My Life as a Caribbean Galley Slave!

Printer-friendly version

I’ll betcha that my first kitchen was smaller than yours! Well, maybe not my first kitchen, but my first ‘professional kitchen’ had to have been. All of about 16 square feet included space for the stove top, oven, the refrigerator (reefer), cupboards and counter tops! It was the galley of a charter yacht, and I was its slave!

The picture above is very similar to one that hung on the bulletin board of my office for four months while I planned my escape from corporate America, I was 24 years old. I cashed my $1,600 IRS refund check, piled all my stuff in my parent’s garage, threw on my new backpack, and headed off on a grand adventure…. into the world and into the world of food. 

The Virgin Islands beckoned me, and I needed and heeded their call. I’d met some folks in the city who’d actually lived and worked in the Caribbean. They told me that the Charter Boat lifestyle was the most lucrative and the most fun, so I went with that idea.

I didn’t exactly know what I was getting myself into, but I didn’t exactly care either. The traveler’s life was real and fantasy. It was tangible and ethereal. It was at the same time terrifying and so very thrilling! Two days after my arrival on the Island of St. Thomas, I had a job as a stewardess on a 70 foot power yacht owned by a wealthy furniture mogul. He and his wife were coming down from New York for a weeks’ stay, and I was the ‘helper.’ The day they arrived, the Chef quit in a rage, and the captain asked me if I could cook – I lied. Now, I was the helper AND the Chef and my life changed forever. After a few hiccups, we pulled it off. The guests were happy, the captain was happy, and I had a Charter Boat resume!! 

It took awhile, but my farm girl work ethic, nice smile and nice rack got me a permanent job as ‘Chef’ on Sailing Vessel Rhapsody. She was a 73 foot Biot French racing boat with a tini-tiny little kitchen. We carried eight guests for seven days, four separate meals per day. Including the crew, that’s 308 plates of food a week and no dishwasher! I had a lot to learn!!

I was a pretty good cook to start, confident and creative, but it was a real challenge to work with limited products and faulty generators. Not to mention I had only one oven, a three burner stove-top, and a toaster that worked like a salamander when it wanted to. Improvisational cuisine? Sailboat chefs invented it!

To prepare, I interviewed top notch chefs, bought a million cook-books, wrote new menus, went to lunch often, created paper recipes and cooked every night for my crew mates and friends all while taking criticism in stride (along with a bottle of wine or two).

The recipes contained in this book were my fool proof, go-to’s as a Charter Boat Chef and are still some of my favorites 20 years later. I’ve added a few from present day to change things up a bit. Out of necessity, most are quite simple recipes with simple ingredients, but they are more than just a set of instructions for making or preparing a dish. They represent part of my journey and are therefore, part of me.

So, if you ever get the chance to take a chance, whatever that chance may be, I highly suggest you say yes ~ it’s so worth the ride! 

For Members of Into the Soup, I have compiled many (38) of my recipes developed on the boats into an fun and easy cook book. All you have to do is download it by signing in and clicking here. DOWNLOAD Check it out and let me know what you think. Not a member yet? Shame on you... Click here to become a member. There are lots of benefits and more to come.

Live well and be well!

 Cheers,

Heidi