’s to a small corner shop in a forgotten part of the world, but our Ezine or Thracian white cheese stayed local. Honestly, I have bought Feta in Panama and in Brazil.

The Greek cheese is a bit similar to our cheese. I mean it is has similar texture and taste to our cheese rather than those of the European cheese. Most of them are made of sheep or goat milk. And again most of them originates from the Crete, and the smaller islands have many more varieties of it. Some of the least known Greek cheese are Anthotyros, Galotiri, Graviera, Kasseri,  Kefalograviera, Kefalotyrı, Kapnisto Metsovone, Ladotyri, Manouri, Metsovone. Hellim in Turkish, originating from Cyprus, is found under the name of Halloumi. Another merry memory of mine is that on the Western Atlantic tip whilst I couldn’t find the famous Italian Parmesan, but I could find Halloumi.

If you order a cheese plate on the Greek islands, you had better ask the waiter about the ingredients of the cheese. They would introduce their cheese with pleasure.

What else?

• Just like us, their meatballs are famous, e.g. Keftedakia. It is made very similar to the method our mothers prepare it: by watering stale bread but they are not as much fond of cumin. They use mint, thyme, and lemon juice.
• Louloudokeftedes, an appetizer, is grilled zucchini blossoms with cheese inside.
• Just like Turkish mücver! And its name is Kolokythokeftedes. Keftedes as I’ve mentioned means meatballs, and this is basically ‘zucchiniballs’. The rest of Europe, and even the Americas cook mücver but they call it zucchini cake, and their taste are different due to their ingredients. However, the Greek mücver is identical with the Turkish one. They as an extra put potatoes in it.
• Tarama meatball, which is Taramokeftedes is the grilled meatball version of the fish roe.
• Kremydokeftedes, ‘onionballs’ (Greeks like fried food).
• Dolmades! Can you guess? Dolmades Yalantzi is made of vine leaves which is used in cooking only by the Greeks and Turks. (we call it “Dolma” means “stuffed!”)
• Tyropitakia, Spanakopitakia, Kalitsounia are borepastries with spinach and cheese.
• Fava! Made of yellow split lentil, best grown in Santorini due to its volcanic soil. Served as a warm appetizer, Fava is peculiar to Santorini
• The olive oil dishes are also similar in Greek and Turkish cuisines. Okra and artichoke are the famous dishes with olive oil.
• Imam Bayildi! Just like in Turkish. Some extra béchamel sauce on the aubergine makes it Papoutsaika which means little shoe.
• Kritharaki, Lazania, Hylopites are the types of Greek pasta inspired by the other coastal Greeks’ neighbour, Italy.
• Kleftiko, is a special lamb dish.
• Lamb on skewer: Paidaika
• İzmir meatbalss? The same in Turkey: Soutzoukakia, etymologically means ‘from Smyrna’.
• Burdeto, the sister of the Italian Brodetto. It is anyways from the west, Korfu. Scorpionfish cooked in Venetian tomato sauce. They add octopus as well. If you add shellfish, it would be the real Brodetto, or in Tuscan saying Caccuicco, or the French Bouillabaisse. All are the same, Balık Buğulama.
• Garides Saganaki. In Turkish, sahanda karides! Just like shrimps stew, they cook the shrimps with tomatoes and pepper but put Feta on it rather than kaşar

If it was pleasing for you until now , you might say the Greek cuisine is like a combination of the Turkish and Italian cuisines. And you are very mistaken! Maybe the Italians and Turks were affected by the Greek cuisine and these dishes might have travelled from land to land and sea to sea differing little, who knows?

I FEEL LIKE A GLOBETROTTER!

I feel like a globetrotter!

Yes I could say it for this season. I am saying season instead of summer as summer is too touristic. Season is word used in our sector.  For boats, the summer season is spent in the Mediterranean while the winter season is generally spent in the Caribbean. As you can imagine, while I was saying I journeyed too much, I wasn’t saying I was on a holiday, I was working.

Cyclades!

If you are not good enough at geography, it might sound a bit strange. However, Cyclade Islands are a part of Greek islands that we all know. Mykonos, Santorini, Paros, Ios, Milos… These dreamy Greek islands, all constitute the Cyclades.

MILOS

Northwest of Santorini, southwest of Paros and Mykonos, and west of Ios islands. As I’ve told, it is more on the west compared to the other islands. It is relatively closer to the Greek mainland. That’s why it is a bit far away for the Turkish sailors. Turkish sailors sail close to the Turkish mainland around the islands Patmos and Simi. I don’t know why but while Europeans travel around the Mediterranean in 30-meter boats and travel around the world even on 15-meter sailboats, Turks don’t dare sailing 10 miles further. Is it because the businessmen have limited time, or are the captains inexperienced that the boats get rusty anchored at the harbors. If there is a sailor enthusiastic about travelling to Milos, let’s talk about it a bit.

Just like Santorini, it resembles a croissant and this is usually attributed to its volcanic landscape. History of the island can be traced back to the Minoan civilization and even further back. It is also home to the sculpture of Aphrodite (Venus de Milo) and Asklepios, the son of the Greek god Apollo and the goddess Coronis. The history of the islands tells us about the impact of the Turks, and Milos was not spared from this. On each August 31^st, they have a festival and they jump over bonfires; very similar to the Turkish Hıdrellez. In the past, this fire was set to alert the islanders about the Turkish tax vessels’ arrival. And when the Turkish vessels left, the islanders jumped over the fire to celebrate. Since it is located between Athens and Crete, the island was commercially important centuries ago, however today, tourism boasts as the most important economic activity on the island.

There are 71 beaches on the island! The port of the island, Adamas, is located on the north. There is a considerable number of beaches on the island, as well as incredibly spectacular coasts with crystal clear waters such as Fyriplaka, Provatas, Papafragas. Your chef, of course, explored all the coasts on motorcycle as soon as we disembarked on the island. If you are not one of those who like to kill the day lying on the beach, I can assure you that you can travel around all these beaches in one day by motorcycle.

