Just got home from the Inaugural Country Cooking Cruise. What a fantastic trip! 7 nights on the Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas. We stopped in San Juan Puerto Rico, Lebadee Haiti & the island of St Maarten where we fired up the grills! Sailing with Francine Bryson, Jackie Garvin and Chef & the Fatman was a load of fun! Enjoy the pictures.
Left to right: Jackie Garvin, Erik Holdo, Executive Chef Barry Reid, Kevin Jenkins, Francine Bryson & Craig Tabor
Chef & the Fatman recorded their radio show while on board the ship.
| Topper's Rhum on the Island of St Maarten was gracious enough to host the Celebrity Chef BBQ Challenge where Jackie, Francine, Erik and I went head to head in a grilling throw down. We had no idea what we were cooking until we got to Topper's. The proteins were baby back ribs and chicken quarters. (which is right in my wheelhouse) We had a full pantry where we were able to choose our other ingredients with one stipulation: we must use Topper's Rhum! |  |
We were "forced" to sample all of these rhums in order to decide which one/s to use in our cooks. Tough job. LOL
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Somebody had to win!
I mixed up a dry rub for the ribs, then glazed them with a spiced rhum bbq sauce. I marinated my chicken in a honey/lime/habanero/spiced rhum marinade before using the same dry rub on the grill. This is the only food pic I got because time was extremely short.
Executive Chef Barry invited us on a behind the scenes tour of the kitchen on the busiest night, lobster night. Literally, organized chaos. To put things in perspective, there is 2.5 acres of kitchen space on board with 250 cooks, 21 pastry chefs and 11 bakers. These cooks work 10 hours a day, 7 days a week for 8 months at a time. The kitchen was amazingly clean and very shocked to see us. Lol. Pretty stoked to see this operation.
Chef came to the table to inform us that they severed just shy of 7,000 lobsters tonight!!
Chef came to the table to inform us that they severed just shy of 7,000 lobsters tonight!!
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Special thanks to Southern Sailings, Kamado Joe, Mannix Pools & Grill Center, Fogo Charcoal, Topper's Rhum and Royal Caribbean for helping us put on a great show and help us raise a ton of money for a local charity.
