Mediterranean Summer (12 page)

Sunday was a breeze since I was ahead on prep. The plan had been to stay in port for the night after
il Dottore
and
la Signora
left, but Patrick, no doubt wanting to put distance between himself and the failed attempt at Club 55, informed us we’d be leaving soon after their departure. This left Rick a bit unnerved since he had been looking forward to an evening to play in town with no onboard service responsibilities. I kept busy securing the galley for sea until a sharp call from the crew hatchway sent me up on deck. The rest of the crew was standing in a line by the cockpit. Michele pointed me to the spot next to Patrick—in the penultimate position.

“What’s going on?” I asked Patrick.

“It’s a traditional parting line,” he said and left it at that.

The only time I had ever seen this was when I did some work at Regaleali, a large winery estate in Sicily. I had been asked to stay for a few days longer after my recipe-translating assignment in order to help the
monzu
—the estate chef—with a banquet for eighty, the guest of honor being someone quite special. Until I was on the premises, they couldn’t tell me who that guest would be. It turned out to be none other than Prince Charles. I had a chance to meet him after the meal as he wanted to give the chef and me his compliments on a job well done. He was very polite and, for the few minutes that we spent with him, gave us his undivided attention. The next day I was invited by my host, herself a countess, to attend his parting ceremony. From the back of the room I watched him give gifts to the line of hosts and others he had met during his stay. At one point, he came up to me and gave thanks for acting as translator when his traveling chef spent some time in the kitchen with us. To me, that was the epitome of etiquette.

On
Serenity,
this same type of farewell ritual, sans gifts, would happen whenever the owners left the boat at the end of a visit. It seemed so quaint, so old-world, so
Upstairs, Downstairs
—so unlike the owners’ reputation for being ultramodern in the way they ran their businesses.

The couple emerged and began their farewells with Ian at the far end, shaking hands as they said a few words to each crew member. I caught snippets of conversations, mostly “thank you” and “good job” to my fellow crew members. It was amazing to hear the owners shift from English to French then Italian and back to English without hesitating to find the next thought, comment, or gesture.

When it was my turn, I was nervous. This was my first face-to-face with
la Signora
since the pâté episode. “Davide,” she began, her eyes locked onto mine, but with that European graciousness that she had shown at our first interview.

“Next weekend in Monte Carlo will be a very busy weekend for all of us, but especially for you. You remember, yes? When we first talked, I told you that in late May, at Monte Carlo, our yachting season officially begins with the weekend of the Grand Prix car races.” She didn’t wait for me to answer.

“We will be docked between the sailing yacht
Pegasus,
owned by our friends, to one side and our motor yacht, where the children will stay, on the other. We will arrive on Friday with three other couples, so we will be eight in total. The owners of
Pegasus
will have guests, and all of our four children will be there. You need to be ready for cocktails and a casual dinner for twenty that night. On Saturday,” she went on, “a simple lunch—maybe a ‘parade’ of antipasti,” as she put it—“for up to twenty-four, just in case a few more than expected drop by.”

Then she dropped the bomb—the bomb that would put me in a near panic.

“On Saturday night, on the eve of the race, you should expect, let’s say, about a hundred people for a party that will stretch across the three yachts. Just have large quantities of food available”—“
abbondanza,
” she said.

“The menu can be very simple. Canapés with foie gras. A seafood salad for an antipasto, two pastas—one with a vegetable sauce and the other with shrimp—a fish course—salmon with a light butter sauce—then a meat course—say,
bocconcini
of veal with a red wine sauce—some sort of vegetable or mixed green salad, and for dessert, it is fine if you order a nice assortment of petits fours from a patisserie. Everything should be prepared and brought up to the deck on platters, then served on small plates for eating
in piedi
”—while standing. “Therefore, all of the items need to be fork-friendly—short cut pastas like fusilli or rigatoni, the fish cut into small portions, bite-sized pieces of veal. Petits fours make perfect sense for dessert.

“On Sunday, race day, we will host an informal buffet for up to forty-five, so you should have ready a beautiful assortment of charcuterie, different breads, rolls, and a wonderful display of, I don’t know, say thirty cheeses. Why not? We’re in France!” she said.