You see from the recommendations of a rent-a-motor office that the most exquisite beaches are not accessible by car. They will most probably warn you that you must not ride to the western and eastern part of the island while advicing you to ride to the southern and northern parts of the island. If you’re as adventurous as myself, you might take the challenge and begin to imagine your encounter with the treasure hunters in the caves inspired from the adventures of Indiana Jones. But you have to consider that there are no roads in the don’t-go parts! The rent-a-motorcycle office would tell you that if you ride at these regions, we can’t guarantee anything, and you can’t reach us, since there is no cellular reception there!

They provide you with a map marked full of red lines, restricting your route very a lot, that at end just makes you more curios. If you want to follow your adventurous inner voice, you had better travel on a boat like me, or take a tour boat for € 30-60. I cannot say anything for the tour boats, but do the coves worth to see? Definitely! As you watch the inviting sea hidden beside the protruding rocks, you’ll be grateful that these coasts are not accessible by land.

In addition, you definitely have to see the colorful fisherman’s huts called in the region called ‘Syrmata’. As the perilous times associated with pirates and Turks gradually passed away, people established settlements closer to the sea, becoming fishing villages.

If you ask what to eat in Adamas, there are excellent local fish restaurants on the coastline, called Taverna in Greek. But for now, I will not mention anything about food and save Cyclades cuisine for another time on the.

Maybe you know that I have a collection of photos in which I write my name on different beaches in various cities, countries and islands I’ve been to. The one I took here is at the Sarakiniko cove on Milos island. It is known as the shelter of pirates, hidden inside white rocks. After all this information, you had better put together all your stuff in a travel luggage and take a boat to these beautiful islands.

For next week, I plan to write about Cyclades cuisine and introduce you with the actual Greek cuisine.

SEND THE VAMPIRE TO SANTORINI!

An article like you might never find about Santorini

The silence was less and less disturbed by the distant steps of a woman on the long stairs made of paving Stones. It was around three in the morning. For a person who might have calmly looked at the cliff from the hills of Thira, those were the sound of my steps, distancing. Down the famous 600-step stair of Santorini, I was climbing down to the sea all alone.

By the time I stepped on the flat ground, leaving all the ecstasy, colors and the noise uphill, it was only the steps that one could hear. Was I thrilled? Perhaps….

It was quite tricky while I was trying to navigate my feet with the light of my cell phone. Looking uphill towards the luminous city, I judged that I was in midway. However, that was the mystery of darkness; although I had been walking for half an hour, I couldn’t arrive at the sea. Does this mystery of the night in Santorin harm the joyful reputation of the island as a heaven of romanticism? Most probably not, but it invokes island’s another, age-old reputation, the real one: The banishment island of vampires!

It doesn’t usually read on the travel guides and catalogues. This touristic island with one of the most fabulous views is indeed a vampire island. There were volcanic eruptions between 1650-1450 B.C. Later, the volcano collapsed, submerging 73 square km of the island including the remains of the Minoan civilization on the island. This collapse of the volcano crushed all of the villages towards Crete on the sea level. The rest of the villages were covered with ashes, suffocating the life in Mediterranean. This volcano is the explanation of the current shape of the island: similar to a croissant, hollow in the middle.

In the sources, it’s mentioned that Greece was always in trouble with vampires throughout history. In 15-17^th centuries, Greece was under the occupation of vampires, the VRYKOLAKAS! This isn’t a legend. Many historical documents dating from 15-17^th and even 19^th centuries mention the dreadful terror of the Vrykolakas, which indeed was the name of one single vampire. But since all of the vampires that Vrykolakas converted were called by his name, the period was called Vrykolakas. According to the documents, Vrykolakas resurrects from his tomb, knocks people’s doors. “Who’s that?” Vrykolakas was very smart and informed. He tells the person-behind-the-door’s beloved’s name. If you answer in the first knock-knock, he converts you into a Vrykolakas vampire! So, it’s still a custom in Greece to answer the door in the second knock-knock.

According to what I’ve read, the Vrykolakas vampires interestingly didn’t limit their interests to drinking blood; they also abhorred the human species and wanted to kill humans, if they didn’t want to convert humans into a vampire. Greeks saw the impossibility of eliminating vampires by killing. But they were fortunate to find out that it was also impossible for the vampires to cross salty water, and there began the banishment of the vampires on the island on Santorin. There’s even a saying from those days.
It is used in a situation where someone does something futile: send the vampire to Santorini! The scientists today found that the soil on Santorini isn’t very efficient to dissolve the corpse of the dead due to the volcanic eruption. This particular feature of the soil might have reinforced the legends.

If you have never been to Santorini, don’t go there for vacation! Because the sand on the beaches, due to the volcanic eruption I’ve mentioned, is black! Yes, just black! There is a red part called red beach. When you walk in the sea expecting to step on soft sand, you walk on a huge one-piece rock. (This is a giant rock. The ground under the water indeed is constituted by only this huge rock.) Also, the water is quite hot. In short, while there are turquoises waters around other islands, visiting Santorin sounds to me a National Geographic like venture. 

On the other hand, there is the most romantic restaurant that you might ever encounter. You might know that I’m quite picky and over-realist. So, if I say you should go, just go! You’ll see a spectacular view from which you’ll not be able to take your eyes off. Surprisingly, the feeling that the view invokes is fabulous throughout the day!

After dinner you can go to Thira to see the night-life over there, and stay at Oia to wake up to another magnificent view, and have a lunch rich in sea food at one of the Oia restaurants before leaving. As I sometimes do when I get bored with a country in abroad or an island; then I just leave for another. If you’re lucky, you can take a boat or a ferry from another Greek island to have dinner on another just in two hours. I don’t want to sound like bragging but it is definitely a very cool feeling to enter an island with a beautiful sail yacht!

Next time you’re on Santorin, take a good care of yourself and be careful about the vampire next to you while you are drinking your champagne while watching the spectacular sunset!

LA BELLA TURCA!

Naviga Yacht Magazine / August 2015

I’m in Mykonos again..

