Out of service-

With a busy winter season in the Caribbean fast approaching, and confidentiality of clients paramount, this blog is dead until further notice. So long and thanks for all the fish-

History of the Llama PMP and Sailing PT 3

Palma de Mallorca, Spain- the rubbish bins

Palma

The last time I left off this story, I was hanging out in Palma, living for free aboard Necker Belle in exchange for doing the night watches, and finishing up my STCW 95 during the day. It was around this stage that I began to seriously apply to jobs through all of the various agencies and sell myself as a Chef. It was an exciting time, and I felt as though anything could happen. Within a week I had been put forward for a number of positions aboard boats from Marseilles to Miami. Late one evening, at 11pm or so, I received a telephone call:

"Hello, Is this Chef ____?"
"Yes"  I replied
"My name's _____ and I'm the Captain of the yacht Gweilo, based in Instanbul.  The owner of the yacht has picked your resume which we received from the yachting agency, and well, we'd like for you to join the team...  The pay is 4500euros/month, and we would need you tomorrow if possible"

Sort of stunned, I eagerly accepted the position, and not at all sure how I was going to get to Turkey from Palma, said I'd be there on the next flight.

SY Gweilo

After a couple of flights and a breathtaking ride through a city of markets and mosques, I met my new boat. Her name, Gweilo, a 47m classic schooner, recently built in Turkey, based on the design of the famous Dutch built Windrose. The name "Gweilo" is Chinese for 'foreignor', and the tender was called "Gaijin" which is Japanese and means the same. An ugly pair of names in my opinion, but the boat(s) were spectacularly beautiful.... on the surface.

What followed over the next month can only be described as 'interesting' . Unbeknownst to me, all sailboats are NOT created equal, least of all those boats built in Turkey. This boat was falling to pieces... literally! I mean, the first time we went out sailing, the bloody workers had forgotten to bolt down the generator and it fell right on the propeller shaft! Down in the galley, equally outrageous mishaps were a daily occurrence. I counted five times that the hot water pipes exploded and I opened the bilge to a hot steam facial! It was like some sort of slapstick comedy- with anything and everything that could go wrong... well, going wrong! On top of the shortcomings with the actual boat itself, cooking for the owner was exceptionally challenging. I had no idea what he wanted, as his instructions and tastes changed daily. It started off that it was to be simple food- shephards pies, rocket salads, moulles frites, then he changed his mind and wanted over the top fancy, and then... he wanted old fashioned Turkish cuisine. The last one was sort of a spanner in the cogs- as from what I could tell- all Turkish cuisine consisted of eggplant and minced lamb! After a month of this mayhem while pottering down the Turkish coast, we arrived in Marmaris. I sat down with the captain, and it was decided that it would be best if a Turk cooked for the owner. I was out of my element, the boat was a mess with workers, and all in all the atmosphere wasn't particularly fun for anyone- except the swarm of workers that were making a fortune on the constant repairs! I got a return flight back to Canada via Frankfurt, and so concluded my Turkish delight...

The sun setting in Marmaris, my final evening aboard.

Nan's Chocolate Cake

CHOCOLATE CAKE. It's never a bad thing. Word spreads that it's out of the oven, and hands start flapping in from the periphery like an 80's music video. The recipe I selected comes from a wicked book a friend gave me as a reward for not streaking at his wedding... until after his Grannie left. The book was compiled from recipes submitted by friends and family who were in attendance. It was truly an amazing souvenir from the day, and IF I miraculously get married, I'm going to xerox it and hand it out as well. This same friend is one of the reasons I got into cooking.I'll definitely write a piece about him at some point in the future. Likely after an evening at a beach bar filled with Pina Coladas and rejection. For now, find below the ripped off recipe as a rough guideline to make a decent, comforting, sometimes sexy, Nan's chocolate cake..

I replaced the margarine with unsalted butter, and sprinkled in a couple of handfuls of Lindt dark chocolate at the end for fun. I made the icing as well- but found it a bit too sweet for my palate. Some raspberry coulis and Devonshire cream could do the trick instead...

Minka Kelly, my hot bearded girlfriend.

History of the Llama PMP & Sailing Part II

F2 race

I left off the story last time with having just cheffed the 2010 Monaco GP in May aboard Necker Belle. This was a great time, and I really got a taste of hardcore gourmet cheffin. During the 3-4days that the boat was chartered, I think the total food costs ran into the neighborhood of 30,000euros. That's seriously enough cash to start a small farm. Everyday, deliveries would arrive with at least 50 Lobsters, a mountain of shrimp, fresh vegetables from the market, specialty products like 300euro bottles of balsamic vinegar.. the works. Here's some of that vinegar on a prosciutto wrapped, Roquefort stuffed fig, that I baked in the oven for about 20min at about 200degrees Celsius. I've topped it with a bit of shaved Parmesan and the leafs of some micro basil.