She finished with a question: “
Hai capito
?”—Do you understand?

“
Sì, signora,
” I answered. It was an easy enough question to answer. I had understood every word. I wondered why she was questioning it. So I said nothing. Actually, I didn’t know what to say.

“
Allora,
” she said with a slightly squinted look of authority in her eyes, “
fai bene
”—do well—finished with a “See you next weekend,” always in Italian, then moved to Patrick and thanked him in English. The owners walked down the
passerelle
and got into a taxi waiting for them on the quay. Kevin and Rick followed with their bags.

After what had been
for me a restless night of sleep, about an hour into our day on Monday morning, Patrick announced that we had to be at the mouth of Monte Carlo’s harbor no later than six-thirty the following Thursday morning. Otherwise, we would not get our reserved spot in front of the public pool at the center of the quay. If you want to be able to step off your boat and onto the quay during the Grand Prix—for which there are only a limited number of these coveted spots—arriving when the harbormaster dictates is an absolute must. Missing it means you’ll be, at best, in the back of the harbor having to ferry owners and guests through the dense crowd of boats. With
la Signora
’s plans for the weekend, Patrick was so concerned about missing the gate that he decided to arrive an hour earlier than our slotted time. That meant we would be leaving Antibes at one or two in the morning, a few days from now. I had a lot to do before then.

As soon as
la Signora
had left, I had gone down to the galley to write down everything I remembered from the parting-line conversation. Then I set my notes aside, figuring I would deal with planning everything the next morning. But instead, all that night, I tossed and turned, asking myself how I was going to pull off a party for a hundred around all of the other entertaining. The schedule and numbers staggered me. At one point, I thought about suggesting we hire a catering company to help, but then I realized I would probably have received an answer like, “What did we hire you for?”

Even Rick, ever so nonchalant, seemed uncharacteristically nervous when I sat down with him to discuss what we needed to do first.

“She’s crazy. And this is just the beginning!” he said as he went up on deck to have a cigarette. Both of us knew Monaco would be tough. We just didn’t know how tough.

If life is said to give second chances, then Monte Carlo was mine.
La Signora
’s instructions for the Grand Prix weekend had been clear, so clear that I got the sense that there was no margin to deviate. Those feelings were exacerbated when she said “foie gras” instead of “pâté” as she recited the menu. Was she being specific because that was her way, or because she was afraid that if I continued to use my judgment her entire weekend would be ruined? Would a step in the wrong direction in Monte Carlo land me on the beach watching
Serenity
sail away?

For the crew, Monaco would be a long weekend off, just keeping the deck clean and polished, each one taking a turn for watch at night, the rest heading off to one of the English bars near the port. For Rick, it was going to be busy but manageable. For me, it would be the hardest I have ever worked in my life.

How many people one will cook for is
the
most important criterion for all matters relative to delivery. For Monte Carlo, I was nervous because of the vague guest counts. Exactly how many people was I really cooking for? A hundred and fifty? Two hundred? I decided that I should cover myself and plan on cooking meals for two hundred guests over the course of the weekend.

There were some key words from
la Signora,
such as a “‘parade’ of antipasti,” that kept me wondering exactly what she had in mind for quantity, regardless of how many guests and how much they might eat. How many items constitute a parade in her mind? What about “
abbondanza
”? How does she define abundance? At least I got a break with the petits fours, a course I only had to procure, not prepare. And she had mentioned a display of thirty cheeses. What if it turned out I could fit no more than twenty-six on the table? And I knew the visual aspect had to be right. One chef I worked with liked to say that we taste first with our eyes. It takes a deft hand to attractively present food as well as to prepare it. I never even thought to ask her what kind of garnishing she liked, if any.

After writing the menus for each of the meals, I created the almighty ingredient list and tallied how much of everything I’d need. It was categorized by how I shopped, and it also corresponded to my list of vendors and suppliers: meats and poultry, fish and seafood, fruits and vegetables, dairy and cheeses, bakery and desserts, groceries, and, finally, anything miscellaneous, which was mostly nonfood items like food storage and cleaning supplies. Because of the volume, I also had to preorder certain items and arrange for deliveries to the boat. This would save me time since the purveyors would take care of “picking” the order rather than me spending time in the shops.