If you remember, I spent six months on this famous Greek island in 2013 when I started writing for Naviga, and I almost became a “La bella Turca” of Mykonos, “La Turca Mykonian!” like the princess Perihan (Internationally known Turkish Soprano, socialite, painter, model, columnist and actress who was nicknamed “La Bella Turca” and “La Turca Romana” by the Italian media) It’s no lie, as a super-yacht chef on this island, of course with the help of the good looking Walley brand sail yacht, I can compete with La Bella Turca. To be a bit realist, I am of course more famous in the groceries, butchers and supermarkets than in the street. This indeed is the most important feature of being a chef. You have to get on well with your suppliers! To receive the best product, you have to keep your smile on and make them contend with the best figures. Especially, in this economic environment in Greece, you’re best if you pay tons of money in cash!

If you ask what it is like to be a super-yacht chef, I would say it is very much about details. For one thing, you don’t always have the opportunity to purchase the same quality good from the same supplier as in a restaurant. You have to be an explorer, and in every country you arrive, you have to know the language of the market, keeping the ties close. You never know when you’ll be back on that shore. You have to do as much as you can to be welcomed two years later just like in the first time with sincere smiles and friendship. There are many who have no idea about the economic impact of this job and its importance. For those who wonder how it is like to be a Head Chef on a super yacht, I am going to hint some sweet explanations.

• Like any restaurants, super yachts have room sized fridges and freezers which we call cool rooms.

• Yacht kitchens are not named “kitchen”. We call them ‘galley’ meaning ship kitchen.

• The size of yacht kitchens reach up to the size of a restaurant’s kitchen according to the boat’s length. Even when the kitchen is small there are industrial kitchen ware in order to serve food with the quality of a restaurant. It is equipped with a very good industrial oven and from rice machines for serving sushi to 15-20 persons simultaneously to any kind of state of the art electronic devices.

• The funniest question is how many persons work with a head chef? No matter what the length of the boat is there are no 20 chefs in the kitchen. There are no individuals responsible for cold appetizers or grill separately like in a restaurant. We don’t have garde manger or pastry section or soucier. We are solely responsible to prepare a new menu and different foods each day! There is nothing like you make a new graduate commis chef to peel off the onions and walk along the kitchen like a sultan giving orders. We peel off the onions then prepare the dish with a chef’s last touch.

• If the boat is between 60 and 80 meters there are an assistant chef called sous chef, and if it is 100 meters or above we then have a third chef called crew chef responsible for preparing meal for the crew and help us cleaning. That’s it.

• A 60 meter motor yacht’s crew consists of 15 while, an 80 meter’s crew consists of 20-22 persons. For 100 meter and above boats this number can reach above 50. So you see it is no joke.

• You prepare a protein main dish with meat-fish, fish-chicken selection (because there are always vegetarians, allergic people, people being choosy according to their religion or culture), a side dish going well with the main dish meaning vegetables, potatoes, mashes, definitely one carbohydrate like pasta-lasagne-rice, two different salads and a desert. We provide cakes or pastries for refreshment. Michelin quality is not expected for the meal prepared for crews, but the need to be delicious, savory and good in simply Jamie Oliver style.  And we prepare them all by ourselves. In order to avoid criticism such as ‘the same food again!’, one day we serve Thai food, the other Italian and the other French so we dance with cuisines around the world. In short we do not serve white beans for mess.

• The dishes prepared for the bosses need to be a lot more detailed, elaborate and with Michelin quality. Because our bosses are not ‘mere’ millionaires but billionaire families and they already have the opportunity to eat the best food at every corner of the world. And we will be fired if do not serve with a similar quality and variety. It is that simple!

• The yacht kitchen is not a restaurant kitchen. The boss and the guests do not abide by our hours, we need to adapt to theirs. The time of meals and the number of attendees vary like a stock exchange! While you have adequately prepared dinner for 12, in an instant the number may go up to 20, and in the last instant a guest may come to the kitchen saying ‘sorry I forgot to tell you I am vegan, could you please prepare me a meal with just vegetables’! While the meals are cooked in time, I can hear an announcement from my radio saying ‘Chef, Chef! This is the captain speaking, the meal is postponed for one hour’, and I need to be prepared to keep the dishes warm as well. Or the dinner can be completely cancelled.

• If we are at the sea for a long time, passing the ocean, then we need to prepare the breads as well.

• What we are required to do best is to organize superbly by using the limited storage facilities taking into account that we cannot go to a market every day. Otherwise you sit down, hungry.

• Filling up a 80 meter yacht with dry material ranging from flour to pasta, from spices to more fancy sauces costs 20 thousand €. Adding, meat, chicken and fish, filling up a big freezer completely for both the boss and the crew costs 70-80 thousand €.

• Of course this figure changes according to the boss being Russian, Arabic, Italian or French. Meaning do we buy Beluga caviar or Wagyu beef?…

• The order costs increase according to the location as well. If we are at the Caribbean or Pacific coasts, the price of the mozzarella provisioned by airplane is small compared to the price of the jet fuel but nobody cares. That mozzarella will come here!

• The weirdest thing is being obliged to prepare a different menu each day and being familiar with the ingredients that can be seen at every market in every language around every part of the world. We arrive Spain with the flour we buy from Greece, We then depart to Venezuela with the flour we buy from Spain and we have to maintain the same taste for Italian focaccia every time. Knowing well how you cook a fruit and vegetable or fish that we have not seen before, coming from a tropical island means mastering world’s different cuisines. Do you even think how many dishes superyacht chefs know cooking?

For the ones who are wandering about what is being a head chef in a super yacht, I wanted to make same small and tasty explanations.

Now getting away from the Dutch cuisine, which indeed is not my taste, and starting cooking Mediterranean cuisine, my expertise, on an Italian boat.

How about some Mykonos atmosphere next month for those who might have missed the previous articles?

See you in October!

THAT MOZZARELLA WILL COME HERE!!!

Answers about being a Chef in Super Yachts…

 

 

For example these questions are asked:

How many meters are your boat?

How many personnel work in the kitchen?

Aaah what is a crew meal? How hard can it be?

Anyway how many people work?

What is the cost of eating in a yacht?

What are the wages of a chef?

What I love most in a pep talk among friends is to see their astonishment while I answer those questions with sweet disdain…

We have not met with you at Ceyms last week because I was very busy just doing what corresponds to the answers to those questions. I was ‘provisioning’ as the sector jargon goes.

