CRUISE CUISINE The
Holland America Way
Andrew Maclear gets a look at Holland America’s Noordam, and what it takes to produce their top-line cuisine
“
ou’re sure you wouldn’t like something to eat?” Don Habets has asked me several times in the past few hours. And here, in the elegant Pinnacle dining room aboard Noordam, it’s a persuasive invitation. But I’m busy squinting into a camera – at rib eye steaks and lobster tails, watermelon cock- tails and chocolate gateaux – more con- cerned with the picture than my appetite. Habets is the ship’s Culinary Operations Manager and is responsible for making
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sure the vessel is stocked and provisioned for this nine-day Mediterranean cruise. He and colleague Rudi Kooiman – both from Holland, thus upholding the company’s origins – oversee a voluminous inventory which caters to ´s passengers as they wind their way through the Mediterranean, start- ing at Rome and returning there to the Port of Civitavecchia. During this voyage, Habets and Koo-
iman have their eyes on the next voyage – and the one beyond that. For the sole
distinction between a five-star restaurant on land and one at sea is that here you can’t send out to the market if you forget something. Thus the inventory is critical, and an educated loading guess-timate is made based upon the historic ordering profiles on previous voyages. For the most part this works and the requisite number of steaks, lobster tails, Cornish hens, cantaloupes, parmesan wheels, Earl Grey tea and fresh orchids are on board, not to mention fine wines and
Winter 2010 / 2011 I WORLD OF CRUISING
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