This is the latest in a series of quarterly blogs by ex-super yacht chef Paul Airey, charting his experiences working on some of the world’s largest and most expensive private yachts and also detailing his latest travels.
Stepping into the unknown
This post is really two fold.
Firstly, since leaving my last employment with no job to walk into, I left myself free - for a while. Money doesn’t appear in my bank account each month, but I’m also without mortgage and children so I live kind of light. I’m lucky this way. I know that. It wasn’t so true a few years ago but I managed to turn that all around by keeping my head down and getting through it. For a few months, I wanted to lift my head up and take a look around. One thing I did and am currently still doing is to eat light too. Mainly without animal products. Before you stop reading, click another link or press the back button, hear me out.
I’m a chef. Not the best in the world, nor am I just a home cook. For years I have been behind a stove whether it be in a hotel, restaurant, galley on a yacht, or in a friends house (cooking was my way of staying there for free and without taking liberties - thanks Mike & Liz!). My curiosity has peaked at different times to the sweet side, the savoury side, the international side, the avant garde/molecular side and now more recently, the plant side (or dark side however you sit on the fence). The plant side has stuck for now. There have been many reasons for pursuing it. Mainly for health and also with an eye on the fact that my job is that of a private chef with guests/clients demands changing from Asian to gluten free to raw to vegan. I need to know a little of everything. I don’t work in a Pizza restaurant a French bistro or a Taco food truck.
Food is as important to me today as it was when I first cooked with my mother. I love it and hate it all at the same time, and like that first crush at school, I can’t stop thinking about it. So when I look into something, something I don’t really know much about, I can obsess a little. If the obsession starts to pay back - compliments from diners, personal growth, confidence and even direct impact on health and physical improvements such as sleep and energy levels, then it becomes part of you. I am in the infancy of this kind of way of eating and learning each day. I am educating myself as I go and also I completed an online raw food course from the Matthew Kenney Academy in the States. I honestly didn’t think it would stick, but for me it works and I know that the more juices, smoothies, raw foods, whole foods etc. I can eat my way through and play around with, one day it can compare to my knowledge of French and Italian style cooking, my bakery skills, my pastry skills (you get the picture), and pay me back. There is a shift in the way people are eating and the food choices we make. I’m just trying for myself, but there are big players out there - Alain Ducasse for one cutting back on the meat in his Paris restaurant. So that’s the first unknown, the backlash from friends, family, peers and colleagues when they first hear what you’re doing. But like the quote goes, ‘People fear what they don’t understand and hate what they can’t conquer’. I just chose to put aside the animal foods and try to understand something new. There are still new tricks in this old dog.
Secondly, I took on some temp work. Not as daunting as changing jobs, but still enough to keep you awake the night before. I can’t comment for the many, but only for my experience. Exciting! The chance to go and work on another boat, see their galley, meet their crew and cook for the owner?! Sometimes you have to roll the dice and just go along with it. We can all be a little nosy and curious at times right? Turns out I had a great time. It was only short and I knew that going in. I have heard a lot of nightmare stories and I thought, just get your head down, it’s not forever and see what happens. The drawback was that the first few days you are still finding your feet whilst trying to uphold your standards with ingredients you may not have to hand, equipment that is in poor condition or missing or just disorganised. I fell on my feet and hit the ground running.
No requests for plant based, just light and healthy fair with lots of fish. Ok, I can do that. They could have asked for anything. It is the unknown that often keeps us guessing. No sea sickness either - so that was a bonus!
I am currently looking online and through my cookbooks for new ideas. I was reading Momofuku’s Milk Bar today and I think I just may have found my new obsession! Never stops does it?!
Paul Airey is a British Chef who spent nine years working in the yachting industry. After plying his trade in the UK within many restaurants for chefs including Jeff Galvin and Garry Hollihead, an opportunity came along to try his hand onboard the 50m M/Y Thundergulch. His next step took him to 60m M/Y Phoenix (now Aurora) until after five and a half years later he took his first solo chef position on the 55m M/Y Kahalani. Outside of work he is a keen runner and counts himself fortunate to be able to take his R1200GS motorbike around the roads of France and Italy!