Let’s begin by answering the first question:

Remember! The thing you call a super yacht is more than 20-30 meters long for sail boats and between 40 meters and up to 200 meters in motorboats even what we call mega yachts. This answer alone causes astonishment. A similar scene occurred in Halicarnassus/Bodrum as well. Last year during one of my rare escapades in Turkey, I found myself sitting in the middle of a crowded table. Of course while I was under the bombardment of curios questions regarding my profession, a well-known businessman literally chimed in and began to question me with that arrogant face and sweet disdain. First he began to explain how his 30 meter boat is magnificent and asked some questions like ‘what do you cook on the boat’. The talk beginning with an informal ‘you’ transformed into a formal ‘you’ after I showed him the pictures of my plates. The arrogance in his face fell like a wet sticker and asked me with astonishment: ‘I am sorry but I did not understand clearly, what is the wage of a chef in your sector?’. I told him that the wages are between 4 thousand € and 15-20 thousand € according to the length of the boat and experience. In a 30 meter boat you can earn 4 thousand € while a chef of a 100 meter mega yacht can earn 15 thousand € and a private chef meaning serving only the boss can increase this amount with special contracts… He was looking at me with astonishment and asked the key question!

-What is the length of your boat?

-82.

The matter is resolved than. He returned to his table with laughing and saying ‘And I was flaunting with my 30 meter yacht’.

In short: The world is full of amazing lives. Therefore my profession sounds sweet from far away but the uncrowned princes and princesses of the superyacht world well know the fact that when you look closer you will see how dense and hard it is. So let me explain it in a little bit more detail.

• Like any restaurants, super yachts have room sized fridges and freezers which we call cool rooms.

• Yacht kitchens are not named “kitchen”. We call them ‘galley’ meaning ship kitchen.

• The size of yacht kitchens reach up to the size of a restaurant’s kitchen according to the boat’s length. Even when the kitchen is small there are industrial kitchen ware in order to serve food with the quality of a restaurant. It is equipped with a very good industrial oven and from rice machines for serving sushi to 15-20 persons simultaneously to any kind of state of the art electronic devices.

• The funniest question is how many persons work with a head chef? No matter what the length of the boat is there are no 20 chefs in the kitchen. There are no individuals responsible for cold appetizers or grill separately like in a restaurant. We don’t have garde manger or pastry section or soucier. We are solely responsible to prepare a new menu and different foods each day! There is nothing like you make a new graduate commis chef to peel off the onions and walk along the kitchen like a sultan giving orders. We peel off the onions then prepare the dish with a chef’s last touch.

• If the boat is between 60 and 80 meters there are an assistant chef called sous chef, and if it is 100 meters or above we then have a third chef called crew chef responsible for preparing meal for the crew and help us cleaning. That’s it.

• A 60 meter motor yacht’s crew consists of 15 while, an 80 meter’s crew consists of 20-22 persons. For 100 meter and above boats this number can reach above 50. So you see it is no joke.

• You prepare a protein main dish with meat-fish, fish-chicken selection (because there are always vegetarians, allergic people, people being choosy according to their religion or culture), a side dish going well with the main dish meaning vegetables, potatoes, mashes, definitely one carbohydrate like pasta-lasagne-rice, two different salads and a desert. We provide cakes or pastries for refreshment. Michelin quality is not expected for the meal prepared for crews, but the need to be delicious, savory and good in simply Jamie Oliver style.  And we prepare them all by ourselves. In order to avoid criticism such as ‘the same food again!’, one day we serve Thai food, the other Italian and the other French so we dance with cuisines around the world. In short we do not serve white beans for mess.

• The dishes prepared for the bosses need to be a lot more detailed, elaborate and with Michelin quality. Because our bosses are not ‘mere’ millionaires but billionaire families and they already have the opportunity to eat the best food at every corner of the world. And we will be fired if do not serve with a similar quality and variety. It is that simple!

• The yacht kitchen is not a restaurant kitchen. The boss and the guests do not abide by our hours, we need to adapt to theirs. The time of meals and the number of attendees vary like a stock exchange! While you have adequately prepared dinner for 12, in an instant the number may go up to 20, and in the last instant a guest may come to the kitchen saying ‘sorry I forgot to tell you I am vegan, could you please prepare me a meal with just vegetables’! While the meals are cooked in time, I can hear an announcement from my radio saying ‘Chef, Chef! This is the captain speaking, the meal is postponed for one hour’, and I need to be prepared to keep the dishes warm as well. Or the dinner can be completely cancelled.

• If we are at the sea for a long time, passing the ocean, then we need to prepare the breads as well.

• What we are required to do best is to organize superbly by using the limited storage facilities taking into account that we cannot go to a market every day. Otherwise you sit down, hungry.

• Filling up a 80 meter yacht with dry material ranging from flour to pasta, from spices to more fancy sauces costs 20 thousand €. Adding, meat, chicken and fish, filling up a big freezer completely for both the boss and the crew costs 70-80 thousand €.

• Of course this figure changes according to the boss being Russian, Arabic, Italian or French. Meaning do we buy Beluga caviar or Wagyu beef?…

• The order costs increase according to the location as well. If we are at the Caribbean or Pacific coasts, the price of the mozzarella provisioned by airplane is small compared to the price of the jet fuel but nobody cares. That mozzarella will come here!

• The weirdest thing is being obliged to prepare a different menu each day and being familiar with the ingredients that can be seen at every market in every language around every part of the world. We arrive Spain with the flour we buy from Greece, We then depart to Venezuela with the flour we buy from Spain and we have to maintain the same taste for Italian focaccia every time. Knowing well how you cook a fruit and vegetable or fish that we have not seen before, coming from a tropical island means mastering world’s different cuisines. Do you even think how many dishes I know cooking?

For the ones who are wandering about what is being a head chef in a super yacht, meaning before the rich man’s wealth tires the poor man’s jaw, I wanted to make same small and tasty explanations.