At these numbers, the amounts of food that had to be prepared were off the charts given my work space. I looked around the galley and the mess area. Storage was a huge issue, both for perishables and for nonperishables. There was no room. I could see how my efficiency would be slowed as I would spend much time climbing and rummaging through the raw materials, then looking for places and ways to store the prepped items.

Michele came by to check up on us, and I asked him if I would have an opportunity once in Monte Carlo to do any provisioning there. I thought maybe I could stagger my acquisitions through the weekend. He shook his head and explained to me that because of the hordes of spectators in the city, closed streets, and crowds milling about on the quay, getting around was going to be difficult. Plus, I didn’t know any vendors or have any sources in Monte Carlo. I would be best served by loading up as much as possible in Antibes and getting bread and breakfast pastries onshore during the weekend.

Since the city was basically cordoned off and the marina would be packed with yachts, the only efficient way out of town was by water, so Michele had hired a cigarette speedboat with a driver to be used as a water taxi. For an emergency this would be the method of choice and also, he explained, would be how the owners and guests would transit from the Nice airport when they arrived. Since I didn’t need the petits fours until Saturday night and the cheeses until race day, Michele suggested that I order them from shops in Nice and use the cigarette boat for a delivery rendezvous while in the port.

Rick timed his return to the galley perfectly.

“I know a great patisserie in Nice,” he said, “and a cheese shop nearby.” Perfect. One worry off my mind. Part of me suspected he really wanted a ride on the cigarette boat and for that reason jumped right in to help. But I didn’t care about motives, only that my dessert be taken care of and on board at the right time. “Make sure to include two kinds with chocolate, some small lemon meringues, and an assortment with fruit, and get about”—“
abbondanza
” kept ringing in my head—“360 pieces,” I told him. That would be three per person, maybe a little high on average, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Then I wrote a list of cheeses that had a nice range of styles, textures, and flavors, all the while considering how they would best be displayed on the table: some I would precut into small pieces, like Beaufort and raw milk Comté others I would leave in whole form, like round Camembert and square Pont l’Évêque.

“I just hope no one asks for espresso after dessert,” Rick volunteered. “If I make one for somebody, suddenly everyone else will decide they need one as well. And then I’m screwed.” I knew why. We had only a small, domestic machine on board.

I was determined to make everything from scratch. I was cooking for Italians, most of whom were probably used to eating in great restaurants. When I went over the menus with Rick, he offered to get some of the ingredients on the list, promising he knew exactly where to find them, which in turn lessened some of what I had to acquire.

“Are you sure you have this under control?” I asked as a final confirmation that he now owned the assignment.

“No problem,” he assured me. Remembering that he had worked in upscale restaurants, I assumed he knew what I was after.

So I wrote the prep list, considering how much time many of the tasks would take and confirmed what was needed for each of the menus. The Saturday party was the biggest challenge, so I amortized some of the projects over the days ahead, like making the sauces. They’d actually taste better after a day or two in the refrigerator since the flavors would evolve. I saved the butchering tasks until after dinner on Friday—cutting the salmon into small portions and the meat into bite-sized pieces—since keeping fish and meat whole for as long as possible would be better for shelf life and storage.

I placed orders with my short list of vendors for items that had the greatest volume on my menus—the meats, fish and shellfish, fruits and vegetables. Rick and I went over a rental order for china, silver, glasses, and linens. We didn’t need much for the “smaller” meals, but for the big party, which was a stand-up occasion, I wanted to be covered for the first three courses. I figured by the fourth course we would have washed enough plates for that course and the momentum would continue throughout the rest of the meal. This meant three hundred small plates. We also ordered three hundred dinner forks instead of salad forks. “It’s more elegant,” Rick said. Some knives and spoons just in case. A hundred and fifty champagne glasses. A hundred and fifty wineglasses. Water and rocks glasses. Linen cocktail napkins. The rentals were scheduled to arrive on Wednesday. Rick assured me the food items I needed from him would be there, too.