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Tales Of An Old Salt
Tuesday 30th December 2008
Show some mussel ... Andre Daniel's bouillabaisse dish from his cookbook Halcyon Days.
This article appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald
Written By: Martha Tattersall
Sailing north along the west coast of Scotland, a refurbished 1929 yacht, Halcyon, circumnavigates the isle of Aran and continues up to Holy Island.
Misty mountain tops, cottages and castle ruins dot the landscape, while in the distance a minke whale rises to the surface and gannets dive. For the crew onboard, these are truly halcyon days bringing tranquil destinations, great food and seafaring friends.
Chef Andre Daniels spent nine months on the 95-foot Bermudan ketch, striving to make exquisite meals and great service as the yacht charted its way along the coasts of Wales and Scotland, up through the fjords of Norway and on to Dartmouth in England's south. His experiences and some recipes he prepared are now published in the cookbook Halcyon Days.
'It was a real blessing,' he says of the time. 'The night I went for the interview for that yacht, I walked on and I went: 'This is going to be my home.' I just felt intuitively this is where I'm going to be.'
Against the backdrop of breathtaking waterways and open seas, he discovered cooking on a yacht is a challenging endeavour and far different to his Sydney days under chefs such as Simmone Logue, Tony Bilson and Matthew Westhorpe.
'In the midst of cooking, the captain would say, 'Andre on deck, Andre on deck,' and I'd have to fly up deck, haul up the mainsail 70 foot high, help with tacking or turning the boat around and then run back downstairs and continue cooking.
'It was drama! Up, down, up, down like a yoyo,' he says.
With a galley the size of a walk-in wardrobe, the choice of just one element on the stove or the oven and an overheating generator, organisation was vital.
'The great thing about working for Simmone was I would have to do an excessive amount of food for an excessive amount of people in a very short amount of time, so I learnt to be efficient, really quick and multi-task,' he says. Although he planned meals in advance, he often had to be spontaneous and intuitive.
The guests - sometimes sailing enthusiasts themselves - were often a great addition to the crew.
Up to eight people can sleep on Halcyon and day sails meant Andre could be catering for 14 people.
'When guests come on, it's really cool because a lot of the time they're interested in you, they want to know how you work and what you do, how you fell into this game of cooking on a yacht or working on a yacht. It's really lovely to meet all these people.'
The differences between cooking in a restaurant and on a boat are apparent. After leaving Halcyon, he spent six months working in Berlin restaurant Vau.
'It was nice to have that camaraderie in the kitchen versus on a yacht, which can get quite emotionally intense,' he says. 'On a yacht, you're limited by time, you can't go too fine because you'll be working from 6am to 2am seven days,' he says. 'After a while, you start going a bit crazy.'
Despite this, he would have no hesitation in returning to the sea.
Seeing the world is an obvious drawcard. 'I got to see places that I never would have even thought of going to,' he says. 'I have never experienced anywhere as beautiful as Scotland. It was just phenomenal.'