Now, I am going to Mykonos after I fill the storages of a 55 meter yacht heading to Mediterranean. Again in a super sail yacht, heading to cook Italian and Mediterranean foods which are my specialty….

See you in Mykonos…

AN ESCAPADE: MYKONOS

The country of opportunities, the United States; the city of love, Paris; the city of dreams, Barcelona; the cradle of tango, Argentina; the capital of hazelnut, Giresun; once, Mykonos was called the island of gays.

It was long ago, though. Contrary to its reputation of an “island of gay parties” in the 1980s, now the island is famous for the elegant and stylish lifestyle it nurtures.
Mykonos welcomes the the affluent Europeans who enjoy the salty breeze of the Mediterranean. It certainly offers options for those with a tight budget. It would not be surprising to see a couple of cruise ships at the coast every day. So, it also offers an option to those who like cruise holiday.

If you wonder how things work on a cruise ship, then just hop onto one, which indeed would save me time. Let me warn you that this is not one of those recommendations you might bump into on touristic websites to go to the nasty beach clubs on buses packed with sweaty people. What I will write suits more to the profile of the fastidious European.

You may inquire what on earth I am doing here? Well, that’s my business, but I can assure you that it is an interesting story. Life, indeed, is nothing but tales. The tales are more pleasant when they are secret. The rough winds of may, the last visit of the spring rain before the summer, mills, and the famous sunset accompanied with a glass of champagne: Mykonos.

Mykonos…

It’s my habit to rent a motorcycle as soon as landing on the island. The traffic is almost limited to ATVs on the island. If you don’t like motorcycles and are faithful taxi-user, then you might have to wait to be served because there are only 35 taxis available. You can deal with one of those permamently or you can of course rent a stylish Mercedes jeep. I even saw a white Range Rover with a Dubaian plat number. That’s to say that some people transports their cars by private yachts alongside their helicopters. Luxury is easy to find, but people here don’t care about it much. High-heels are not the best to walk around the narrow streets of Mykonos. This does not necessarily mean that Mykonos is a place of free-riders, though. On the contrary, as I’ve mentioned in the beginning, this island welcomes many European millionaires and billionaires. So, you’d better keep your Louboutins for Paris or New York! Here, it’s not the place for the high-heels to rule.

The small but beautiful centre of the island with its white houses might remind you of Bodrum, but if you ask me, I think it’s more beautiful and much better than Bodrum. You can see the white-and-blue souvenir shops like those in Bodrum and Louis Vuitton and Gucci stores in the same row.

There are two entrances to the centre, one of them is for the busses packed with tourists, the other one is “the other” entrance 😀

If you climb straight down from the bus station, the way will take you to one of the best place to enjoy the sunset, the corner of Mykonos with windmills. It’s quite likely that you’ll bump into lots of tourists with their high-definition cameras mounted on their tripods, you might be one of them, indeed.

If you walk a bit on the coastline, you will arrive the area called the “little Venice.” I have no idea why it is called so just like I don’t have the slightest idea how the French street in Beyoglu, Istanbul became so famous and then got obscured, and why it is called so.

On Mykonos, time is slow. The breakfast is at noon, the lunch is in the evening, the dinner is at night, and the night-fun begins at dawn. So, no one would be surprised if you order dinner around 22:30. The young crowd in the streets scatter around the beach clubs and then have fun until early hours of the morning.

As a woman of a certain age, who has enjoyed the sun and moon of many days and nights, I prefer a more elegant night (and day) as I got used to in my life. That’s why, my preference is usually for the places where I can listen to nice music, drink quality champagne, and people of similar material.

Let’s begin with the beaches. If you check on the web, you’d find recommendations for only those two called Paradise and Super Paradise. These are the ones I call trash where people travel by buses packed to the extent that it is reminiscent of Nazi pass to the concentration camps. And as you can imagine, big parties until the morning takes place in these beaches where a doom’s day crowd dance chaotically to the hair-raising electronic music. Luckily, there are other places on Mykonos.

During your stay, I’d recommend you to ask your receptionist about the direction of the wind rather than about the beaches. You can thus choose the beach(es) which are on the sheltered part of the island. Otherwise, you might look like an actress in a shipwreck movie rather than a promotion video of a holiday resort in which a woman swims in a tranquil sea under the bright sun.

The first beach that comes to my mind is the Psarou Beach with an elegant restaurant serving delicious dishes. This is where you’d meet chic tourists from all over the world. With chic I mean those with a certain age and taste. The opposite of it would be the beach clubs where shapely men and women enter from the yachts anchored in the bay with glasses in their hands in harmony with the “cool” music who after 17:00 start to dance on the tables.

Nammos is the name of the quality and fun. When you see the large lobsters and the huge fish on the barbecue, you’ll realize that here it is not only the fun but also the restaurant part which attracts the tourists. It is almost impossible to find a free table at lunch-time. Nammos restaurant is also renowned for its Sushi menu from one of the chefs of the world-famous Nobu restaurant which took off with the partnership of RobertDe Niro.

Speaking of Nobu, Nobu Mykonos restaurant is of course another restaurant I’d recommend. (the restaurant name has been changed this year and it became Matsuhisa. owned by only Nobu Matsuhisa, without De Niro partnership) I was one of the Chefs at Milano Armani Nobu restaurant. So, there is a reciprocal confirmation between myself and Nobu about reliability. But taste is not the only reason why I prefer Nobu Mykonos. They also have a chic bar where you can indulge yourself into good wine and tasty cocktails. Also, it is walking distance to the Belvedere Hotel with the tables by the pool. I am a bit fastidious about wine and champagne.

My third recommendation is a bit “cooler” and a different beach: Panormos. Alongside other loud beach clubs with 24/7 sun bed service, Panormos is mostly the preference of the Greeks, particularly Athenians. This is a long shore occupied always with attractive men and women where you can lie on the sand with your towel. The restaurant is called Panormos, alongside the beach club Adva. You can play volleyball on the beach, or indulge yourselves with huge delicious barbecue calamari, fresh mussels, and chill-out on the cushions with your drink. The bonus is the turquoise sea.

My forth recommendation is the famous Buddha Bar in the Santa Marina Hotel in Ornos bay.

