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 enlarge | Authors: David Shalleck, Erol Munuz
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
Buy New: $7.24
You Save: $5.71 (44%)
Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 55922
Media: Paperback
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 076792049X
Dewey Decimal Number: 641
EAN: 9780767920490
ASIN: 076792049X
Publication Date: June 10, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20081121221340T
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 21
A delightful... (even a little suspenseful) read. September 30, 2007
James H. Menasian
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Excellently written. There's the excitement of how David finds his provisions in each port. There's also the fear of whether of not a particular meal will "work" with the extremely demanding owners of the yacht. And the suspense of how a meal will be prepared (for sometimes over 100 guests!) within the confines of a yacht's galley. Then there's the thrill of some moments of real sailing ! All this along with the purely human adventure in following David's search for mastering his profession.
I particularly enjoyed the map of the journey included on the inside cover, along with the detailed maps preceding each chapter. This added the additional benefit of the adventure being a descriptive travel guide as well ! And top this all off with the included bonus 50 pages of recipes at the end. (And each of these recipes include very specific & detailed instructions for preparation.) Bravo. Bravissimo Davide.
Almost as Good as a Trip to the Mediterranean September 5, 2007
L. Young (West Orange, NJ USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Here are the totally engrossing true adventures of a young American who is engaged by a very wealthy Italian couple, to be the chef on their newly refitted luxury sailing yacht, 'Serenity'. The sounds, sights, delectable aromas and glamour of this Mediterranean summer leaps from each page. We experience with chef David,(or Daveed as la Signora the mistress of the yacht calls him when angry), the high and low moments of his very demanding job. There are laughs aplenty in this new book and plenty of material for daydreaming after the last page has been read.
You can taste the food he prepares! August 30, 2007
Annette Regan (Melville, NY United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you like to cook, if you like to travel, this is a great book! He describes his cooking/shopping for ingredients so that you can almost smell the food. Great reading
Can't decide what's more delicious: the travel or the food August 16, 2007
Jesse Kornbluth (New York)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
David Shalleck had cooked in a number of noted American restaurants. But like any cook worth his knives, he wanted to be a chef. He needed more training, so he took a two-month gig as head chef of a London restaurant.
It was, he saw immediately, a restaurant in serious decline. But he wasn't going to be there long enough to whip it into shape --- he let it be.
Then Alice Waters --- founder of the legendary Chez Panisse restaurant and a chef who knew Shalleck --- came to dinner.
She had a terrible meal. And told Shalleck about it in detail. "Chef" means "chief," she reminded him. She left him with a question: Are you ready to be one?
Shalleck went to France for an internship in Provence. Again, he flopped. "What is in your heart, David?" the chef demanded, as she fired him. "Did you leave it at home?"
Four years of Italian apprenticeships later, David Shalleck was ready for command --- of a ship's kitchen. No ordinary ship: Serenity is a 124-foot, 150-ton schooner built in the 1930s. Its new owners --- "Il Dottore" and "La Signora" --- have just bought the boat for $5 million and spent another $3 million modernizing it. Shalleck is too discreet to give us their real names (or, for that matter, the real name of their boat), but it's clear that they are Italian billionaires who own helicopters and jets and multiple houses and have about 50 people on their personal staff. For most of the summer, they weekend on the boat; in August, they live on it. Are they exacting? Believe it.
"Mediterranean Summer" is Shalleck's account of that season cruising off France and Italy. It's not as satisfying as stepping off the chopper and onto the boat and ordering up dinner for 20 in an hour --- what is? --- but it's the best view of the "downstairs" life you're likely to read in a long time. And for a very simple reason: on a boat, everyone's pushed together. Everything's more intense.
Again, the job begins badly. La Signore asks for pate. Shalleck produces it. Which earns him a visit from the boss: "Daveed, what is this...dog food you sent us?" Ah, so "pate" means "foie gras."
The job turns Herculean: 20 for dinner Friday, lunch for 24 Saturday, cocktails for 100 Saturday night, Sunday buffet for 24. Got all that? 200 guests in one weekend. With all the food coming out of a small galley.
"Mediterranean Summer" is a satisfying travel book. It is a riveting sailing story (on a yacht, the chef is also needed on deck with the crew). It's a fascinating peek at international society and the ways of the very rich. It's a psychological thriller (will there be a mutiny? will the American chef's Italian cooking satisfy his Italian employers? ). And, most of all, it's a delicious book about food, with 26 recipes thrown in for good measure.
"Al dente linguine tossed with a touch of white wine, olive oil, garlic, fresh-chopped Italian parsley and hot red pepper flakes. Thick slices of large, pungent tomatoes dressed with a little Dijon vinaigrette. Stove-top-grilled bread, thickly sliced and drizzled with olive oil. An arugula salad."
And that, washed down with a dry, crisp Chablis, is just the crew lunch --- imagine Shalleck's descriptions of what he served his employers.
No, don't imagine. Read. And then start making his delicious meals
 Mediterranean Summer: A Season on France's Cote d'Azur and Italy's Costa Bella August 6, 2007
S. Stanczyk (Frederick MD)
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is a fun book to read if you like cooking and travel. I especially liked it because I love that part of the world and it brought back good memories of the ports of call the ship visited. The cooking references in the book are interesting and his description on local ingredients was interesting. I also feel like I learned a little about sailing and the life styles of the rich.
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