 

Another easy little canape that I threw together and have photographic evidence of, is a nice zesty bruschetta, a popular fave that used to get done up when I was working at the Red Pump Inn. The recipe is as follows

 ZESTY BRUSCHETTA

The recipe and method for 1 margarine tub of Bruschetta mixture is as follows:

4 red peppers
2 large tomatoes, cored and deskinned
1/2 Red Onion
1 Lime
1/2 Lemon
2 Cloves garlic
Handful of fresh Basil
1/2 cup Virgin Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper

Thoroughly Char/Blacken 4 Red peppers over the gas range. Following this, immediately place them in a bowl of ice water and cover with cellophane. This will help their skin blister off. Allow to sit for at least 20min. Remove the blackened skin and take out seeds and stem. Rinse thoroughly under cold water to avoid any seeds or black bits remaining behind. the red pepper flesh should feel velvety to the touch. Take flesh and trim off any excess white stuff from the underside. With a sharp knife, dice into tiny little cubes. Take onion and dice into similar size pieces ( the smaller the better). Skin tomatoes by slicing an 'X' into the underside, taking out top core, and quickly dunking into boiling water. Slice into quarters and remove seeds and inside- you only want the tomato flesh. Cut into little pieces the same size as both the pepper and the onion. Zest the lemon and lime into the mixture, and then squeeze the juice from both into it as well. Add the garlic, minced, into the mix. Finely slice the basil, stir in evenly. Add the olive oil. Salt and pepper to taste.

TO SERVE:

Take a baguette and diagonally slice thin pieces off of it. Put them on a cookie tray, drizzle with a healthy amt of extra virgin olive oil (or for extra flavor, use bacon fat). Bake until golden brown. Spoon Brushcetta mixture on top and top with goats cheese and some fresh micro basil. 

Sailing along on Necker Belle

Another epic sunset

Anyway, following the GP, the captain graciously allowed me to stay on with the boat and sail with the crew back to Palma de Mallorca. From here, he seemed to think I'd be able to find another Chef job, and he also recommended that I do my STCW95 training, something anyone that wishes to work in the yachting industry needs to have. Bluewater training just outside of Palma in Portals is a pretty good place to get it.

The captain was right, and within a week of completing the STCW 95- which was kind of fun firefighting, doing first-aid, floating in a life raft kind of stuff- I received a telephone call from the captain of a 47m yacht in Istanbul, Turkey...

History of the Llama PMP & Sailing

So.. I'm not a sailor. If you had asked me two years ago what I was going to do with the rest of my life.. well I probably would have mentioned a wealth of things- such as hanging out with llama's in Peru, building my own house, getting married to Penelope Cruz and having kids- but definitely not navigating the world in  a boat!

The Sedna IV

Bleu 35, still mastless, being lifted into the water

It all came about  two years ago, when I was introduced to Eric. At the time, I was living in Montreal, and had just quit my deskjob in favor of taking this odd job I found refurbishing the Sedna IV. Aboard this boat I met all sorts of characters- mostly hardened Quebecois and French sailors who told me stories of abandoning ship in the middle of the Pacific or falling in love with prostitutes in Capetown.
One day, while having a tea break, I met this rather stocky little Franco Italian who everyone refered  as "Le Gros". It turns out  he's living aboard the Sedna while he builds a racing boat in the adjacent marina parking lot. This seems like the most awesome thing to do... ever. Not only has he sold everything he owned in order to build this boat, but in the process, rendered himself homeless, so that his only option is to finish building the thing. I'm extremely happy to get to know Eric and see his epic raceboat Bleu 35 get fabricated right in front of me, and inspired by it all, something inside of me says, hey, this lifestyle is for you.
So fast-forward a couple years, and here I am now, living the lifestyle, seeing the world, getting stories of my own and sailing boats of epic proportions. It all came about because I kept in touch with Eric after the boat floated away, and after a series of serendipitous events, ended up flying out to the Azores islands in the middle of the Atlantic to join up with Eric and L'Equippe Bleu Voile Oceanique. From the Azores we sailed down to Madeira. I made this video to document the journey.