What to east in Mykonos?
I was just about to finish the article but I thought it would be a bit inconsiderate not to share some info about the cuisine. I’d like to share a classical Greek recipe. You can easily find a huge variety of fresh sea food for reasonable prices in Mykonos. The most traditional recipe is the Greek Salad, that is, feta cheese, red onions, tomato salad and mousakka, eggplant. The debate over the “copyright” of baklava, by the way, is still going on.

If you wonder how the hell I can know so much about this place in a few days, I have to acknowledge that I have enjoyed Mykonos two years ago while working as a super-yacht chef for 6 months.

So, what next?

I will leave Mykonos after gulping my champagne, and then head towards another world with the sailor’s version of Red Kit’s famous “I’m lonesome sailor” song. As for you, you’ll buy a ticket to Mykonos and set foot on the island. I don’t have the slightest idea where I will be writing from next. I might even bump into you until that time and might write about you. So, I will try to be more romantic in the next article, promise!

HELLO LAHEY?

What on earth am I doing here…

You must also have felt at some point in your life that the cosmos is not on your side. This revelation might come and be confirmed by a shower when you have the whim to go out, your umbrella disappoints you at the same time a car washes you down, and then just as you are trying to put the key into the keyhole, it slips from your hands into the drain through the loophole. Would such ill-starred depictions happen only in the movies? Sometimes not.

When I woke up at 6 a.m. in the picturesque town of south Netherlands, Middelburg, there was no soul at sight. The wind combined with the cold helped me to wake up quickly. I felt almost frozen by the time I arrived at the train station to take the train to Amsterdam, running. Coffee? You wish! Let alone an open shop, it was even hard to see something animate. Not even cats.

Just as I was thinking “fortunately, the trains are pretty on time here”, Bang! A half-an-hour delay appeared on the timetable. If it had been only that, that would not have mattered much. After getting on the train, they made a series of long announcements in dutch. In the beginning, thinking that they might be the usual stuff, I didn’t pay any attention. Afterwards, the train stopped suddenly, and everybody started to get off. “What the hell is going on?”

It is nice that in the Netherlands, everybody speaks English as a second language. “The train will not continue due to the construction on the railways. You can take a bus to another train station, and take another train there to Amsterdam,” said a ticket inspector. Bus? Which bus? What destination? Something like “ejdhaaajkakbsbbdjeeebaden.” “Excuse me?”

“ejdhaaanshdhfkjnjkjddneed.” Why on earth do the Dutch towns have such long names!

With a lot of questions on my mind, I thought the best would be to follow the herd not to get lost in the Dutch villages. I chose a Dutch as my tacit guide and followed her throughout the voyage.

The challenge was to arrive at Amsterdam. From there to Milan, it was just the plane.

Let’s keep the memories of Milan for later, and I will now tell you about another Dutch city I explored accidentally thanks to the back trip which turned out to be another Tom & Jerry adventure.

Lahey!

That same feeling. “What on earth am I doing here?” If you have read my first article, you’d understand what I mean. It would only be with ill-fate that you end up in some cities which have no touristic feature. If you’re lucky, you can get away only with a “what on earth I’m doing here!” rather than a plot reminiscent of a Tarantino movie.

It started on the way to the airport. The only flight I could find was at 6 a.m. I, thus, had to set off before the sun showed its face. But the bad fortune was with me. I fell down onto the flat street while struggling with my luggage. This gave me a black chin and a limping foot. I bought a coffee at the airport. I don’t know if it was the rules of the physics or the cosmos but I started to feel persona non grata when my luggage fell down on my hand holding the coffee. As can be imagined, the result was a pair of wet jeans.

After landing in Amsterdam, I bought a pair of jeans, and took the train, limping. Just as I was feeling the relief that “the construction on the railroad must be over,” the long announcements with the passengers boarding-off was restaged. “This is a nightmare!” “What is going on? Where are we going? Railway construction?” No, worse. There was a fire in one of the tunnels, all the trains on the south direction were cancelled! “When will they start working again? No one knows! So, where are we now?” “Den Haag.” “Excuse me?” “Den Haag or Gravenhage.” “Another country heard from!” While I was trying to figure out where I was on the maps of my smart phone, I hopeless mumbled in Turkish “Where on earth am I? Someone please tell me for God’s sake.” “Lahey,” said somebody.

“Where on earth is Lahey?” I turned back and saw that it was the owner of the kiosk. He was standing just behind me. Its name badge says Mustafa. Turkish! After a brief talk, I left my luggage with Mustafa and went on to explore the city.

Lahey is an interesting city. It does not have touristic attractions, though. It is quite vibrant, however, with its China town, American pubs, Taiwanese restaurants, Irish pubs, Shanghai and African and Indian markets. I even overheard some places playing songs of Tarkan. Turkish culture here is not only represented by Tarkan, though. There are shops where you can see on the windows some Turkish salami and Turkish specialities served inside. Lahey is a meeting-point of cultures.

Its significance for the Dutch is that the Dutch Kingdom is located in Lahey. All the bureaucracy and politics is here with the Royal Palace, Royal government, ministries, parliament, embassies, international tribunals.

It has an eccentric ambiance. It of course looks like other Dutch cities, but has a more serious feeling, a bit more gloomy. As usual, the weather is cold and unpleasant.

After a short tour, I took the train to home and left this weird city behind. You can see the gray pictures of LAHEY for the time being. But now I am enjoying the narrow streets of Mykonos to be able to tell you a tale about the warm winds of Mykonos. Yes, now I am in Mykonos and going to have some delicious shrimps to be able to share the recipe with you.

I have arrived to PALMA DE MALLORCA… Don’t ask!

Shall begin with the cliché of the pearl of Spain?

Ibiza and Palma de Mallorca are the island which are the pearls of Spain, but putting aside being the pearl, Palma is also one of the main hubs of the superyacht world. I have arrived to Palma… Don’t ask! Sometimes I do these kinds of secret escapades (of course the secrecy is up to now).

The big superyachts spending summer in the Mediterranean wait at Palma beginning from October before they set sail to the other parts of the World living summer. As the touristic season is over, Palma de Mallorca is under the invasion of yacht crews that we call “yachties”. Most of these yachts renew their crews between October and December, solve their technical issues and set sail towards the Caribbean’s or Pacific at the beginning of December. And the reverse flow is seen at the beginning of summer. The same yachts gather at Palma before the Mediterranean season begins, and after relieving the tiredness of the ocean, set off towards more dashing locations of the Mediterranean like Saint Tropez, Capri or Porto Cervo.

Palma de Mallorca!

Palma de Mallorca is a phase in the life of a yachtie. We eat tapas in many small beautiful restaurants located at old Mallorca which is also called Old Town, enter the famous Spanish cuisine and get drunk then totter on narrow streets that cars cannot enter.

As a chef, do I encounter very interesting food abroad? Nooo… After sometime, you definitely accept that eating is thing touching your palate transiently (sometimes making you ache with pleasure!) and adding some enjoyable moments to your life. Including every cuisine of the world, every corner, Michelin starred restaurants, venues so popular that you cannot enter, pricy or street vendors at the darkest corner, the taste madness you can get from all these places lead to the same purpose. Let your taste buds dance and enjoy every moment you are there!

And I will introduce you with a place that I felt just like above in Palma.

Patxi.

Patxi is the name of the chef as well. Like all Ali Usta’sor Ahmet Usta’s in Istanbul. You can find it on internet by the name “El Chaflan de Patxi” as well. You will not see white table cloths or shiny crystals like in a fine dining restaurant that you are acquainted with. You will be welcomed by a crowded bar at the entrance of the restaurant. It is intimate and cozy, colored with the brown of woodwork. It is not famous for its décor but its food.

While you are getting to the interior, you will see a kitchen behind glasses where you can actually witness the chef cutting big meats and a huge grill. And feel your appetite more and more.

We preferred to eat at the bar because that commotion appealed to us. After nibbling the famous Spanish starters, Tapas, we made entrance to the meat with a very soft pork cheek. You can eat everything here but you eat meat more! As I was accompanied by the experienced head chef of a 72 meter motor yacht, the feast became more like a gourmand’s run.

Of course I will not talk about the castles or museums of Palma. If you want to get touristic information, you can always google it! However, if you ever visit Palma de Mallorca, go to this enjoyable restaurant. Spanish wines are not as flashy as Italian or French wines, yet the chef will definitely recommend you a good one.

Buen Provecho!

WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE?

CEYMS Men’s magazine 

http://www.ceyms.com/content/blog/ne-isim-var-burada.html

What am I doing here? What am I looking for?

This is my general mindset as the place I want to be and the place I am actually at is always different. That is not what I want. It just is…

Therefore, I cannot stay constantly in a city, country or even a continent. I find myself in places where I never previously dreamed of.

Like in Panama watching flamingos at 06.00 in a hotel room mesmerized in ocean waves, in Costa Rica trying to reach the city from forests in a shabby taxi with patched rooftop driven by a constantly talking taxi driver while armed gangs wait alongside the road just as in the movies, swimming amidst giant waves at midnight in Pacific Ocean, at mansion full of memories untouched since 80’s in Paris, at a villa in Mykonos on hills that can only reached by small pathways, singing “My Way” at a dark karaoke bar in an unknown coastal town in Northern Spain, coming out bare feet from a 3 Michelin star restaurant in Manhattan, taken away to an unknown villa on a Mercedes with film coated windows in Los Angeles, drinking champagne by chance with a famous film star in Cannes, photographing a colorful rainbow in the middle of Atlantic Ocean, while watching TV under blanket at home, with a sudden call finding myself on a plane to the Seychelles in the next three hours…

Or,

While writing this article isolated in a small, unknown town in Holland. I can give many more weird, absurd and sometimes even dangerous examples where I say to myself “Damn, what am I doing in here!”. I am not even telling you about the identities of people I met by chance.

Do I complain about this? On the contrary, I love it!
Like feeling that you are alive to the bone, like living a full life, this is it!

Of course, I am not planning any of this. Anyway, these things cannot be experienced in a planned holiday taken with your friends. You would know the hotel you are going to stay beforehand, you would throw your luggage to the room after you reach your destination and at most you would go to the places your tour guide tell you and become a tourist taking selfies in front of churches, museums or basilicas. However if you let yourself get immersed in the flow of life, only then you can experience a thousand different things.

All right then, Who am I?

How come those things happen to me? What do I do for a living? Is my occupation really interesting? Am I a spy or an illegal arms dealer? Or if you say get out of here – be more realistic, am I traveler photographing things I see? Or am I a tour guide?

To tell you the truth, I am a mere cook. Yes, a cook. I prepare meals. I just have a more professional title meaning I am a Chef. Furthermore I am a little bit of a more version of this, I am a yacht chef. It can be said that I am maybe even more dashy then a yacht chef as I am one of the chefs responsible for cooking delicious things in the billionaire toys of private super yachts ranging from 50 to 150 meters.

Of course, the things I told you about does not happen to me because I am a cook. It is just that the speed with which I change places around the world is somewhat higher than an ordinary person. Like each week being in a new country, on new shores, meeting new people and talking a new language… We will have a long time together ahead of us for me to tell you about how interesting and pleasant, sometimes crazy and at the same time tiring the life can be on a super yacht.

I will keep a diary! Where I am on that day, what is happening to me, what am I seeing that I have not encountered before, what am I tasting and cooking, is the bar I hopped interesting or are the locals cold as freezers? Are there girls so beautiful that I become jealous or is everybody flirting with me? Which is the best restaurant in that town? Have I come across any tastes that is worth visiting? If it is a recipe worth cooking, will you let me cook it with you? With some small tricks and hints that I will tell you while cooking, will you be able steal the girl’s heart whom you are cooking for, or will I become the scape goat of your failure? In short will you flirt both with the cuisine and me while reading the places I have been?

Firstly, we will go to the secluded and empty town of Middelburg in Holland. If there is only me, myself and I around, I will ask the same question again.

“What the hell am I doing in Middelburg!”

Next week, see you in this northern town on the coats of Atlantic Ocean making you feel like you are living in film set…

A Farewell to Wally..