Eric Aboard Bleu 35

 After the Azores, the team, consisting of Eric, JM, Ben and myself, then sailed down to the Canary islands, and onwards to do our first transatlantic crossing to the Caribbean, arriving in St.Martin. I made a few other videos during the travels, all of which are at www.youtube.com/llamapmptv
So after making it to St.Martin, we then sailed over to the island of Tortola, where I jumped off the boat, said goodbye to the team. I hadn't wanted to leave, but this was out of necessity, as I had about 2dollars US to my name following the 2months of sailing, and also was in massive debt all over the board, with credit cards, a loan from my very nice brother in law, and a condo that was a month away from foreclosure. In short, I had done something completely irresponsible by going off sailing- but I was determined to make wrongs right, and I guess prove to myself and others that leaving everything to sail the world can have it's perks. It turned out I was right- at least in the perk department, as within a little while I met a girl who took a fancy to me, likely because I was a bit of a hardened sailor- and well, she turned out to be Branson's PA. We had a one night stand, then next thing I know, she telephones me up to say she's found me a job as a private Chef  for a group of Russians in a villa The job is to pay something ridiculous like 4000dollars US, and it turns out to be the easiest money I've ever made. I should mention that I love cooking, and it's something I will do naturally for money or not...So anyway, there I am, for 2wks, making enough cash to cover my ass a little while longer, cooking Lobster and whatever for this group of Russian gangsters and their gorgeous wives (who stroll into the kitchen topless!) and I'm like whoah! Life is good. After this gig is up, I'm fairly content living on the island of Tortola. I continue to meet people on the island, and get a position as executive Chef at this nice little restaurant, owned by the nicest Scotswoman you'll er meet. It was going smoothly, working in a little Caribbean kitchen with some outrageous big Black gals who would hit me with spoons shouting " White boy, you need more flava!" until one day the reality check that I couldn't work illegally forever hit me. The owner put in a work permit for me, however I had to leave the island to get it processed. So at the advice of the sensible and thoughtful girl I was dating at the time, I flew to St.Martin- a place from which I could jet back to Canada cheaply should the need arise.

<PAUSE>  
So, I'm missing out a lot of the details so far- such as my good friend GBUNK- aka DJ Dogface visiting and causing a whole lot of noise, meeting so many life changing people - as well tons of fun stuff like being held up by knife & gun point, wicked partying, beach n' boat sexin.. but want to keep the focus on sailing and cheffin- such as what the blog is meant to be about...


Okay, back to the story. I'm chilling in St.Martin waiting for my work permit to be processed. A week passes and I still don't have any news from the Tortolan restaurant regarding things. I start getting a little on edge, as I don't have very much money left, and everyone I talk to is telling me that the work permit could take upwards of six months to process. Eeek. One afternoon, I'm hanging out at the Soggy Dollar bar with a bunch of yachties, and this girl I met at the crew house (a hostal for sailors) runs up to me and says:

"Hey _____! You can cook right?"


"Umm, yeah, why?"


"Well, I've got this job that I've been accepted for on this boat in the Virgin islands, but I don't know if I want to take it, because I've also got this other job that I'm waiting on that pays a lot more... would you be able to take the job for me?"

a little confused, I respond "Yeah of course, I'm not doing anything else right now, when does it start?"

To which she responds "Today!"

and with that I end up rushing back to the crew house, grabbing most of my stuff, and catching a flight back over to the British Virgin Islands. After a quick teary eyed hello and goodbye at Tortola airport to my girlfriend, I then hop on a water taxi to Necker island. It is there I become acquainted with my new home, SY Necker Belle.

SY Necker Belle

I am to be the delivery chef for a trip over the Atlantic to Europe by way of the Azores. This is pretty cool, especially as the fridge and freezers have already been provisioned with all sorts of goodness, and all I have to do is put together ANYTHING I want that tastes good. We're talking veal, lamb shanks, shrimp, lobster, the whole nine yards. It basically turns into a two week eat-a-thon, with the exception being I'm getting paid.

Me and the crew after the crossing

Butchering my first Pig in the Azores

Once we arrive in Palma de Mallorca with Necker Belle, the captain asks if I want to stay on and help Chef the Monaco GP. I'm completely blown away- and say yes immediately. This then turns into another couple weeks of employment, a killer trip to Monaco to chef the GP alongside the regular Chef, during which I meet the Bransons, Paris Hilton, Gerard Butler etc..

Me and the regular full time Chef, down in the Galley

Me and the engineer, walking into a party with Paris Hilton and her Entourage

Anyway... that's as far I can go with the history, not even half way with it and am really regretting not having started a blog sooner! Will write more about Pirates, cuisine and stuff in a wink...