NAVIGA Yacht Magazine / January 2015 – Photos by AJ Pass

The title is for a remembrance of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. The novel narrating a love story during war in Milano, the city I happen to live in. But my farewell is not to Italy that I love or to the seas, it is a farewell to my previous yacht, Wally.

Right now we are in the small french coastel town of La Ciotat trying to finish our final preparations before crossing Atlantic Ocean. Afterwards all abroad for the Caribbean.

However this time I will not be on the Wally that I have spent two years in but a 42 meter sailing yacht made by BLOEMSMA VAN BREEMEN Shipyard of course being as exquisite as my Wally. The small and sweet shipyard town of La Ciotat and our Atlantic crossing will be the subject of my next Article. Now, with the most beautiful memories behind me, I want to narrate the days I spent in Wally.

Once again a year has passed from our lives. It was a year that I will remember with joy, longing, and passion, and looking back I will say “Vow, those were the days” when I return to a calm and quite life. Before beginning new memories, I want to commemorate the days of Wally so not to forget it.

As my readers well know, I spent the winter of 2014 on various yachts in the Caribbean, and for the remaining most part in Wally as last year. Some ask how I do spent eight months on the same boat. For some it is a very hard prospect. But this is what creates the shiny memories. When you think about it, what makes the sharing, the communion you experience on a boat different from the friendships and time spent in an ordinary job is the sea. The sea is the reality. The sea is your agelessness. The sea engulfs you with all these emotions and the persons with you during that time make an eternal impression on your life. Of course if you are lucky enough to be along people with beautiful hearts… I was lucky. The good personalities of my colleagues also added to my joyful and significant memories.

My first year on Wally was spent in the famous Greek Island Mykonos and the surrounding islands. And we spent this summer in the French Riviera including primarily then Monaco and the beautiful Southern French coasts, and we spent the months of July and August in Corsica and Sardinia. In my previous articles, I introduced Cote D’Azur inch by inch and spoke a lot about Corsica, the island of the pirates. But this summer we sailed mainly around the southern shores of Corsica.

From 10 knots to 40 knots in 5 minutes

Naturally, I need to tell you about our sailing before reaching to that destination. We embarked from Portofino towards Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia and arrived Porto Cervo after a nonstop 32 hours of trip while we took the steer in turns. As you remember from my previous articles, Porto Cervo, is the coolest shore of Sardinia Island. Meaning that, the most luxurious, the most expensive and the most elegant locations are here. And the biggest superyachts from all around the world, too. And as we are not fond of photographed constantly in marinas, instead of Porto Cervo, we harbored in Portisco near Porto Cervo and after two days of rest we headed for and arrived at Cagliari. But how we arrived was a thing to reckon! In the first hours we sailed calmly in good weather, we were caught up in a mother of storms during passing the Cape of Cala Caterina near Cagliari.

Of course we knew the weather would go bad, but it was earlier than expected. After the wind went up from 10 knots to 40 knots in just 5 minutes and the waves beat our boat entirely soaking the deck and while our captain, John Schiavo and crew were trying to stabilize the boat with their sailing attires covering them up to their noses, I was busy with falling from everywhere inside. Then we returned in order not to break the mainmast. But we were stranded at the entrance of the Cape for 2 days. This is how it is like to be on the seas. You experience the moments of adrenalin peaks together, and the moments when you were stuck on a shore watching movies and not speaking at all…

(Captain John Schiavo is a sturdy Australian sailor with 25 years of professional experience. Mr.Schiavo won cups in Rolex Fastnet Race and Round the Island Race, furthermore he broke the Mediterranean speed record. I was very lucky to work with such an experienced captain)

Everything was dead calm when we reached Cagliari. After resting a bit and concluding my shopping for the trips that our boss will participate as well, we left Cagliari and spent three weeks at South Sardinia. Although not so much popular as Porto Cervo, South Sardinia is like Maldives with an unbelievably beautiful and cyristal clear sea where surfers rule. Some regions of South Sardinia welcome you with snow white sands. You will not be able to find crowded and hip restaurants even in residential areas. Therefore, life was harder to me. Because as it was impossible even to find a decent tomato among vegetables that the flies were dancing on in desolate convenience stores at towns quiet and deserted just like in movies, I had to work miracles for my boss who was saying “there are no good restaurants, your food is much better” and preferring to eat on board for breakfast, lunch and dinner. However, to be a yacht chef means exactly that! Having an intimate knowledge of the markets in your destinations and creating delicious food no matter the conditions and ingredients you can or cannot find in these shores.

Operation “Saving boat from fishnets”

After our long sailing pleasantries around these shores, one again our boss left, and we headed towards mainland. We had various adventures, for example, in one of our long night cruising, our keel was stuck in a fishnet left during daytime and of course we stopped. While my colleague dived and freed the boat from the fishnet in the pitch black of the night, smoke came out of the engine room and there was our panic “Oh my God! Are we on fire?” While they were trying to fix the engine, my contribution to the adventure as I was at steer for countless hours trying to reach to the closest shipyard in a windless day solely with balloon sail… We survived all. If you take into account that we were also stranded in Ajaccio, the Capital of Corsica due to bad weather, we returned to Italy in one and a half week.

The sea walking of the crew hanging on the sea by tying themselves to mainmast around La Maddalena Island, one of the northern extensions of Sardinia Island, a little bit of wine or beer and snacking from my mini aperitivo plate I prepared accompanied with good music while cruising towards the magnificent crimson of the sunsets towards evening, in our stops the mini sailing races with remote controlled model sailboats handled by our crew who were as sweet as little children but as serious as being in a professional regatta, and enjoyable dinners we had together were our little entertainments. Yes, life was beautiful to us during those moments…

I have written about all these moments not only for you to read but to add to my history as well. These moments will always be a part of me. Because that part of my life is over. That yacht will continue to set sail next summer but I will not be there to see it. That crew will not come together again. This is the sad part of our business.

Each summer is beautiful and each summer is a memory. The memories always stay with us but boats will certainly be sold one day and it will become impossible to return to those moments on that boat ever. Now, I am on a new boat setting sail towards new memories.